Fear and hatred are not new to society. Etty Hillesum was a Jewish women in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Reading Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork, entries full of declarations of love for life in horrific circumstances, has given me fuel to look deeper within and extend even more love to myself and to each and every person around me. Her words fill me with courage and the resolution to
continue to acknowledge and release my hatred and fears no
matter what my circumstances are. Over and over Etty proclaims life
is beautiful and rich and meaningful. I agree with her. I find her
positive outlook on life not whimsical, rather refreshingly grounded
in a deep connection to the width within.
Etty never claimed the
inward journey is any easy one; she experienced a lot of pain,
sorrow, sickness, and suffering: “I am not alone in my tiredness or
sickness or fears, but at one with the millions of others from many
centuries, and it is all part of life.”(p.157) Knowing that her
life and the lives of other Jews were being hunted and annihilated,
didn't diminish Etty's apperciation of the fullness of life and death. It is
in fact that fullness which makes life so meaningful and precious to
her, “by excluding death from our own life we cannot have a full
life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich
it.”(p.155). Etty was able to see the broad spectrum of life, “my
capable brain tells me that there are no absolutes, that everything
is relative, endlessly diverse, and in eternal motion, and that is
precisely for that reason that life is so exciting and fascinating,
but also so very, very painful.” (p.49)
Page after page, I was
moved by Etty's open love for mankind and her unwillingness to fall
into hatred or to group people together. She writes,
If there were only one decent German, than he should be cherished
despite the whole barbaric gang, and because of that one decent
German it is wrong to pour hatred over an entire people.... If things
were to come to such a pass that I began to hate people, then I would
know that my soul was sick and I should have to look for a cure as
quickly as possible. (p.11)
Amazingly and
commendably, she never does fall into hatred, despite being denied
her freedoms, sent to a concentration camp and eventually sent to
Auschwitz where she was murdered. Etty lived a full life of love and
compassion, a life I look upon with respect and admiration.
Reading the book, I was
reminded of 8 years ago when I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient
Truth. It got late and I went to bed ¾ through the film when
the world was coming to an end very very soon. I went to sleep
shook up and with a prayer, 'May I meet the end and the chaos that it
will bring with love and compassion. May I be generous enough to
share my last bread.' With my children, then 1 and 2 years old,
asleep in the room next to me, I doubted very much that I was that
far on my path. So I prayed even harder. 'I may not be completely
full of love yet but may I be filled with it when tested. May I keep
working on myself so that I may meet chaos and fear with love.'
I was also reminded of my
first reaction walking through a refugee hall a couple months ago.
When I saw the 150 beds crammed closely beside each other and I
thought to myself, 'How would I react if I were in this situation?
Would I be kind? Would I be open? Would I shine love within and
without?' Etty writes, “And wether or not I am a
valuable human being will only become clear from my behavior in
arduous circumstances. And if I should not survive, how I die will
show who I really am.” (p.177) Reading her words, I thought,
'oh yes, may I be of value in all the circumstances I am faced with in
my life and in my death.'
There is ample fear and
hatred in our society from terrorist acts and from the difficulties
of integrating refugees into our different cultures. Therefore I am
all the more committed to looking inward and meeting my own fears and
hatred. Etty Hillesum writes, “we have so much work to do on ourselves that
we shouldn't even be thinking of hating our so-called enemy.”
(p.211) I think as soon as we can meet and be with the hatred within
us, all hatred without will evaporate.
Through Etty's deep self
exploration, she was able to expand her sense of who belonged to her
to the broadest sense. She included everyone. She was able to hold
love and compassion for everyone.
Remarkably, she refused to add any hate or unkind acts into the extremely hostile world she lived in, “each of us must turn inward and
destroy in himself all that he thinks ought to be destroyed in
others. And remember that every atom of hate we add to this world
makes it still more inhospitable.” (p.212) A few entries later she
adds, “We have one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of
peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards
others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will
be in our troubled world.” (p.218)
I am completed awed by
such open love in such dark times. Her belief that
life is beautiful and meaningful stays so strong throughout her
changing circumstance. She doesn't deny suffering. “I am not
afraid to look suffering straight in the eyes.” (p.227) In fact
she sees the suffering as a means for furthering her development, “If
all this suffering does not help us to broaden our horizon, to attain
a great humanity by shedding all trifling and irrelevant issues, then
it will all have been for nothing.” (p.190) I believe in all that
Etty states but I have a lot of study and self examination to still do to do in order to be able to live her words. Her depth humbles me and
encourages me.
I hold a vision of a
world where we are all brave enough to love ourselves fully and
therefore each other. A world where the connectedness of beings and
nature is an experienced and trusted truth. Where fear fades not by
force but because it is no longer useful. Reading An Interrupted
Life and Letters from Westerbork
reminds me that others hold this vision too. Her diaries and
letters fuel me to:
Continue to
constantly study myself
Continue to pray and
meditate daily
Keep turning to
great works and teachers for inspiration and insight
Continue to expand
my sense of who belongs to my “we”
Extend kindness and
love to all of myself so I can extend it to all of humanity
As best I can meet
my suffering with open eyes and grace
Ride the waves of
life never forgetting that life is beautiful and meaningful
Etty said “we must
begin with ourselves every day anew” (p.155), and may I do just
that with patience, compassion, and a lot of self love.
May we all know self love and inner peace,
erinbell.
www.yinyogaberlin.de
Source:
Hillesum, Etty, J. G. Gaarlandt, and Etty Hillesum. An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; And, Letters from Westerbork. New York: Henry Holt, 1996. Print.
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