Self defense for the mind
I was speaking to a friend who has been reading a vast array of books on religion and trying to figure out some things in his mind. We started on a meandering conversation that traversed when he taught self-defense to almost having to use it in his posh subdivision when some nutball tried to run his wife off the road as she was pulling into the driveway. In self-defense you get inside the mind of your opponent and understand that what motivates him is very different from anything you are experiencing. I asked him about something that I had been experiencing, as in my approach is to find unity with all people and not discord. To that end in yoga, I have recently dedicated my practice to someone I work with who I wanted to feel more human towards, I dedicated another practice to a family member who I feel is challenged.
We also talked about mushrooms that made depressed people feel more connected to human beings – although in a lateral conversation with other friends we determined that mushrooms just might only make you more of what you are – so if you do want to kiss everyone all the time, then you want to do it without hesitation on mushrooms but if you are paranoid then you become ragingly paranoid on mushrooms.
But instead of reading about religion, perhaps it is better to study other areas such as in yoga when you are doing your practice and dedicating it to someone you perceive is negative, then your positive should neutralize them because in math a positive and negative cancel out a charge. But you could also imagine that you might just know so very little about what is going on in the world and accept mystery – that for instance you could sit here and believe that most people are inherently good and that evil is an aberration and that our life is scripted for us in advance and then suddenly from the sky could come aliens who decide to farm humans and eat us like lollipops and in their world lizards are king. I mean who knows?
But for now I think it is safe to say as one Talmudic scholar summed it up – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.