Is it Ok to be angry or violent!! today?
As humans, we are endowed with a mind that can recall past events. However, equally, as humans, we have been consistently unable to distinguish between recalling a past event and mis-taking it to be today’s reality. Somehow, we mistake our past to be our present. We react on our past as though it was the present. As a civilization, it seems we have not been taught the role of memory in the appropriate manner.
When we understand that recalling the past helps us create different actions in the present to potentially create better futures, we are using our memory for the purpose for which it is meant. When we use our memory to sow further divisiveness, anger, violence purportedly to undo a past action, we are only creating a present that in the future will become a violent past. We are only piling on, not trimming out. No account from the past should be reason to create violence in the present. In fact, every account from the past should be used to coerce the present to a less violent future. We now have sets of people that are trying to set the past right by being violent today. Whenever we have done this, we have only exacerbated the injuries and violence for everyone around and spread our suffering far and wide.
If we are unsure whether we are sowing for a better future or not, all we need to do is see the now. If we sow violence today, irrespective of what happened yesterday, tomorrow will be more violent than today. You don’t get mangoes from sowing a neem seed. If we sow compassion and non-violence today, irrespective of what happened yesterday, tomorrow will be more compassionate than today. We should strive to not let the past dictate our actions unconsciously. We should strive to differentiate between learning from our past and mis-taking it as our current reality. We should strive to understand that the past is no more accessible in reality except in our heads and that the reality that we create outside is in fact dependent on the action that we take now, in the present moment. Let the seeds we sow be of compassion and non-violence.
By - Gowrisha
June 6, 2020