Two brothers were fighting for years. They were born to same mother, but somehow parents created a competitive environment between them assuming that they would grow better. They grew up on negativity and full of hatred for each other. They wanted to put each other down. They did not want to win, they wanted the other person to lose! (Lots of parents do such mistakes of creating competition between their own children, please refrain from that). In all this, the elder one still had some thoughts left of caring for his younger one. However, he was consumed by hatred. He called up and said that I wish to reconcile but the only thing is he has to realize his mistake. He further said that I love my brother but I cannot help the situation. When I see him, I feel like destroying as it reminds me of how bad he had been to me. He was stuck in love and hate re, lationship. I asked him, why do you wish to reconcile? He said that now I cannot live with this hatred and second thing I feel its affecting our families too. Our children also hate each other, though they have never experienced anything. I do not want them to burn in a fire which I have been through. I am glad he said this! I thanked him for being honest. So I asked him to meet me. We went into open and dug a hole. We filled it up with papers and put some fire into that. After few minutes the whole thing was in flames. I asked him, how would he douse this fire? He was going to pick up the water from the bucket but I stopped him and gave him another bowl of papers which was getting into flames now. He said, are you crazy, how can you douse one fire with another fire? It would only make a bigger fire. Exactly! But then how can you douse your brother’s fire by having another fire in your heart. You need to have water with you to douse that. Means? Means if he has hatred, you need to have lots of love in your heart. And initially, some water will get evaporated too. But when you would continue pouring water, it would douse. I am not saying you have to do it, but if you decide to do it, you need to be prepared to go through the entire thing. You need to take every step full of love, with love and having 100% intentions of love and then you would be able to see the change. But to go with the thought, I want to destroy him, he has to realize it and all is like holding bigger fire! He understood and decided to work on everything but this time he had different feelings. He called up his brother for a discussion and they decided to give it a try.
These days, what we see around is similar and what we have to think is can hatred kill hatred? Everyone is busy putting down each other. Everyone is busy hurting each other and wants to douse the fire thinking this is the solution! But is this the solution? A research was conducted in Washingtn DC few years back where thousands of monks meditated together for a month and it brought down the crime rate by 25%. So love and peace is the solution!
