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The Alchemy of Love

Some years back I took a jewelry making class. Strangely, inexplicably, from the first moment I met the teacher, I detested him. The intensity of my dislike for him made little sense, right from the start. Of course I can be way too picky and unreasonably critical, but my instant hatred for this man went so far beyond what made sense in a response to a stranger that I sat at home pondering my feelings about him. Why did I hate him so? He had some qualities that were irritating but that wouldn't be enough. What could it mean? The work that I do has brought me many insights over the years, and so I knew enough to stop and take stock. This energy was Karmic; there surely was something between us. So I sat back, closed my eyes, and let my mind float far back into the distant past to review the past lives we'd shared that must have had some significance.

For the first time in my life, I realized what I was confronting-a mortal enemy, something I never before considered or even believed in. As I watched the past lives unfold on a movie screen in my mind I saw the hatred and carnage. In one life he stabbed me. In another, I dispatched him with a rock to the brain. In another we were swordsmen. Lifetime after lifetime we had killed each other and now in simply crossing each other's path, it was like wandering into a bull's pasture and seeing the warning rage light up the bull's eyes as he began his inevitable death charge.

I kept my distance from the teacher and planned to continue the class, but in short order he did something (not to me) for which he could have been fired. All it would have taken was a phone call to the director of adult education. I felt the rage and the hatred in my heart for this man, and oh how I wanted to make that call. I even envisioned myself going in to meet with the director to share the evidence against this odious man. But knowing what I know of Karma, was that my best option?

If I had gotten the teacher fired, it would have been the modern equivalent of killing him off. And the Karma between us would have continued. I pondered the situation for a long while. I didn't want any more Karmic connections between myself and this horrible man. So I walked away and changed to a different jewelry class at a different school. In breaking the Karmic tie in this lifetime, it weakens the nasty bond between us and hopefully, ultimately, in future lives we might cross paths and never even see each other. That would be the goal, not to give in to the temptation to participate in bad Karma and thereby nullify it forever.

While I knew that I had made the correct-and courageous-choice for myself, still I pondered if the choice I made was fair to the other students. They would have been better off with a different teacher, one who was honest, yet they were not dissatisfied with him and did not share my hatred for him. Although it is my inclination to be a crusader, to fight for what's right no matter what the odds, I made a choice that seemed right to me at the time, and since relatively little was at stake, it seems all right that I did it.

This is the same life lesson to be learned when someone has broken your heart. In some cases, the same lover breaks our heart, lifetime after lifetime. We meet up, the feelings are intense, the relationship ensues, and something dreadful happens-resulting in heartbreak. Basically it means you're madly attracted yet allergic to this person, and lifetime after lifetime the magnetism is too strong to resist, too toxic to survive. Some people even die of a broken heart, though the cause of death may have been TB or a gunshot wound or whatever ancient trauma came to dispatch from life that grieving heart.

Obviously you can't know in advance whether the person who has broken your heart in this lifetime has repeatedly done it in others, although you can pretty well assume something bad happened between you. We often repeat the same patterns lifetime after lifetime with the same people, sort of like falling into a trap that is too tempting to resist. In a situation like that, the first thing to do is to cure yourself of the heartbreak and to release the person. That means changing the channel in your mind whenever you begin to obsess or yearn for the lover's return to your life. And it means taking care of yourself so you don't drown in the sweet sorrow of heartbreak. It's called self-preservation!

The harder thing is to release the person forever because the chemistry between you is so strong. It is a two-fold process. The first step involves learning about what the heartbreak actually does for you. If you find yourself heartbroken again and again, then that's a sign you're working to build up your own independence, working to develop a tolerance for romance, so that even if it does go wrong, you won't go down the drain emotionally along with your love life. You are trying to build up an immunity to soured romances! There are a lot of survival skills to be learned through heartbreak. Once you do learn to cope after a breakup without clinging to your misery and hiding in your bed for a year, you'll be less likely to attract the sort of partner who will break your heart because you won't need that experience any more.

The other tact is to learn to release the specific person. That requires some psychic exercises in which you envision yourself opposite your ex and, using whatever tool works ( a scissors, a sword, a chainsaw or even a laser) cut through all the strings connecting you, then see your ex float off into the ether, dematerializing into a vapor and out of your life.

These tactics work very well when trying to release your obsession for a lover you wish would return, and they are equally necessary to deal with a lover for whom your more tender emotions have morphed into hate. The first step is to release the person. But what do you do with the hate?

