Ever since my post the other day, I have been ruminating some more (in the middle of the night!) about the whole concept of "loving your enemies". It seems like this might be a key place where the old and new paradigms diverge.
Of course, just the concept of "enemies" alone is very old paradigm, born in duality and its need to fight contrast rather than celebrate it. In the new paradigm, people won't want to fight and have "enemies". There will be no benefits to this kind of polarized, angry energy. People will simply be closer than ever to genuinely loving other people just as they are.
But in this transitional moment, what is the middle step between out-and-out conflict (1) and loving your enemies or rising above conflict and creating beauty with no reference to evil (2)? The word that comes to mind -- as sort of a 1.5 in that list -- is compassion. I have never been attracted as much as I should have been to the notion of compassion. My dated dictionary definition is "pity inclining one to be helpful or merciful", and I guess I never found that pity overlay to be empowering to either person in the equation.
But newer and more thorough definitions and etymologies stress more of a state of empathy, understanding others' conditions and sufferings, and it occurred to me that it is a good bridge concept here: if I have the ability to warmly acknowledge that the world is filled with people who aren't like me, I can accept or embrace that some of them won't like me one bit. They might even want to "fight" me. The transitional step between fighting back and saintly disengagement is the ability to look directly at that person and compassionately understand that they are exactly the person they came to be in this lifetime. In the great drama that is 2026, this person (or group) has exactly the set of characteristics they needed to have in this unique moment in history. They are, if you will, playing a role. I'm just another player in the cast -- I shouldn't force anyone to switch roles, any more than I would wish to become a different person under pressure from them.
There's peaceful acceptance in this. I accept that these people and phenomena are what they are. I cannot change them, or try to change them. I can lay down that fight at least!
Part of it is that compassion and acceptance have to start within. I am who I am. I passionately embrace my own right to be who I am, and by extension, others' right to be who they are. Yet that can be scary -- what if that person attacks me? Well, there is no death in the divine paradigm. An "enemy" cannot kill my soul's essential, eternal spirit. I don't need to protect myself. I neither fear death, or the "hell" of that person's rage.
From that stepping stone, it may be easier to evolve upward into genuinely loving more people, or, at times, cutting the tether to extreme negativity completely.
