Conquering Hate

I am pretty sure many of you felt the sadness that overcame the world from the Paris attacks last Friday.
It put many of us in great distress.
Many of us were angry, many of us were sad and many of us simply grieving for the state of the world.
I cried for an hour at the sadness of it all. How humankind has got so messed up.
Many of us didn’t actually know any of those people who tragically lost their life but yet we felt the sadness as if we did.
It is so hard to fathom out why people can hate so much, why humankind can be so evil.
It’s so hard to understand terrorism.
And the reason it is hard to understand is because ultimately, to us, it is not rational or logical all we see is pure hate.
These terrorists are simply people with a tragic belief system.
Their deep held beliefs are so fundamentally ingrained in them, that they are willing to die for them.
It is simply insane.
And yet this is the nature of beliefs.
Thoughts that are thought over and over again.
Thoughts that are either installed in them from a young age, where they are bread to hate or thoughts that they have learnt from others.
For the terrorist, thoughts that bring about pure evil in their feelings and actions and outcomes.
Another example of quite how powerful beliefs are.
This is why I bang on a lot about beliefs with you all.
And I do this because holding onto beliefs which are fundamentally wrong for you, can hurt.
They hurt you and make you feel awful and then you act accordingly.
I am sure if these terrorists had not been taught beliefs that breed hate, the world wouldn’t be in this mess.
I am sure if these terrorists were not brainwashed into believing that their way is the right way, the world would not be in this mess.
I am sure if these terrorists had instead been brought up to show love and be kind, the world would not be in this mess.
I am also sure, in the words of my friend Marianne Williamson ‘The only thing powerful enough to counter hate gone viral, is love gone viral’
And we have already started to see that in the way the world is uniting.
All the countries who lit up their main attractions in the colours of Paris – all these countries showing love and unity.
All the people helping out in Paris right now – showing love and unity.
All the people coming together to help each other during this terrible time – people who would never have met or even spoken to each other before – all showing love and unity.
Never give up on the beauty of life.
For every terrible disaster there will always be some good coming out of it.
So today the best thing we can do to ease our pain is to simply show love, share your love and be kind.
The only thing that counteracts hate is love.
Show love to yourself.
Show love to others.
And be kind to the people you meet no matter who they are, because spreading love is the fastest way to counteract the hate.