I had a big problem with that jewelry teacher, because I detested him so thoroughly. The fact that he had done nothing serious to me in this lifetime helped, but still it was hard to release those feelings, just as it has been hard to do so when I'm angry at someone who has cheated me. Thankfully, most people in my life have been good and kind. But when faced with someone who has been terrible, I feel rage, just like everyone else, and I want to lash out, just like everyone else. I'm not naturally pious.

In a lot of years of studying metaphysics, I've learned that the way to neutralize those feelings of hatred and rage is to send love, but sometimes it's very hard to do. We can all send love to someone for whom we have tender feelings. It's sort of like hugging that person in your mind, envisioning a sweet pink cloud all around that person, or envisioning yourselves in an embrace. And that's always the way to start sending love.

Start by thinking of someone for whom your feelings are uncomplicated, purely positive, like a beloved child or pet. And see yourself holding that person, and feel the tenderness in your heart. Envision that sweet pink cloud around both of you. And then envision it around the person you love. As you do this, you get all warm and snugly and you feel happy and content. You feel love and loved. There is a sense of peace and good will in your heart. Obviously this is a good thing!

Now you can move on to sending love to someone whom you love, but at whom you're angry. Don't worry about whether they were wrong and you were right or about your hurt feelings or anything negative. Just send the love, simply by plugging that person into the vision formerly occupied by the one for whom your love is unconflicted. You probably won't be able to tell how it's affecting the person to whom you're sending, but as you do it, you will feel a change begin to happen in your own heart. The rancor you previously felt will be less itchy and you will feel better.

That is the power of love. It transforms the hate in your heart to something kinder and gives the other person nothing to grasp onto. This is an important lesson to learn when breaking up with someone. I was divorced more than twenty years ago after marrying too young and fighting all the time with the basically decent though incompatible guy I'd married. In all those years of fighting and the rancor of the divorce a chasm of negativity developed between us, and now all these years later, we are no closer to being friends, although we're not enemies. We've become wary strangers, which is a shame. I now know how to have handled that situation better.

If a relationship that began with love ends, let it end with love as well. Wish your ex well. Be encouraging. Focus more on the good things that drew you together than the problems that broke you apart. That way your heart can go beyond the rage to a calmer place and the past won't remain in your mind as a war but rather as a mistake you tried to handle with grace and kindness. This is useful whether you are the one ending the relationship or the one on the receiving end of the breakup. Either way, to focus on the good is better than to dwell on the bad.

Does that mean you should let a cruel or abusive ex tromp all over your head? Does that mean that you should allow a cheater or liar take advantage of you yet again? Of course not! Self-preservation is always your first prerequisite. Extricate yourself from whatever negative situation in which you've been immersed and move forward. But in moving on, remember that if you once felt love, there must have been something of love in what you shared, so hold that in your heart. And next time choose a better partner.

It's clear that on the personal front, love is always the answer. But on a more global level can we really take the same approach? On September 11, my daughter phoned very early and woke me up. As I listened, still half asleep, to her comments, I couldn't make sense of what she was saying. "Terrorist…plane hit…Trade Center gone." Gone? I repeated that word sotto voce, because it made so little sense to me. How could the Trade Center be gone? At first, still sleepy, I was envisioning it being moved like a trailer or a house being transported on some wheeled gadget. Then the enormity of what I had heard began to dawn and I reached for the remote control and like the rest of the country watched TV in disbelief and horror.

Although I now live on the West Coast, New York will always be home to me and I feel this personally. My daughter's stepmother worked at an adjacent building and thankfully made it out along with her staff. Also thankfully did her sister, who worked for the IRS in one of the collapsed buildings. All the people I know in New York are being so brave, yet all are hurt and disheartened.

As I watched the unimaginable horror of acts so unspeakable, my heart filled with rage. If I had been president, I would have struck back immediately, just out of anger, an instantaneous response to my blind fury at the thought of seeing my home so cruelly plundered. I could envision the whole Middle East going up in flames in my mind and it was a good feeling.

A while back I recall reading in the paper about Jay Leno's wife Mavis and her efforts to educate the western world about the atrocities being visited upon women in Afghanistan. A photographer client discussed with me her possible visit there to work on a documentary. But I didn't take it very seriously; life in faraway places is always more primitive than here at home. I'm not a political person, and didn't even know who Bin Laden was nor where Afghanistan was. I suspect that's true of many of us, but now we've been educated. But where do we go from here?

