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THE NEGATIVITY BOOMERANG
Ted Czukor (Srinathadas)
January 22, 2005

In the last few years – especially since September 2001, when our jovial and generous American psyche experienced a profound shift toward cynicism and fear – I have been learning some hard lessons about the workings of negativity. I have been forced to study my own negativity, as well as the negativity of others. I have been forced to see how they are the same thing.

I have seen words that I considered a valid criticism of others come boomeranging back at me, years later, in the exact same phrasing, and sounding just as insightful and plausible, even though they were completely mistaken and unfair. 

I see now that if you don’t know people intimately, their behaviors can lead you to make judgments about them that are false. But we all make such judgments, because what we see is filtered through the frustrations, pains and indignities that we are suffering at the time. Students jump to conclusions about teachers, and teachers jump to conclusions about students. But, no matter how deeply justified we feel when we do it, we are wrong! Sooner or later, our karma will make that very clear.

I am not sorry that I had such thoughts about other people at the time, even if I was wrong – because that was who I was then, and it would have been dishonest of me not to admit it to myself. But I am sorry that I ever expressed those thoughts on paper, or through my mouth – because it is simply not right to hurt people.

It is the hurt that comes back to bite us. If I could have only kept my judgments to myself until I had gained a better understanding of those people, my mistaken perceptions wouldn’t have hurt anyone but me. And the wheel of karma would not have begun to turn. 

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OM SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI
[Peace, Peace, Peace]