Welcome to Mohanji Speaks, my friends. Hope you’re enjoying the podcast. Do share them, if you like them, with your friends and discuss about them, because they might be transformative. Today, we will talk about enemies. All of us have some enemies in our life, those who dislike, hate or judge us. This is part of existence.
Just like we have friendships, we have enmities as well. Are they good or bad? They are as they are. Everything has its value in life. Life is a variety; life has all these things.
But have you observed what we do with our enmities? First and foremost, we have every right to be peaceful, contented and satisfied with what we have. This right is, in fact, our birthright and we must cherish it. Because we are unique beings on Earth; we have the ability to experience life as we are, and we do. We must experience life, using those capacities and abilities. In that context, if somebody does not like what you do, if there is meaning in their dislike, certainly, you must change your ways. But if there’s no meaning in their enmity and it is out of jealousy, you have nothing to do. We need not be jealous of anybody, nor do we entertain somebody’s jealousy, because these are unwanted or unimportant things. They’re not important in life. So, it’s important to understand that enmities are our choice. We don’t need enemies, we accept people; when we accept, there’s no enmity. Lack of acceptance causes enmity.
It’s our choice to have enemies or not; similarly, we have the choice to have friendships, as well, and to use them. It is a beautiful feeling to have nice friendships. I would like to talk about a recent incident. I have an old friend, in fact, he is my schoolmate and we were good friends for a long time. In 2014, a group of people turned against me, scandalized me, spoke ill about me and tried to pull down the entire infrastructure which I had painfully built up. And I was told that this man, my classmate, and close friend was also part of that group. People have seen him with the group which was against me. I was annoyed and disturbed by it wondering why he was behaving so. My thought was that he could have asked me if he had a question. But in such cases, where people intend to tarnish your name etc., they don’t talk to you; they just go ahead and do it. Since I was upset by his behaviour, I detached from him. I didn’t say anything to him, there was no communication.
One day, when I spoke to his brother, I told him these details and he, in turn, told my friend. It turned out that he became annoyed and said, “Why you couldn’t speak to me? Why did you speak to my brother?” I told him that once I had conveyed the matter, it was over; it was out of my system. I don’t keep anything in my mind.
But then, last week it occurred to me that this one issue was still pending. And I wondered why anything should remain pending. This relationship was sour. We don’t need sour relationships in our life; as much as possible, we should sort them out. We can have a peaceful existence, why have enemies? So, I sent a message to him, “I love you”. He later replied with a picture of a book I had gifted him a long time back, which I have autographed. He sent me a picture of the autograph too where I had wished him well. The friend then added, “Do you know, I read this book every day and I remember you.” I said,” I’m very happy.” When he sent me this picture, I sent across my phone number to him and asked him to call me. He didn’t call me, but he sent me his phone number. Immediately, I called him, and then he said this, “I read this book every day. And I remember you.” He then went on to narrate an incident. He said, “I never knew that we have a deep connection, a connection so deep that it could influence my life. When we were in touch, I didn’t realize it was important. But I didn’t party with anybody who was against you. I even told them, I know Mohan for many years, and he’s not what you think he is or, as you perceive.” However, that was not the impression I had, because he was with that group of people. He said he was with them because he was trying to solve the issue. Anyway, that’s beside the point. He told me that by coincidence, the day he fought with me, he lost a big contract, a very big and important one for him for his future. It went away and he did not know what to do. He tried his best to win it back. It was a contract job, and a huge sum of money was involved. But he just lost it, they just cancelled it. It was almost a year and a half since we first had an argument. The day I sent him the “I love you” note, the people who cancelled the contract, called him and said that they were not happy with the company they were working with. They wanted to give the contract back to my friend. He said, “I think there was energetic support in our relationship” and thus he got the contract back after a year and a half. He said, “You have been an integral part in my life and I’m part of your life”. Many times when I lost my job and had no way to join another one because I had to leave the country, he helped me, this was sometime in the 1990s and 2000s. There was a connection between us. When he lost the job, and he couldn’t enter a country, I brought him back to a different country so that he could continue with his business. We had a give and take; there were a mutual relationship and a mutual energy exchange. This was lost when we disconnected. A sign of that is that the day I wrote to him the “I love you” note, he got the contract back. Rest is history. I spoke with him and we decided that it’s not worth it to have enmity.
But the point is that we can correct, if possible, the enemies that have happened in our life. But on the other side, if somebody decides that you are an enemy, there’s nothing much you can do because it’s there, in their mind. You can still counter it with love. Whether they accept it or not, you can choose to love.
Having enmities is a crippling situation, or at least an uneasy situation, which we can avoid in life. We can choose to love. We can choose to have contentment, satisfaction, and we can be balanced in our life. And if an enmity happens, try to solve it, or ignore it or just counter it with love. This is the thought I would like to give today, and we can discuss further about it.
I strongly believe that life should be embalmed with love every moment. We give what we can. We share what we have. We love. And that should be good medicine in all situations. And we can be really happy with love. Enmity happens, enemies happen with or without your knowledge and control. We remain as love; we remain as kindness, we remain as compassion. We exercise only those high qualities of life, and then you will have a better life. Be selflessness and be kindness, always.
This is Mohanji for you. Lots of love. Have a great day and a great week ahead.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan
Subscribe to Mohanji Speaks daily podcast