Love – Hate

?Discover
the redemption power of love’

               Martin Luther King Jr.

Love and hate : both are very strong
emotions. They are actually two sides of the same coin. The irony is that at
times, with change in environment – the person we love is the person we hate.
Graham Greene says `I hate him for the very quality that once made me love him’.
The issue is: what is the difference between love and hate. Hate has been
defined as having strong feeling of hostility and / or antipathy. In my view –
love is giving without expectation and is based on the concept of `let go’
whereas `hate’ results from failure of expectations and is based on the concept
of `hold on’. Osho says : `love is happy when it gives something’ – whereas
hate is based on an unfulfilled demand / need expectation. Love expands and
grants space whereas hate contracts. Love accepts individuality – hate arises
because of failure of desire to control and change the other person. Love is a
mood reader. Hate is blind to the mood of the other person. Paul Coelho says :
`one is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed in loving’. Love is
always unconditional whereas `hate’ has a reason.

Love is the breath of life. Secret of basis
of lifelong love is understanding. Love is the essence of life – without love,
life is like an empty vessel. Love could be for a person, pet or place. It has
no boundary. Love need not be person-oriented. It could be love for nature, for
any of the performing arts, for a place. Love for books, and knowledge and
above all our unconditional love for God – our Creator.

The antidote to hate is forgiveness coupled
with other side of the coin ?love’.

?Forgiveness’ relieves and benefits both the
forgiver and the one who is forgiven. Gandhi says that forgiveness can only be
practised by the strong. The author has already expressed his view on a
previous writing on ?forgiveness’. I also believe that if one can forgive and
forget, it would make forgiveness divine. However, it is easy to forgive but
difficult to forget. One can only forget by the grace of God. Hence to really
get out of hate seek – nay crave His grace to forget. It would relieve you of
negativity and lead to love. Jesus said ?love thy enemy’. Even on the cross,
Jesus prayed for forgiveness of his tormentors when he prayed `Father, forgive
them’.

It is rightly said that ?a person who
truly loves one cannot but love all’. I believe that a person who loves God
cannot ever feel hate. In essence, he falls in love with himself and there
is no duality in love.

Thus ultimate of love is loving yourself.
This can happen only when you forgive yourself – stop repenting your mistakes
and ensure that you don’t repeat them. This happens when we are
mindfully-conscious of our actions and behaviour. Love for oneself is
the basis of loving others. Azim Jamal advises : ?If you yearn for love – be
loved, treat everyone you meet with love’.

I
would conclude by quoting Peter Usitnov :

?Love
is an endless act of forgiveness’.