Love, Hate & Betrayal
30 July, 2007
By Dr. Aamir Mehmood
Similar to the fact that we know earth has rotated billions of times on its own axis to change into days and nights; we know innumerable times the earth on its elliptical axis travelled around the sun to complete a year, we know centuries have passed, people have experienced, nations have witnessed, we as individual have felt it and compared to the length of time the world has lived, it co-exists with emotions of love, hate and betrayal. The first emotion we associate so fondly in life is “Love”. But tightly coupled to Love is “Hate”, and juxtaposition of both Love and Hate is couched within “Betrayal”. The world in every discipline of life visualizes and narrates the tightly coupled relation of these three emotions which are defining the human race affordability to co-exist and adapt to progress.
Some would disagree with this point of view that we don’t hate anyone and we love all mankind, all races, all ethnicity, all species, nature as gift from God with special fondness for one. Yes, I agree no one plans to betray, nor organize a hate wish list against someone, it is just situations which reveals a lose proximity between these emotions as something to think about. Nelson Mandela in his autobiography mentions it beautifully “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than it’s opposite.
In many ways it is a simple truth, that love exists and surrounds us in many ways, shapes and exhibits the beauty it carries within itself but it is we that are so intellectually novice that we are reluctant to relish with the true glory of love. Instead, we hold on to love so tightly that we strangulate all the emotions, freshness, kindness, comfort that it nurtures within the fragrance of love to squeeze out hate, it’s repulsive odour, depleted in kindness and wrapped in discomfort. Betrayal is the declaration of admittance that devoted; dedicated aspects of love are depreciated and devalued.
Virtually by now we must have considered and determined that hate and betrayal actually are emotions that are polluting love and subsequently the lives of humans, infiltrating the minds to act in negative ways. But then again if we believe this we are going to be shortsighted and unrealistic. These triad of emotions are not limited to humans, to intellect, to experiences but are correlated to life, world and universe.
Imagine, in the universe, in this world, in this life, no one has been able to understand the logic, relation, reason to substantiate beyond one’s wisdom the loop relationship between love, hate and betrayal. Visualize, when the breeze starts to blow, branches dance to the tunes of breeze, trees swinging in joy, people feel breath of fresh air filling the lungs and we love such beautiful and exquisite moments. But as soon as the wind picks up and the breeze gets a little stiffer we see branches and trees squealing against the wind, people who felt the freshness of breeze, start to find a little more protection and then when the wind picks up and changes into a storm the branches break, the trees fall, knocking around other trees, hurting humans and damaging livelihood and inflicting sufferings in many ways. Now the breeze which was loved, is hated for its intensity and feeling of betrayal derived from its effects what the liked one did to them is quite suggestive and explicitly implicated.
Consider, a calm ocean, the smooth sailing, the serene view, the clarity of water, the composed comforted water inhabitants and a beautiful sky, changes it colours suddenly as the tides begin to rise, the calmness of the quite ocean changes its colours, its behaviour, from being a calm, serene, composed character to transforming to chaos and roughness in water flow, un-peaceful movement in ocean with cloudy sky. Imagine within few moments it transforms from what we loved so dearly to change its stance considerably so we hate these moments and if it carries on further a little longer it is considered literally as betrayal and a killer to such pleasurable, enjoyable glorifying moments of life.
From these environmental situations let us consider some human values & variations, a child loving his parents, loves, respects, adores and cares for them for the entire life he has lived with them, now falls in love with a person from another caste, religion and due to any of the thousand reasons the parents are reluctant to accept this relationship. The once beloved offspring shows disrespect, displeasure in number of ways. Can plan to leave home, desert family, damage and hurt family’s repute but then these are simpler and predictable things but what is not understandable is when the relation once so dear changes in a blink of an eye from love to hate to progress to ultimately betray and I don’t know at or for what cost.
The whole discussion today is focused to understand that love, hate and betrayal are tightly coupled to each other. The world since its defined existence has evolved around the concept of simple rule of the world and nature which is keeping “balance or equilibrium”. If we look closer to our normal routine life, every relation has a defined opposite and equal relation which never allows disturbing of the equilibrium, or allowing to tilt towards one side. Many theories explain the catastrophes’ and natural disasters which encountered suggested imbalance as the igniting factor. Similarly, love, hate, coexist and survive in equilibrium which is worth cherishing but if in imbalance it ignites everything and betrayal is the child which can destroy generations.
Why do we need “Hate” to preside our mind, reside in our heart when all we can gain is hurt, pain, remorse and sufferings. Why can’t we just love, spread happiness, contribute positively to one’s own life to life of others, love affections and in return get affections to have tranquility prevail and fresh breeze of calmness fill our lives. Historically, betrayal, has been the noticeable, detectable output of hate, we have seen wars being fought for numerous reasons known or unknown but reflecting sufferings on oneself or others due malicious acts of individuals, armies, which is believed to be the raged output of hate between nations in animosity or dejections. We have seen war inflicted wounds gape for ages and centuries, depriving us of love, saddening our mind and heart with sorrow and all largely contributed by the act of betrayal.
Richard Nixon on his White House Farewell said “Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them and then destroy yourself”. Such is the emphasis of hatred that one can hurt oneself in endless ways. Hate and Betrayal effectively combines to eliminate love. Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its stores once due to any reason it is depleted. It is killed by our, errors and betrayals. It dies of illness, wounds, and succumbs to gashes of the cruelty of hate and betrayal.
We, inhabitants of world our custodians of goodness, where we survive and live under the umbrella of preaching’s of love, where God has send us messages of tolerance, peace and tranquility to maintain sanity and to preserve love. We don’t need Hate, Nor Betrayal but we need Love, for others, to give in, to forget, to forgive but not to hurt, not to show supremacy, may be that is what we were taught over and over again in many ways by the exemplary facts derived from the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Let us hope to join hands to rekindle the lost love, kill hate and forget betrayal to develop tolerance, spread peace in the world today. If we do it today, many will follow us, the place will be surrounded with placidity and undisturbed, our future will be bathed in sunshine.
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