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Should I love a murderer who is in the middle of murdering someone? How about a rapist who is in the middle of raping someone?
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Great question. Very big question I have asked many times.
First of all I think the crucial point here is that
Love is a feeling not an action.
If someone is murdering someone else, and you are in the moment, and you have practiced being loving throughout your life, you will know what to do. And I bet that you will intervene. And I bet that you will create the best possible outcome of that situation, I bet that your love for both the murderer and the victim will create the best situation that is possible given the circumstances.
Love does not mean non-violence.
Non-violence is a mental concept. Love is a feeling. They are apples and oranges.
Action flows from the moment, and love gives birth to right action. You can't pre-plan what is right, you can't pre-plan what is loving. All you can do is feel the love in the eternal moment and then act without inhibition in a loving way.
All of these paradoxes come about because people think in terms of action -> reaction.
You think, "If this happens, how do I react?"
This paradigm is incomplete. Right action cannot be predicted, but it can flow naturally when it has been practiced.
So starting with small evils, you practice loving them in the moment. You practice forgiving and loving those things in yourself that are evil. With this love comes action - love does not mean passivity. Love is a feeling, not an action.
If you practice love in the moment over and over, one day you find yourself in a moment face to face with evil, and you act from the moment and do your best to love them.
The world is not perfect and good will not win an absolute victory over bad. But we can be as effective as possible and that is what loving is all about - a perfectly pure love gives birth to the perfect action in every moment of one's life.
It's not an easy answer but it's one that everyday I become more convinced of, because I see it in my own life. The answer is love in the moment.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson
It doesn't say that you must hate the tyrants. Just that you must bleed for liberty.
This is both the curse and the blessing of every Earthling. The challenge is learning to refresh the tree of liberty, while at the same time feeling only love for all mankind. I truly think Thomas Jefferson felt that love when he wrote that. He wasn't advocating hate; he was advocating courage born from unconditional love.