September 8, 2022 Thursday Afternoon, Private Session, Excerpt
Responding to Violent Distortion
Aaron: In a past lifetime, I was in a situation with a man who was totally enraged; he was out of his mind with grief and rage and came to attack somebody. The one he wanted to kill was his estranged wife. They were for that time and religion basically divorced. She had children with another man. He was trying to kill the woman and the children. He killed one of the children.
At the time I did not know any of these people. The man I was had a knife. I stabbed the angry man because he was about to attack not one but several completely innocent people and others were without weapons.
As best I could, I stabbed him without anger. But of course, in the spur of the moment with his rage, and the terror of the other people—he had already killed one person, so, their terror, emotion also was aroused in me
For me, if I acted, there was the karma of killing. If I didn’t act, there was karma of allowing him to kill the people.
I could not stand there and watch him, so I stabbed him. I did not aim for the heart; I aimed for the shoulder of the hand where he held the knife, a deep thrust so he dropped his knife. Then I was able to tackle him to the ground and others were able to hold him. He was taken away. He was imprisoned.
Perhaps twenty years later he was released from prison and came out with an intent to kill me. He was so angry at what I had done to him, that my actions had put him in prison for twenty years, and without him being able to kill the people that he intended to kill.
I learned that what was vital for me was compassion for his pain combined with the strength and clarity that said, “You may not kill these people.”
So now he was filled with hate for me because I had acted in a way that had him caught, put him in prison and prevented him from killing the past wife and her children.
I could not accept that this was a place where I had to strike to resolve it. How else would I resolve it? I had tried to talk to him, and he could not hear me. Others tried to talk to him. But did I truly act from a place free of all malice?
For ten years after his release from prison, I found the only thing I could do was to go into a place of light and energy, not personal power but love power and light, and try to truly love him and hold his pain. Try to share his pain with him, help him hold space for his pain. And obviously to protect myself, if it became appropriate, but to try to protect myself by disarming him, not killing him. I lived with that constant sense of threat.
This situation went on for over ten years. I was always living on guard. Finally, I was called to his deathbed. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Thank you.” Somehow my energy and actions got through to him. He understood, and he said, “Thank you.”
This is all we can do with another’s pain and distortion: we can try to love them and to present truth in the clearest way we can.