What is Hate?

[Neiru2012]

Hate gets a bad rap since many people experience it as “hurtful.” It’s a bit of a taboo subject to those who revere love. But it can be argued that love can hurt as much as hate. It can be draining to pour love into a vacuum that doesn’t want it. It can be painful to have your heart broken. Does that make love “negative”? People have been brutally beaten or punished for simple acts of kindness like picking up hitchhikers or helping a friend who takes advantage of you. Does that make kindness “negative”? You might say that this is misdirection of love or unwise use of kindness, but can’t the same be said about hatred?

It was are to assume the universe is perfect, with everything in it existing through innate wisdom and purpose, then we need a definition of “hate” that doesn’t pass value judgments or defines it by its potential side-effects.

So what is the innate purpose of hate? Frankly I don’t know. This is a brainstorming session. I can say what hate means to me, but I also realize that I probably feel it differently from the next person. So I’ll list some loose properties that I associate with Hate:

Hate as a force of attraction:
Yes, that’s right! Hate brings people together!… in smaller groups….. against other people, lol. But still, it very quickly unifies people behind a common cause. It also attracts opposites! That is, groups (or groups of groups) that vehemently disagree will be drawn towards each other and start conflict and/or catalyst. I went to a Gay Pride parade this year and sure enough there were religious protestors there, and there were also protestors of the religious protestors! 😆

Hate as enthusiastic anger:
It’s fun! 😀 …Or at least energizing. Yes, hate (and any other strong emotion) can bring a surge of energy/power to those that feel it.

Hate as expressing identity:
This is probably the closest to how I experience hate. Basically, if you identify strongly with an idea or a cause, and you encounter someone who identifies with the polar opposite idea/cause, then you identify the other as the enemy and are brought into antagonistic interaction (this borrows from both of the above ideas of hate). In my case, I do not lose track of the other as an equal. It is actually a way for me to honor the other person’s expression of individuality. By investing energy in this interaction I acknowledge them as a worthy adversary. In other words, it is my way of saying “namaste.” 😛

Hate as outwardly directed Pain/Fear/etc:
When hate is spawned in denial of some other underlying emotion, here you run into problems. Here you also have hatred manifesting as a way to elevate oneself from one’s insecurities by devaluing others.

That’s all I got for starters, but the point is, we are given a full spectrum of emotion for a reason. The pure emotion of “hate” must have some kind of innate, sacred, and valuable purpose for (at least my idea of) the universe to have bothered expressing it. So what is that purpose?

[Bigfeet E]

But it can be argued that love can hurt as much as hate. It can be draining to pour love into a vacuum that doesn’t want it. It can be painful to have your heart broken.

I kinda beg to differ here.
As i see it you have 2 kinds of love, conditional love and unconditional love.
When you walk the path of conditional love you actually want the love to come from outside of your Self.
The ego sets its conditions in how it wants it recieved & be given.
To me this is not really love, cuz its bounded, and it relates to others for the interaction of energy by wanting to have it or wanting to give it in order to wanting to have an conditioned response.If someone breaks your heart, what really transpired their ? You were wanting an appropiated response from the other in order to get the feedback of energy. When that didn’t occured you feel ‘hurted’ cuz they didn’t gave some back, and therefor feel a lack of energy-input.When the mindset stays in this position of tooling love, there will always be struggle or when the interaction is answered it seems like bliss. But how long thus it last, in case of answered love ? Just until the feeling of upliftment weirs out & you will be looking for new wanting…
So this whole game of give & take is bordered, under condition, not really coming from the Self.It is possesive.It’s a blind circle.