There was an article in the paper by a man who runs an institute dedicated to peace. He said we should forgive the acts of terrorism and ask forgiveness for our own brutality in the Middle East. And there was a man on CNN saying that perhaps we should try to find out why they hate us so. As I listened to these responses, I knew they did make sense. After all, what have I just written? It's better to forgive and move on with love in your heart than to cling to hatred. If that is true in a personal, one-to-one relationship, shouldn't it also be true on a global level?

After spending my entire life apolitical, I started reading the paper and watching CNN. Yes, most of the news is bad news, and that's why I always avoided it but at least now I know more about what's truly going on. There are those photos of the poor in Afghanistan-the entire population really-and the children living in squalor in dirt camps and clearly something is wrong, and my heart goes out to those poor people. When I view them one by one, looking with my heart as well as my eyes, there is no room for hate. Allow compassion in your heart and hate will melt away. This is true for every sort of relationship and even for every sort of crime.

Yet on another level, I think well gee, shouldn't they be rising up against their rulers and taking back their country? Shouldn't they be blaming those religious fanatics who have overcome their country and forced them back into the dark ages rather than hating the United States? I know what victims are like and see what poverty can do and understand their powerlessness, yet in part I feel some of it is of their own making, their own choice. It's a complicated situation there, and my few weeks of politicization don't qualify me to say what's right for a country a world away, a country whose sensibilities are so different from my own.

But I do know one thing-our nation is at risk. The people I love are at risk and the place that has always been a safe haven for all who reside here is at risk. When I hear some people saying just forgive and don't retaliate, I think that's the wrong response. If you have a wasp's nest under your eaves, you don't send love, you send in an exterminator or suffer the eventual wrath of the wasp. That's where we are now-wanting to rid ourselves of these wasps without destroying our home or innocent lives. Does it mean that we will again be at risk, that more Americans will lose their lives? I'm afraid it does, but sometimes in life we face battles so serious that there is only one choice, and just as in WWII, we had to defeat Hitler or allow the world to come under his thumb. Does that mean we should bomb Afghanistan into oblivion? Unfortunately, based on what we've seen in the news, that would be redundant.

I believe in love, yet I also believe in war. The movie, Saving Private Ryan, was very meaningful to me. Private Ryan was a metaphor for all that is good and pure and wholesome about America. He was the symbol for the youth of our nation, for the future generations, for our whole way of life. In that little reconnaissance mission led by Tom Hanks, those soldiers stumbled along trying to find and rescue a single soldier but their mission was symbolic of the entire war effort. They were there to save the children that would be born in the future, to make the world safe for those who would live good and decent lives on secure soil, here at home.

More than ever now, that imperative makes sense. Our home is no longer safe. Our first mission is to lay waste to the plans of those who would destroy our world and the security of our future generations. I love my daughter and I want her to be safe here at home, safe to live and love and to provide me with the grandchildren who will enrich my life in future years. And it is because of love that I believe in war.

When the attack first occurred, most of us were filled with desire for revenge. It was a natural, human response. But as we learned more, that desire for revenge was transformed into something more serious-a need to protect our young and our future generations. Hopefully we will be able to roust the terrorists and those who support their efforts and vanquish their dastardly plans. I pray we can do so without too great a sacrifice of life or property or emotional security.

But once we've done so, our work is only half done. The man who said we must learn why they hate us so isn't wrong. We know that some of Bin Laden's demands are preposterous. He wants all non-Muslims denied entrance to places that ultimately equal entire nations. That is an unreasonable desire and one I can only describe as unholy. What God would put on earth humans who are allowed entrance to some plots of soil but denied others? That is not a desire to respect a holy land but rather an ego-driven need to own God and to elevate one's self above others, others whom a person with a Godly outlook would regard simply as equals. But there are probably other desires there in the Middle East that we could approach with greater respect, and in doing so we could generate some good will and nullify some of that hate.

When I saw those people in the Middle East who were celebrating and handing out candy after the disaster that was visited upon on, I was filled with shock and anger toward them. This is how wars begin. Here they are, strangers to me and to my country, yet they're filled with joy watching a disgusting act of terror and here I am hating people who are just an image on a television. This is not how I want to live my life.

Later that night I joined a healing group and we all were sending out love and energy. I sent some to loved ones and to the people in New York, to the victims and their families and the firefighters. I let my love expand to the entire nation, and it felt good. Then I opened my heart a chink and sent some love to those poverty stricken yet America-hating Afghans whom I remembered from television with their fists raised and their eyes flashing. And in doing so, I felt something unexpected, the terror that drives them forward. Deep in their hearts, beyond the rage and under the hatred was such fear and terror as I have never felt. And in feeling their terror, my heart melted a little and my hatred evaporated.

