Loving enemies?

[Buddy]

Hi,
Thought came to me with a question:

How to understand "loving your enemies"?

Hi Mikel. Perhaps I'm too late to be helpful, so FWIW:

For me, I think "prizing highly" would be a better translation of "love" for many practical contexts. For example, certain kinds of "enemies" can be highly prized for being a kind of teacher who points out our weaknesses so we can become stronger. We would also "highly prize" our soul-mate, yet the actual emotions involved would be very different.

Maybe the original teaching was more like: "don't treat an enemy in the way that he treats you, otherwise you have the same fixed, oppositional mindset as he and are no better off".

 

[Menna]

"C's have talked about how love is basically knowledge. So to love your enemy (and I would interpret enemy here as that which destroys humanity and the creative universe) would be to know and understand pathology, psychopathy, our mechanical nature and so on."

Yup this basically sums it up for me. If you have an enemy or someone you don't like and you just try to pretend to love them without UNDERSTANDING them you are living in an illusion sort of like new age send love crap... In the past when someone has "wronged" me. It has served me to understand them why they did what they did. Then I saw that it all fit, it all made sense and could move on. After understanding then comes forgiveness for myself and the other. Knowledge (Love) - understanding - forgiveness - Let go (move on). Maybe the title of this thread could be ... "Knowledge your enemies" because for me loving your enemies is not the end result it is the begining of the process of being at peace with them no longer letting them affect your energy and now you can protect yourself without negative emotion towards them that in the end just hold you down.