When you walk the path of unconditional love you recieve the love that comes from within the Self. You find it comes from an eternal source, once connected with the Self, the Spirit. Ego doesn’t play the main role here anymore, it is your tool.When you are connected with the eternal source, you don’t feel the need to persé wanting it from an other, as you allready are filled with love. From this point, when you give, you wont loose your energy as it is constantly replainished from the eternal source.This is how it can be that people seem to keep on giving not wanting anything in return. But when it is returned it multiplies the common energyvibration even greater.To me this is where the real interaction begins.When you give unconditionally, your hart can’t ‘break’ anymore as in a loss of ‘your’ energy.It is non-possesive cuz anyone can tap into the eternal source.When you help someone, you help them to get back on their own feet again… it’s the only way one can truely help another. As we are all responsible for our own life we need the strength ,found in our connection with the eternal source ,to lead it in the right way. One is never alone… if you are with One(ness)

Hate is an effect of the ego wich is still battling for power. It is repulsing & attracting at the same time. It is repulsing another cuz it ‘conflicts’ with your point of view and doesn’t merges together and it attracts cuz it has to merge together in order to complete the view. Hate has the same source as all energy, but it is mis-channeled true the conditions of the ego.The ego understands hate as energy and uses it for its own purpose, eventually in order to gain more energy, to try to establish its own ‘being right’, when in fact it is not. Hate can stop you loving and love can stop your hate. And a love/hate relationship is not an unconditional love/hate thing, but a conditional love/hate thing. Life will always point you in the right direction to find your balance, wich is needed to find your Spirit/Self. Hatred is a form of unbalance, only waiting to try and find the way back to balance…

Many see power and strength as the same, wich is not true in my point of view.
Power is used to stand out, to be ‘more’ as the rest, to govern over others…etc.
Strength is used to express the Self, to help others, to govern the Self…etc.
To me this is the reason why there are 2 different words, wich escences seem the same, but really are not.

(in my best english 😆 )
Warm regards,
Bigfeet E.

[Will]

…I approach this subject as an observer as I can truely say that I do not hate anything…there are some things I like more than others…but hate consumes too much energy…energy more useful directed other ways…

…I do not see hate as the opposite of Love…
…I see hate as a sub-catagory of fear…also which is not the opposite of Love…

…when people of one country are taught to hate those of another ,this is because they fear them…maybe they fear their customs because they are different and are not understood… when one group hates another , ie.christian vs gays…they are afraid because they believe the values will threaten their own sense of community which might be on shaky grounds to begin with…the basic fear is fear of the unknown…when something or someone (including groups) is not understood then fear is a natural occurance …which is manifest in hatred…

…as communication increases and similarities are found then differences increasingly become allowed…
…even celebrated…
…after all…God did not create us with cookie cutters…
..as we become more understanding of difference then we gain a larger perspective of the whole…

…this is an important lesson on this world…this is why we have the different colored races…so that at this level we can learn to get along…

…think of those that have difficulty adjusting to other humans that are 99.999% the same dna (one race…the human race )…how will they react when Earth is opened up to the bigger neighbor hood and become aware of other races that are non-human ?…and then other beings that are non-form (the next step)…

…hate is part of a lesson as is pain…and we are Here to attend class…

[Neiru2012]

@BigFeetE:

This is probably better left for another thread, but since your definitions are so dependent upon it, I’d have to know this before I can reply to you…
How do you define the ego? And what do you see as its purpose?

[Alusa]

This is an interesting topic. I honestly haven’t thought about hate much. Often times hate does seem to come from fear, but I think not always. I have hated situations where I felt passionately that the rights of another were being infringed upon, which was pretty much anything I felt hindered the free will, or expression of another unjustly/unreasonably (treating others like they aren’t people). Stupid people and stupid rules can make me angry, its very hard for me to hate a person, more often I think people are very confused and I hate the situation.

[Bigfeet E]

The ego is that part of our Self wich is being separated from the consiously connection of our Spirit.
It is only aware of itself. Or you can use the terms of lower-ego and higher-ego. The lower-ego tries to claim the crown of life in order to claim its existence.
We are this lower-ego as long we place our consious attention inside this tool , identifying us with it, defining us with it. This is a part of our life wich starts from after birth when the baby explores its me-ness. But if the focus stays here it wil be a cause for conflicts later on in life. Ego is nescesary to ex-press ourselves in this …reality. When our attention is in the lower form, we are not aware of the unity of all life, it is set on survival .When the attention is set on the higher form it has allready merged with the Self, we know then it is just a tool in wich we can express our Spirit. We are no longer depended on the survival-techniques to stay ‘on top’ of energy requirement from outside.

