Let No Man Pull You So Low as to Hate Him!

Wow! What a big ask! This can seem wrong at many levels! How could Martin Luther King say this? It might seem right in principle, but the practice is a whole other story.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was beaten and jailed multiple times, and both he and his family continuously lived subject to death threats. All of this, simply because he sought equal rights for people of African descent in America.

How do you not hate someone who is beating you for no reason other than the fact that they hate you because of the color of your skin?

How do you not hate someone who puts you in jail for no reason other than the fact that they hate you because of the color of your skin?

How do you not hate someone who threatens your life and the life of your Loved ones, for no reason other than the fact that they hate you because of the color of your skin?

At some levels, the ask seems inconceivable. As we look around and see how we humans suffer at the hands of each other, we can feel more than justified to hate. But King was right at the spiritual level. The ask is based on spiritual principle.

I’ve come to understand that ultimately everything in the Universe is about energy. God, who I respectfully call GEFS (God, Energy, Force, Spirit) is the Energy behind everything in the Universe. As we go on living in this world, we can be in varying levels of matching that Energy.

As humans, our worst behaviors are completely out of line with this Divine Energy. Emotions such as anger, hate, resentment, and guilt are all “low energy” vibrations that are out of tune with Divine Energy. Inversely, feelings of Love, joy, and peace are “high energy” vibrations which are completely aligned with Divine. When we act out of hate—or any other negative energy—we are out of line with Divine Energy.

 The ask is challenging: You cannot fall to that lower frequency no matter what they do to you (this doesn’t include self-defense and all our instincts for self-preservation), but at the end of the day, our job is to stay in line with Divine Energy. This might not seem right in our “give as good as one gets” world, but it is a principle which has been taught by the sages from the beginning of time.

Despite the fact that King was ultimately killed simply for working for freedom and justice for people of African descent in America, the directive is not to hate those who persecuted and murdered him. That would bring you down from the level of Divine Energy.

The directive is not to be like them. Not to allow their acts to make you racist, and hateful. Not to allow their actions to take you out of your connection with Divine Energy—Divine Love.

The ask is big and the challenge to do it is big. The only thing I can say is, practice makes perfect!

–Olivia S. Benson