That is always the power of love-the power to vanquish hatred, to dissolve it, to transform it to something gentle and benign. My first thought on the week of September 11th, was to wish I was there in New York so I could help, though I couldn't imagine what help I could provide, except maybe baking cookies for those heroic fire fighters. And I still want to help, still want to make people feel safer and happier and to do what I can do to heal all the broken hearts we now have beating tentatively in our nation. And that too is love, love born out of the ruins of the structures we took for granted in our nation. It is that love that unites us all now as we struggle against the forces of hate, and since love melts hate, we're in pretty good shape.

Once, some years back, I was driving to a movie, and I passed a group protesting something connected with the Middle East. They stood there with their placards raised, their arms flailing, their eyes glowing with rage and they shouted comments in a language I couldn't understand. What they were demonstrating about, I never knew. But by accident, I looked at the group and my eye glanced at the eye of one of the protesters, just as she was shouting. I was driving forward in a sealed car, yet the rage that flowed out of her, flowed briefly into me and I felt the hatred and her anger so strongly that a tear trickled down my cheek. This was pure emotion, nothing that made sense, because I had no clue what the topic was. But what I felt was the negative energy that had whacked me in the face, hitting me hard enough to produce tears. I have never forgotten that experience because it was so peculiar and so intense, and it seems to me it's emotion like this that is being leveled at us.

After this tragic event occurred I thought about tapping into Bin Laden, about channeling him and seeing what was there. I thought about sending him some love, and I know it would be a good thing to do. But I was afraid. I did not want to open my heart to his energy. If a woman protester could make me weep while driving by, who knows what negativity a connection to this man could produce. Could I really shield myself well enough? Could I connect to him without him connecting to me?

I see him on the television and he has a nice face, kind eyes and he smiles now and then. He speaks softly. Like in us all, there must be something good in him, mustn't there? Despite the insanity he's produced, mustn't there be something of good? And then I recalled reading that he said perhaps his actions will start a world war, perhaps they will bring about the end of the planet. There was no sorrow in this speculation. How do we send love to those who glorify death and nullify the good in life?

There is no question that sending love will be very hard, but doing so is a good approach. Does that mean it's the only approach necessary? No, emphatically not. In this case we must use force to stop the threat and send love to vanquish the hate that has inspired it. And more importantly, in sending love, we purify our own hearts of the hate that has grown there in the wake of all this evil. Although we may neutralize only a small amount of the hate in the hearts of those insane people who have started this war, we can completely cure our own hearts of these negative emotions, and that is the best choice to make. As we repudiate hate and refuse to give it a home in our hearts, they will have less to grab onto and it will in some ways reduce the possibilities for hateful actions on their part.

Remember the scene in Saving Private Ryan where the frightened interpreter refused to slay the German soldier and allowed him to run away? It was not then in his heart to take a life, so he showed mercy. But later in the movie, that soldier had returned to his troops and had once again taken up his gun, and so when confronted with the resulting carnage, the interpreter shot him. We can send love, we can offer forgiveness, but if the object of our mercy is determined to destroy us, we must first attend to self-preservation.

Even now as I write this in early October, the world has banded together, has chosen love and freedom and goodness over hate, and that is a source of great comfort for us all. Those whose deeds have begun this mess are living in a world that daily grows smaller as hearts all around the globe band together for goodness and peace, even if it takes warlike efforts to achieve those positive emotions.

It seems to me that we must have faith, that although this action has struck a death blow to our way of life and that we will never feel quite so safe again, that on a personal level we still have to reach for the heart of good in life, to rejoice in love and to share good feelings with the people around us. We can support the leaders of this country, who are working hard and have the wisdom to make good choices and we can also send love to everyone in our lives and everyone around the globe. It's the right thing to do. And also please remember that here in America, we are all Americans and that Arab Americans are having a hard time now. They played no part in this act of terror and have come to this country to do the same thing we do-to be Americans and to live a good and safe life. Don't blame them or their faith for the act.

So stay alert wherever you are and do what is sensible and prudent, yet still focus on the good in life and the love in your heart. A good trick for us all would be to send some white light to the entire country and all our citizens, simply by envisioning a ball of light around our country. Then expand your mind and heart and send some light to the rest of the globe, including those poor, terrified Afghans who are so oppressed by the Taliban wasps, and then send some to those who hate America so. Hate is their way of life and as we see their reality on the news it's clear they have little in their lives besides hate and misguided attempts to lay claim to God.

And know that in my heart is some love going out right now to you and yours and a prayer that you will stay safe, happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous.

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