Pagan Studies
A syncretic approach to esoteric teachings - the golden threads that connect Pagans, Yogis, Rosicrucians and Masons.
The Negativity Boomerang
(Introductory Disclaimer: As usual, please remember that this blog is an expression of my own personal opinions, based on observations gleaned from my own peculiar experience. At no point do I claim to speak for all Neopagans, nor do I insist that any reader must agree with me.)
In the years since September 2001, when our jovial and generous American psyche experienced a profound shift toward cynicism and fear, I have been learning some hard lessons about the workings of negativity. I have been forced to study my own negativity, as well as the negativity of others. Inevitably, they are the same thing.
I have heard words that I felt perfectly justified in uttering as a valid criticism of others come boomeranging back at me, years later, in the exact same phrasing, and sounding just as insightful and plausible - even though they were completely mistaken and unfair!
I understand now (hopefully not too late) that if you don’t know people intimately, their momentary behaviors can lead you to make judgments about them that may be completely false. But we all make such judgments, because what we see is filtered through the frustrations, pains and indignities that we are suffering in that brief moment of time. Students jump to conclusions about teachers, and teachers jump to conclusions about students. Doctors jump to conclusions about patients, and patients jump to conclusions about doctors. Some of those conclusions can be very hurtful and insulting.
But, no matter how deeply justified we feel when we do it, we may be wrong! If we are, sooner or later our karma will make that very clear.
I am not sorry, exactly, that I had such thoughts about other people at the time, even if I was wrong – because that was who I was then, and it would have been dishonest of me not to admit it to myself. What does make me sorry is that I expressed those thoughts - either on paper or through my mouth; because it is simply not right to hurt people.
It is not the unbidden thought itself, but the hurt caused by expressing it which comes back to bite us. If I could have only kept my judgments to myself until I had gained a better understanding of those people, my mistaken perceptions wouldn’t have hurt anyone but me. And the wheel of karma would not have begun to turn.
I guess I'm just saying, in different words, what people tried to tell me when I was in school: Look before you leap. Verify before you speak. That should be simple enough to understand, shouldn't it?
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