Shades of Love and Hate

For years I used to think that Love and Hate are antonyms. The opposite of love is hate, and the opposite of hate is love. But as I grew up, I understood that these two seemingly opposite emotion stung from the same root. and the root for these two emotions is Ego. My personal contemplation on these two emotions led me to this experience that both of these emotion sprung from Ego alone. The opposite of both these emotions is “Indifference”. The moment you care about someone or something, you either love it or hate it.

Loves naturally comes forth out of our own understanding about ourselves, the more you expand, the more you are able to love. the limited you feel, the limited is your love. Love is not an emotion directed towards anyone in essence. It’s not that we love something or someone. It is an emotion that one experience when the ego expands and become one with any idea, that idea could be a thing, a person, event, milestone. The purpose of love is to unite, and in its purest form, it is the light of divine alone. 

Hatred naturally comes forth out of our own ignorance about ourselves. Hatred to me, is an emotion when an ego identifies with an idea and out of his own ignorance and attachment, is unable to expand that idea. Then, out of our own insecurities of losing the identity of that idea, hatred comes forth. We want that thing, person, situation,event, to go away. Jealousy, fear, hatred, and resentment  are all interlinked and are the negative aspect of the same emotion that we experience as Love. The idea of hatred is to separate, to resist, and in its purest form, it is the shadow of divine alone.

As long as we have even a trace of jealousy, fear, and resentment left within us, it is just a matter of time, that it will turn into a blaze of fire of hatred, someday, in some lifetime, when it gets conducive environment. So, next time, if we find ourselves experiencing any of these negative emotions, let’s pause and understand the root of these emotions, let’s get past the event, thing, or person that is triggering these emotions and understand the reason of the separateness we are experiencing. Let’s expand our world a bit more, so that instead of hate, can we develop a little indifference towards them? A bit more, over few months, can we develop pity or empathy towards them? and then one day, the same negative emotion will transform into compassion and love . This is the entire journey to walk step by step, from hatred to indifference, from indifference to empathy, from empathy to compassion, from compassion to love.