If someone has performed an injustice towards you, and transgresed the rules and ethics that pertain to their work, and in the process you have been abused or exploited---- as a peace maker should you take action and try to right that wrong, or instead decide to let it be, turn the other cheek even if it hurts? __________________
Rigth the wrong always. Do not turn away Face it, and transform it. Even if acknowledging it, hurts Even if thinking about it, hurts Turn to face it, confront the wrong doer and tell the truth. You cant turn from it, oyu cannot go, it will just wait for you in front of you and not behind you. Things are behind you once you have faced them. Until you do so, htey are in front of you, blocking your way at some point, and each time you push them aside, you are in fact pushing them ahead of you, and like a garn it becomes bigger and bigger and heavier to carry and more and more difficult to push in front of you, until you finaly take it up and unknot it all and dissolve it all by taking it up. So it is better for you to take it up now, and be done with it. Unjustice, abuse of profession and ethics, must be confronted. It is you you are serving by doing so. By not doing so you acknowledge the other rigth of doing so and tear a part of your selfconfidence apart, and agree to be mistreated, and you are part of selfabuse. So right the wrong, it is the alone right thing to do. Do what is right and good for you now. Acknowledge your need to be free from pain and free from being abused. Shine again.
Justice needs be served. Additionally, wisdom is a pivot that is vital in keeping things going. My situation is that, i tolerate many, many things. But there are times when tolerance just would mean naivety and invitation to exploitation. At those times i take action. In this world, there are many things that would try to exploit you if you turn your other cheek. One needs to learn to discern people's intent by inner insight.
It depends - if it's just you they've abused, it may be better to just let go. If you think on the other hand they may go on to abuse others, then probably you'd be quite justified in taking some action. Hard to be more specific without knowing the circumstances involved.
Fighting fire with fire never ever works. Fight fire with water. The more abusive they become, you become more loving towards them. Eventually love will triumph, for in great compassion, in great love is true strength. Might of the arms cannot destroy what the might of the heart protects.
for that to happen, one's love has to be much stronger than the other's malice. else the result will be just a hard earned lesson in wisdom.
Of course. A few drops of water will never extinguish a wildfire. But everyone has the capacity to love without limit. It isn't easy to tap into it, but then taking the easy way out is what has landed the world in the condition it is today. Everyone wants peace, but nobody is willing to work towards it. Everyone wants conflicts to end, everyone wants equality and justice, and yet they are unwilling to give up their own comfortable habits that are counterproductive to their wishes.
capacity is no guarantee of performance. if everyone was able to perform that much, we wouldnt be having any problems in the world today. but we are. therefore wisdom needs to be practiced i say.
Capacity is a guarantee that those who truly want to perform can. But most of us choose the easy way out - to fight, or to run away. It is an act of bravery and nobility to seek that seed of infinity in you and bring it to act in the situation at hand. What you call "wisdom" is a quickfix, not a true answer to the problem. It is an escape route. True strength and wisdom is in facing a situation head on, with your full being, with total adherence to your principles. Easy? Heck, no. Nothing worthwhile ever is.
nay it isnt. to realize capacity into performance one needs to know how to use it. "wanting" and trying and learning to use it does not count as performance, its trying. some things, like the ones who can not outperform without prior experience are too risky to take on, like loving out an exploitation from someone. wisdom is not "quickfix". wisdom is taking things in balance and ensuring that one will be in a position to love others tomorrow, not go in shambles trying to outlove an exploitation and totally incapacitate himself/herself.
And when will you ever learn to do it and grow if you never attempt in the situations life presents you with? Difficult situations are a godsend, a blessing, for it is through them that we can learn, and grow and become fuller beings.
again, attempting to learn and going blindly as advised are 2 different things. again, the severity of the situation always needs to be assessed before attempting to grow in them, for a dead (literally or methaporically) person is one that ceased growing in current reality. lets take an example. jesus of nazareth showed great passion and all encompassing love with his decision not to flee, not to resist captivity and following murder. despite one may say that he set an example with this act, there is wisdom lacking in this event : 1 - he was killed, therefore with death he had lost the opportunity to keep on exercising compassionate love in physical world (at least this world). 2 - he was killed, and therefore wasnt able to live on and correct any possible deviations from his initial teaching. the failure to do this have resulted in the catholic church horror that eventually wreaked havoc upon people. anything that is contradictory with the main goal defies wisdom. as a simple futuristic sci-fi example, if some group of scientists experimenting on the sun with the intent of furthering mankind's knowledge about sun causes it to go supernova accidentally, possibly eradicating mankind, then their act is totally foolish, for there is left nobody to learn.
Another good example would be the nazi death camps. I don't think many people who were incarcerated grew as a result of their negative experience. Many were only children who were gassed on arrival. This idea that bad situations are good for us seems to me like a hangover from christianity and other cults of yesteryear which promoted the idea that suffereing is good for the soul.
There is much truth in that. not trouble and suffering, but actively attempting to carry some burden while trying to do good deeds towards the people and environment makes one take great strides. not carelessly letting oneself get exploited while trying to be all encompassing.
Bill, no situation bad or good can make us develop and grow. It is what we make of it that matters. You can always use extreme examples like the holocaust, but this thread and my responses are about a simple persons simple problem in interpersonal interactions.
That doesn't affect the underlying principle. The thing is that I agree it's what one makes of a given situation that counts, but what I was trying to get at is that the attitude of acceptance of negativity in a passive way as per c/anity etc, is just a way of ensuring the continuance of the staus quo, on both a material and a spiritual level. One can learn from negative situatuons no doubt, but it's not useful for people to think that it is only negative situations that lead to growth. There's a philosophly which says 'don't worry if you're sufferring in this horrible material world, the more you suffer, the greater the reward in heaven (or it's equvalent)'. That's what I reject. It's why Karl Marx spoke of religion as 'the opium of the people'. Too many folks who use the 'new-age' label are in fact really 'old-age'. They just want a modified form of old and failed systems.
I'd say there are enough burdens without actively seeking more of them. My experience leads me to believe that ecstacy and bliss are far more illuminating than suffering, be it self inflicted or imposed from outside.
