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Monday, November 18, 2013

Insight into the mind of a slanderer

A few days ago i had a unique experience of speaking directly with a person who actively engages in spreading slander of the worst kind. This experience was most educational for me, and i will share it here.

last week I shared on my facebook page an article which i have written and which was posted on Natha's web-portal www.nathayogacenter.dk. you can see the English version of the article here.
The article is entitled 'Health is a state of Mind' and describes the participation of Natha in Denmark's largest health fair - a truly marvelous event, which i had the good fortune of documenting.
Not long after I share the article on facebook, it was commented on. the comment came from a person whom i don't know and never talked to, but none the less he is one of my hundreds of 'facebook friends' (I am not very selective in confirming friend requests - you could have a profile named 'Hitler was right' and i would probably approve you as a friend).
I often get interesting comments on my posts, but this one was a whole other kind of interesting. This guy managed to jam a lot of meaning, emotion and suggestions into just 2 short words: 'Pedophile-joga!'.
I thought perhaps he was branding a new form of Yoga, but then i noticed another comment by the same person on my post: 'Sexual exploitation of children, intrusive in the "guru" etc etc' (google translation from the original language of the comment).


I do not want my facebook page to be a place for such discourse. A good name can take years to build and seconds to destroy. We should not be so casual about it. Its easy to spread rumors, but do we deserve anything less then the truth? and truth demands more then the phrase 'Pedophile-joga'. Such accusations should be backed up by proof - and most probably presented to the police and not on facebook. So, I proceeded to remove the comment from my wall. 
My first emotional reaction was of anger - He is talking about Gregorian Bivolaru, my Spiritual Guide, a man i know and of whose innocence I am convinced - both due to my experience with him and because i actually investigated. Further more - Grieg was actually accused of many things - and of all those accusations none are true. But Pedophilia was never one of them!!! So, my anger was, i dare say, justified. 
But then something happened. I realized that this person who posted these comments is also a human being, like me. Suddenly, despite being angry at his comments, I felt love for him. And so, I decided to send him a  feedback - why I removed the comment. 
You can see the feedback bellow (the first sentence was dictated as default from facebook, but i take full responsibility for all the typing errors - these are all mine):
I thought that was the last of it, but imagine my surprise when the person in question sent me back a message.
I must say, my heart jumped with joy. I have seen the work of people who have spread such terrible and offensive slander, but this was the first time I actually had the chance to speak with such a person directly!
The more the conversation progressed, the more intense became my curiosity to understand this person - why does he do what he do?




Yet disappointment struck. It was just starting to get interesting - I hoped he would show me some proofs of the grave accusations that he posted on my wall - but instead, he decided that he simply didn't want to talk to me, ever again.


At this point he deleted me as a friend on facebook, which closed the possibility for future communication.
I truly wished to have a debate with him - for sure it would give me a better perspective about the school I am a student in. If anything he has to say is true - it is good i find out. And if nothing of what he says is true - well, you can say that confronting lies is what makes the blade of truth be more sharp.
Yet, clearly he did not wish to debate, or present any argument or proof.
I marked for myself certain attitudes which became apparent to me in this debate with the mentioned person, manifested by him:
  • hypocrisy: he accused me of being brain washed, but he was not willing to discuss anything; he accused Natha of being a sect, but it was enough for him to find out I am a student in the school to decide that he doesn't want to have any connection with me.
  • bias: the moment i identified as a student in natha, i became 'blind', 'brainwashed' and 'sick'. though i honestly don't think i expressed any of these qualities in the discussion. Therefore, for him, its enough to be associated to this school to be bad. 
  • total disrespect of the truth: if he had cared about the truth - he would have done all he could to convince anyone that this school is dangerous, but the moment he had the chance - he just ran away. He didn't care that he didn't have any proof, he just wanted to hurt Grieg and the school.
  • cowardice: He felt very confident to post very serious accusations on Facebook, on my own wall, when he only needs to confront his own keyboard and monitor; but when he had the chance to speak about this with an actual person (though only through the virtual distance of text messages) he simply couldn't handle it. He couldn't back up the words that he used ever so carelessly.
  • An intolerance to Love: I distinctly felt that what made him run to the hills screaming was the fact that at the time I had felt a genuine state of love towards him, despite the horrible things he was doing. I think it would have been much easier for him if I had cursed him - it would have confirmed to him what he had believed about Natha. It would have made his hate flourish. But love - that took him off balance. He didn't know what to do with that, didn't know how to attack that. Here I believe is the place where truth can triumph - when it is allied with Love.
As you probably noticed, I have blacked out all mentions of the name of this person, who spread slander on my facebook wall. I did it because I want to spare him the humiliation that he might feel when his cowardice and hypocritical character (as expressed in this discussion) would be revealed. This is a kindness that I am affording him even though he didn't show even the slightest bit of minimal human decency when he accused in public a person and an entire school of pedophilia - without any proof or truth in it. I allow him to hide the shame of what he HAS ACTUALLY done, with the hope that perhaps he has had a change of heart and has reconsidered his ways.
But, if I would see him once again spreading such slander without presenting proof - I would reveal the identity of this man - so that others who are exposed to his lies would already know that he has no proof, nor even knowledge of the facts to back them up.

Wishing us all Love, Truth and Harmony
Arthur



2 comments:

  1. Beautiful post dear friend, thank you for the inspiration.
    May Love guide us :)
    Ronan

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  2. The divine truth always comes out, well done Arthur ;-)

    ReplyDelete