Ego is also 1 part of a duality. The other side can be called (as i learned of it) super-ego.
The ego has its seat in the left hemisphere of the brain, but its energychannel is rightsided of the body.
The super-ego has its seat in the right hemisphere of the brain, and its energychannel is on the left side .
Both are part of the sympatic nervesystem with ego as the male & super-ego as the female force of the dualitysystem.
Both channels cross in…maybe you know it…the third eye, the 6th chakra, to end up in the 2 brainballoons.
As long there is an unbalance between ego & super-ego, the third eye can not open, and a connection with the Spirit will not come to place.
That’s why we speak of centering ourselves, centering in our 3rd main energychannel wich lies in the center 😆 (where else) for balancing the dualityforces so they can merge in the center, for every quality of our being to bloom in the light of our consious Spirit.

Maybe a picture shows more

I hope this will do…as defining ego 🙂

[Neiru2012]

@Bigfeet E wrote:

As i see it you have 2 kinds of love, conditional love and unconditional love.
When you walk the path of conditional love you actually want the love to come from outside of your Self.

I guess to me “conditional love” is like personal/romantic love, and “unconditional love” is an impersonal/generic warmth you feel for all things. I guess I can also see how one can flow from outside and one from inside, but for now I still classify pouring loving energy into a vacuum as an aspect of “unconditional love.” That’s not to say this is the only thing unconditional love does, but it’s one way I think it can be inefficiently expressed. When expressed wisely (or as you say, flowing from the Self), it is a beautiful and endless thing.
@BigfeetE wrote:

If someone breaks your heart, what really transpired their? You were wanting an appropiated response from the other in order to get the feedback of energy. When that didn’t occured you feel ‘hurted’ cuz they didn’t gave some back, and therefor feel a lack of energy-input.

That’s kind of what I’m asking about hate. Love can be misused (or inefficiently expressed) in ways that make it seem petty or hurtful, but that’s not what the true essense of love is. Hate can also be misused, even predominantly misused… but maybe it also has a true essense that is useful and harmonious.
@BigfeetE wrote:

Hatred is a form of unbalance, only waiting to try and find the way back to balance…

Does it always have to be? Although I guess that depends on the definition of “balance.” I don’t know if there is a way to express hatred and be in balance (again, depending on definition), but I do feel that all thing smust have innate value, including hate. I’m just trying to understand the essense of hate in its own right, not in relation to anything else. Can things here even exist here without being defined in relation to other things? That depends… can love have value in its own right, not in relation to anything else? If love can, then my logic tells me so can hate (and any other emotion). If love can’t, then neither can hate.
@BigfeetE wrote:

Many see power and strength as the same, wich is not true in my point of view.
Power is used to stand out, to be ‘more’ as the rest, to govern over others…etc.
Strength is used to express the Self, to help others, to govern the Self…etc.

Hmm, I guess what you call “Power” I call “Power through Others” (whether over others or through a community) and what you call “Strength” I call “Power through Self.” I define “Power” as the active principle, or the actual raw energy emanating from Self that you can use. I define “Strength” as the passive principle, or how much you can endure and/or maintain inner peace despite external (or even internal) turmoil.
@BigfeetE wrote:

The ego is that part of our Self wich is being separated from the consiously connection of our Spirit.
It is only aware of itself. Or you can use the terms of lower-ego and higher-ego.

