No matter how I want to imagine my enemies they will eventually end up evaporating and be replaced with new enemies. What I see and who I see as an enemy is not absolute reality. It is an idea usually sold to me by another or a set of circumstances. When I believe someone or something is my enemy I create a situation and that situation always contains apprehension, sorrow and sadness.
Once we understand and accept this concept everything changes. No longer can we blame life, others, lack of attention as a child, bad breaks or poor health on our situation. We create our situation by continuing to project dissatisfaction, discrimination and anger to all that is in our world.
We go from one enemy to another. We blame the government. We blame corporations. We blame our bosses. We blame our neighbors. We get the impression that it is intelligent to know who our enemies are and be able to discuss this at work and at parties. We are caught in a quagmire of negative thoughts, thoughts of defense, thoughts of uneasiness. And anyone who does not agree with us is naive and must be lacking in intelligence.
Hopefully, somewhere in our lives, we will come to understand that there is no enemy except the enemy we have imagined and therefore created. The only real person who is a threat to my life is me. The only person who can ultimately save my life is me. No one else can do it.
Most of us don’t create many singular enemies so we imagine that we are happy, civilized people leading the best lives we know how to. Most of us adhere to group ideas of enemies. We are sold an idea of who the enemy is and we become fearful and grateful that we have been notified so that we can protect ourselves.
If you watch the nightly news you will become educated to the enemies you should be aware of. Since the beginning of our birth, newspapers, radio and television programs have identified our enemies for us. I am reminded of seeing an ad on a bus when I was in high school with the picture of Kruschev shaking his finger at me and the words on top of his picture said, “We shall bury you!” That was enough to make me fearful. Years later I began to think about that ad and I wondered who placed it. Surely Kruschev did not have the time or desire to place an ad on a bus in Oakland, California, all the way from Russia. From a high school girl’s point-of-view, this man was mighty powerful and could reach right into our homes. Who really was trying to scare people like me? I began to see how we “sell” ideas of enemy.
When I come to believe there can be no enemy unless the enemy is me, I am able to make the first sustainable peace agreement in my world. I am able to make peace on earth! With daily practice, I channel the energy used to defend myself against myself into a much more pleasant and productive reality. Peace is possible. I’ve seen peace and, oh yes, peace is me.
