The cultures of the world have accepted destructive feelings inherited from more barbaric times, and they regard them as natural and not to be unlearned. This has contributed to violent crime. Domestic arguments have frequently led to unplanned murders.
All of this has affected what people believe about people. Very many people believe that there are some of us who are irretrievably evil and cannot be forgiven. They believe this because they have yet to realize that every perpetrator is first a victim.
These days, the term victim is understood by some to imply a syndrome of victimhood. I use the term in the sense that a person wronged by another is a victim of that act. That does not have anything to do with the victim's self image as persistently or characteristically a victim.
This is not just a matter of a difficult childhood. Many have survived a hard childhood and have grown to become consciously on the side of goodness. Wrong doers are victims of the propaganda, the conditioning of destructive feelings, and the widespread misderstandings of justice long before they acquire the desire to hurt people.
Many people are somewhat combative. They will defend their honor when insulted. They often want revenge for their earlier life struggles. They sometimes envy the rich. If they were not loved or well cared for, they might come to value the camaraderie of gangs.
The evil that is perceived by victims of crime is not invented or created by the direct perpetrators. These perpetrators are cultural victims who pass on physical and psychological injury from other sources.
We are all human beings that do not have an inborn desire to hurt people. Those who are trapped in destructive feelings, and go on to defend outrageous values, represent a loss to humanity. Their lives could have been far better for themselves and far more helpful to others.
We should clearly realize that every person is part of humanity. They should be cherished, however misled. If your child became in any way misled, you would not dismiss your child as not being human.
When children overhear others planning theft, and when people are teaching them how to hate and blame, they can become lost. This is what I mean when I say that every perpetrator is first a victim.
We might occasionally feel enormous gratitude for having been exposed to less than the most destructive influences. English Reformer, John Bedford (1510-1555) is widely credited with saying "There but for the grace of God go I" while watching a criminal being led to his execution.
We should see the misguided as those who were overcome by forces that they could not understand or effectively oppose. They are not beyond our forgiveness.
Knowing that the source of evil is not the individual can help you realize that love of humanity is a path to the goodness you want in your life. Behavior and policies are perfected by sincerely caring about the happiness and well being of every person.
I got a good start in a large and loving family when I was in Algiers before my mother and I were brought to Rochester, NY, U.S.A. and where I first met my father. In Rochester, my father and mother argued constantly and my father showed me no acceptance or kindness.
When I was three years old, I spent time watching kids playing tricks on other kids. I wondered why they were entertained by hurting other kids. I found these cruel tricks surprising, unfamiliar, confusing, and sad.
On a sunny Saturday, when I was five years old, many neighborhood families (adults and children) were socializing outside their apartments. (Their apartments were converted Army barracks.) These were families of soldiers returning from the war with Hitler. I understood that Adolf Hitler was bad.
My father took the occasion to announce in a loud voice that an American General had ordered him to marry my mother because I was one of the many children of Adolf Hitler. I learned when I was eleven years old that Hitler had no children, but at the age of five, this lie changed my life to one of delusions, hallucinations, unwanted recurring memories, and hatred.
I was forty-four years old when I learned that my father had been driven similarly out of his right mind by his father, a person who let an innocent man spend twenty years in prison for a bar-room killing that he had committed.
The direct perpetrator is never the original source.
I was forty-five when my father died at the age of seventy. After I helped my mother with the cremation, it was in the evening at home alone with my wife that I cried out loud like a baby. My wife was confused because of my life-long hatred of my father. I was crying because I never had the courage to kill him.
I was in my sixties before I began to understand what our history of barbarism did to the people of the world.
If you understand that people are not the creators of evil, and that we are not born with a desire to hurt people, and that all of us are connected, then being unable to forgive the misled is no different from being unable to forgive a person for catching a cold or coming down with brain cancer. Further, you are changed by forgiving them. Your misunderstanding of your connection with humanity no longer burdens your heart with judging and blaming others.
There are limits to freedom of choice. Despite free will, bad choices are often made under duress. People are tempted to modify their beliefs and actions because of consequences imposed and destructive feelings encouraged. People don't always do the right thing when that means being without friends or being without a job.
Can you forgive those who have harmed you? Do you understand that you are connected to all other people? Can you see every stranger as your cherished sibling - however misled and depraved they may be?
I mentioned the misuse of language earlier. I have become sensitive to the use of the word warrior. It is used to raise spirits (on the basis of camaraderie and power) in all sorts of causes, whether charitable or violent. Such is the maintenance of combativeness. I cringe whenever I hear the word misapplied.
A story I heard was the start of that sensitivity. It is possible that the story may have some unimportant inaccuracies. It is hearsay about an event in a different time.
Gandhi organized a march of Indian men, in double file, approaching a gate on a road. Each pair of men politely requested access through the gate which was guarded by English soldiers. Each pair of men, in turn, was refused entrance, beaten by the guards, and dragged to one side. This went on for many hours - some say all day.
When Gandhi was asked why he ordered this, he said something like "We are not warriors. We are teachers."
I urge everybody to stop thinking of themselves as warriors, whatever the cause. It helps to maintain our combativeness and it diminishes our inclination to forgive.
I believe that some day our soldiers will be peacekeepers who use non-lethal means to arrest attackers instead of killing them.
If the majority of us were to learn to forgive, rehabilitation of criminals would be much more effective than it is today.
When a crime is committed and a person is found to be the perpetrator of that crime, it is important to protect the public from the unrestrained anger, or unrestrained greed, or whatever failing it was that motivated that crime. There must also be a serious and sincere attempt to rehabilitate that perpetrator - to change the perpetrator's motives and identifications. Instead, our culture emphasizes punishment.
Punishment is a concept that has failed us. In order for punishment to reliably deter future misdeeds, it must be immediate, unavoidable, and severe. The justice system cannot work that way. Guilt would need to be determined instantly, and incarceration would need to be ordered without hearing evidence of innocence.
These realities apply as well to bringing up a child.
The penal system needs extensive reform. Most cultures mix the concepts of justice, revenge, and punishment, with little consideration of rehabilitation and the factors in the culture that turn individuals against each other. Meanwhile, there are powerful people who are seriously misled who seek wealth through lawlessness, violence, and war.
There seems to be an accidental ambiguity in the term forgive. For some people, the word prompts them to think only of things like forgiving a debt, or a traffic judge forgiving a fine, or a juvenile-court judge forgiving the second year of incarceration for a child sentenced to reform school for two years, or a parole board forgiving some part of a criminal sentence because the prisoner has been rehabilitated. This is not what I have been trying to describe.
While fines and incarceration are motivated by trying to keep citizens safe from recklessness and crime, an understanding and compassion for the misled, and dismissing your hatred of them, is invaluable to you and the world. It is about forgiving them for becoming a person who wants to do harm.
Some handle forgiveness of this kind on a case-by-case basis. This forgives a particular person for a particular transgression. Aside from any particular event, your understanding of how people get to be the way they are, and your realization that no perpetrator is the ultimate source of the pain passed on to you, can enable you to forgive all people who are misled.
If you hate Adolf Hitler for what he did, that hate is your hate. It is not wise to confuse hatred with grief. When you hate a criminal for killing a member of your family, that hate is your hate.
Hatred is incompatible with inner peace.
Chapter 1 - Violence and Feelings
Chapter 2 - Involuntary Memories
Chapter 5 - Achieving Tranquility
Chapter 8 - Cancelling Limitations
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