I guess this and you calling the higher ego the “super ego” reminds me of the “id, ego, and super ego” system proposed by Sigmung Freud. I can see that we can run into some misunderstandings here. “Ego” to me is the seat of individual power and self-expression. It is what makes us distinct from absolute unity and gives us perspective. What you call the “higher ego” and “lower ego” I would probably call degrees of ego balance. The ego, as our sense of self, often perceives itself in relation to others. When it is balanced, it sees itself as equal to other egos (and the “whole”) and doesn’t block us from a conscious connection with spirit or unity. When it is off balance one way (“deflated”), it sees itself as inferior to other egos and thereby can block connection to unity/spirit. When it is off balance the other way (“inflated”), it sees itself as superior to other egos and can also block connection to unity/spirit. Maybe this is the imbalance between the ego and super ego that you speak of. But a healthy, balanced ego is a beautiful thing and seeks power in Self instead of submitting to or trying to dominate others.
@Will wrote:

…I see hate as a sub-catagory of fear…

This brings up the questions: Does hate even exist? Is it its own emotion and not strictly a misdirection of other emotions? Again, I don’t know. But for now I’ll assume it exists.
@Will wrote:

…I approach this subject as an observer as I can truely say that I do not hate anything…there are some things I like more than others…but hate consumes too much energy…energy more useful directed other ways…

I hate things. I can say I hate Sarah Palin, or I hate chocolate, or I hate abuses of religion. I don’t invest all of my energy in these things, nor do it with the type of rabid vehemence found among Nazis or misogynists or people who picket funerals with “God hates fags” signs. But I will look for stuff about the Nazis, or the misogynists, or the religious zealots because I find them entertaining. Granted I did stop lurking on the Nazi and misogynist boards a few years back because they were starting to depress me. :-/ But, in general, I experience “hate” as fun. Just as I enjoy being enthusiastic about things I like, I also enjoy being enthusiastic about things I don’t like. It is fun for me to participate in political protests and what have you.

[Bigfeet E]

@Neiru2012 wrote:

@BigfeetE wrote:

Hatred is a form of unbalance, only waiting to try and find the way back to balance…

Does it always have to be? Although I guess that depends on the definition of “balance.” I don’t know if there is a way to express hatred and be in balance (again, depending on definition), but I do feel that all thing smust have innate value, including hate. I’m just trying to understand the essense of hate in its own right, not in relation to anything else. Can things here even exist here without being defined in relation to other things? That depends… can love have value in its own right, not in relation to anything else? If love can, then my logic tells me so can hate (and any other emotion). If love can’t, then neither can hate

I think it does always is unbalance.
Hate is an misguided form of love, a tool that is used by lower-ego, even for when it is used for seemingly ‘good’ causes.
Hate is not selfsustaining, it leaks the flow of energy out of center (where love thrives) towards (only) ego, wich can give a sence of power, it heats you up.
Thru hate you create (in yr mind) an enemy, a battle can occur for taking each others energy wich they expressed thru their point of view.
So the reason why you created hate has to have some trigger, therefor always in relation to something else.Even when one hate’s him/herself, then you will ‘eat’ yourself up. To me hate only can exist if i(male ego) am not in balance with i(female super-ego), wich both are offsprings of the centerchannel (balance-crux).
The depression you expirienced was a swing towards super-ego, wichwere you froze & put the struggle on hold out of lack of energy. Also this is not the point of balance. Any way ego & super-ego tries to over-rule each other their is imbalance and so a fallback in the energyflow as an open channel.
Any outside projected hate is due to misunderstanding the big picture, so fighting another thru hate is also fighting yourself, as you gave birth to hatred.
Good martial arts also teaches this. Never to trow a punch out of hate.

So what is hate good for ???
To me, absolutely nothing, for only as a survivalmechanism of the misinformed -out of balance- ego.

[echo]

It’s like light and dark. hate is the absence of love. and when love is shown on something a “shadow” of hate is cast. hate derives from a seed of misunderstanding, because if we all felt, understood, the exact same thing we couldn’t disagree or hate. If we did, take things out of context, then we would be hating ourselves. and that is what hate basically is… a mixture of confusing emotions forced through a small focal point and reflected into your thoughts. It’s like dropping a stone into a still pond. All that emotion now ripples through your mind, confusing you 😕 , infuriating you 👿 , causing you stress. you don’t like that and hate is born. It causes you pain and you alone, so sometimes people instinctively spread in a spiteful way. hate is a cancerous invention of the mind, not an actual emotion, a furious whirlwind of discontent and confusion that consumes your attention like wildfire. All this does is distracts you from the source of “light” and love.

@Bigfeet E wrote:

Hate is an misguided form of love

@Neiru2012 wrote:

I’m just trying to understand the essense of hate

The essence of hate is a malignant thought of lovelessness. sadness on steroids? 🙄

[Annan]

Hate is the outmost and inseparable best-friend of love. If they did not be just that, no ONE of them could exist. So pretty lame, love would be, if love was the only thing we knew. Who has not loved to hate the ONEs one-self loves most? The ONEs easiest to hate, is the ONE that have what one-self, would love to have. Both hate and love must be of duality – and the mid point of these, would be the most exstatic experience to exist in – but only if ONE has had the most profound experience of them both.

So I love you ALL so much that I hate you 😮

Much loving hate
Annan the Nordic

[opalescent]

Hate is a cracked mirror.

[Neiru2012]

@Bigfeet E wrote:

Any outside projected hate is due to misunderstanding the big picture, so fighting another thru hate is also fighting yourself, as you gave birth to hatred.
Good martial arts also teaches this. Never to trow a punch out of hate.

So what is hate good for ???
To me, absolutely nothing, for only as a survivalmechanism of the misinformed -out of balance- ego.

It’s hard to play devil’s advocate in defending hate, I won’t lie. It is not a subject that I think too much about. To me it is just another emotion, in no way inherently better or worse than any other emotion. It is sacred as a form of self-expression. I agree that a heart at peace with itself does not seek to drain power from others, and that this is something that some forms of hate amount to… just like some forms of love. But I also believe that if you find yourself reaching a place of neutrality, where you can’t see yourself being passionate about something or able to take sides (agree or disagree with things), then you cease to really participate in the co-creation of the universe. You become an observer in your own reality, or gravitate exclusively to the expression of “positive” emotions. That to me is also a form of imbalance (IF your intentions are to interact in catalyzing ways that keep the world in motion).

I have a saying: “The universe is neutral so that you don’t have to be.” I see balance as being able to express both “positive” or “negative” emotions. To let energy flow freely in an aware and responsible manner. I see balance as dynamic, not static. Sometimes I can hate in ways that drain me, sometimes I can hate in ways that empower or motivate me. In either case, I can still find my way back to a calm, peaceful center. So what if I blow off energy? If it catalyzes a situation, if it “heats me up,” if it makes things more interesting, why not? I don’t mind sacrificing energy or straying from the middle path. The middle path is always there, but extremes can make things fun, too. To always stay on the middle path and not know that you can find your way back to it from extremes does not train strength and discipline… just as courage can’t exist unless you are afraid. I believe that lack of exposure to these things is “dangerous.”

I have heard it said that hate and “negativity” only hurts you. How could this be? The essense of our Self is immortal, it can’t be hurt. I want to be able to walk through (metaphorical) fire and not get burned. Not by denying that this fire exists, but by being immersed in it and coming out whole even if I was at some point burned to ashes. Hate has never hurt me, neither has pain. I welcome them to condition my soul just as a martial artist breaks bricks to condition their body. They are allies that help me see farther and feel more. None of us are above them, and none of us are immune to them, which is why learning how to handle them wisely is a lot more productive than denying their influence. They are part of the spectrum through which the multiverse chose to express itself. There are realities where mortality is so unknown that pain is bliss.
@Bigfeet E wrote:

The depression you expirienced was a swing towards super-ego, wichwere you froze & put the struggle on hold out of lack of energy. Also this is not the point of balance. Any way ego & super-ego tries to over-rule each other their is imbalance and so a fallback in the energyflow as an open channel.

I didn’t feel sad from the Nazi boards out of hatred. I felt sad because part of the reason I lurked was to understand how they think, and the fact that I couldn’t explain their mentality in ways I could sympathize with made me sad. I already had a low opinion of the human species, and they weren’t helping, so I decided to back off. This was conditional expectation, yes, but we can’t exist as individuals without them. I can see things from the perspective of the big picture, but I also see the role that my opinions as an individual perspective play in that big picture. I can think in both views simultaneously.

[Author]

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