Tag: Victim

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Praying for Earthquake Victims in Nepal? To whom? The one who caused it all? – 27 Apr 15

Day before yesterday, the earth shook in Nepal, not at all far from here and thousands died! While we didn’t feel the earthquake in Vrindavan, it did reach all of our surrounding, even cracking walls in houses in Mathura. Obviously, we all are shocked by the extreme loss of lives and the widespread damage. Of course, we all feel with the families of the victims. Today however I would like to write, with all respect to the good wishes that everyone feels and wants to convey, that one thing won’t help the victims at all: praying.

I know exactly what I am writing here and am aware of the fact that many of my readers won’t agree with my words. A lot of people, even if they are not religious, believe in the power of prayers. That’s how they now say they pray for the victims.

I honestly feel it doesn’t make sense. I even would call it foolish. You can do something for these people with your hands and legs, by going there and helping yourself, by collecting helping goods or volunteering your time and skills to a charity organization. You can do something with your mind, offering your thinking powers to charities or thinking of people whom you could approach for help. Or you can help with your pocket, by giving donations to a charity organization yourself. If you can do any of these, do it and it will help. Your prayers won’t.

Why not? Because you are praying to that omnipotent god who caused the earthquake and the following misery in the first place!

Without his wish, not even a leaf on a tree moves. So how can the whole earth shake without him wanting that? Oh yes, it was his wish that made whole houses break down with people inside, his wish that made snow and earth slide down the sides of mountains, burying people and whole villages underneath them and his wish that crashed the bodies of thousands of people underneath ancient buildings that were once called World Heritage Sites. His wish that made so many women widows, men widowers and children orphans.

If this all was his wish, why are you praying to this god, who is worse than a monster, wishing for such cruelty?

If you believe in god and even now pray to him, you should accept what is written about him: he is the doer and whatever he does is good. Accept all the bad he did – there is no sense in praying him to stop or even make amends!

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When Gods rape – Effect of Hindu Mythology on today’s Society – 3 Nov 14

Today is a holiday here and a big pilgrimage day in Vrindavan. In Hindu mythology, this day is when the gods awoke after a four-month-sleep. It is also the wedding day of Vishnu and Tulsi, marking the start of the wedding season here in India. I would like to take a closer look at the religious stories and its effect in today’s blog entry.

I will start with a short summary of the mythos:

There once was an evil demon called Jalandhar. He had the power to change his shape and thus could incorporate anybody he wanted. He used this power to meet women, disguised as their husband and thus cheating them into having sex with him! When the men found out and came to fight with him, nobody could ever kill him – he had such big power due to the fact that his wife Vrinda was very loyal. Yes, the loyalty of his wife saved him from the revenge of his rape victims’ husbands.

The husbands turned to Vishnu, the highest of gods, and asked him for help. Vishnu decided to use Jalandhar’s own methods to defeat him: he assumed Jalandhar’s shape and seduced the demon’s wife. Her loyalty was thus broken and her husband lost all power connected to it. Vishnu could finally kill him.

Vrinda, angry at Vishnu for cheating her this way, cursed Vishnu and turned him into a stone before jumping into the burning cremation fire of her husband, killing herself.

She was reborn as Tulsi, a holy plant, and finally the bush Tulsi and the stone Vishnu, which is called Shaligram, married.

This is the mythological story everybody knows. Let me just point out the four consequences that this fiction had on today’s culture in India which is very obviously shaped with the big influence of religion:

1. If someone rapes a woman, you can rape his wife. Your God did the same.

There are such events of people taking revenge by raping a rapist’s family members.

2. Women should be loyal and pure in order to prolong the life of their disloyal, rapist husband.

In today’s society in India, it is common that a woman should always have the image of a pure virgin while a man can be a gigolo and flirting with every girl he sees.

3. After the death of her husband, a woman should commit suicide.

This was common until about 200 years ago in India. The tradition was called Sati and it was a subject of pride to commit suicide like this, as it showed your loyalty. Raja Ram Mohan Rai ended this practice with a law but in my teenage time, we could still read about such cases in newspapers. Still today there are temples in Rajasthan where women who died in this way are worshipped.

4. A Rape Victim should marry her Rapist.

In the village courts in rural India such decisions are not uncommon even today. Both families usually agree that this is a logical consequence.

You can clearly see the situation of a woman in this culture. She has to bear rape for rape, has to do effort for her husband’s long life and protection, she even had to kill herself for her husband and finally has to marry her rapist, serving him until the end of his life.

And in the hypocrite religion of this country, they say that a woman here gets the respect of a Goddess. How can you expect me to respect this kind of religion and culture?

P.S.: To anybody having the urge to abuse me for my words here: read your scriptures first and insult those who wrote them, not me. I am just pointing out the consequences…

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What to do when you realize YOU are a full of Negativity? – 20 Nov 13

I yesterday wrote about the fact that many negative people enjoy being victims. The day before I explained how their negativity is spread easily onto others. Today I would like to write some lines exactly for these negative people – because there are a lot of people who are extremely beautiful people on the inside but who have the habit of making their own lives miserable by seeing everything in a negative light.

Okay, let’s assume you are one of these people and you have just noticed that you are too negative. Without this one realization you would have just gone on doing whatever you were doing but now you noticed it. And there are a whole lot of consequences in your thoughts and your feelings. If you can gather the willpower to make a change, this is your chance to really turn around, get out of your negativity and become a fully different person, full of positivity!

Before you reach this point however, there are definitely some not so beautiful things going on within you! First of all, when realization hits you, you think of all the situations in which you were actually much more negative that you would have needed to. You think of conversations when the other person suddenly got upset and turned away from you or when your conversation partner seemed to start talking with enthusiasm and after your reply was all miserable due to what you said. You may have noticed in that time, too, that your words had that effect but you thought it a necessary thing to say. Now you realize that it was unnecessarily negative! How many times have you shattered the plans of a friend? How many times have you sunk too far into pitying yourself so that people were even annoyed by you?

You regret. You regret a lot. A million scenes come to your mind and you feel worse than ever. You never felt that bad in your usual negative mood because you actually enjoyed being the victim! Now however you are able to take a stand a bit further away and see the effect as well. Take it all in, observe it and save it in your memory – but then get over it as well! Today is a new start and you just need to be strong with your decision to be more positive!

Start right now by thinking positively about the rest of the day and the plans for the next days. Think positively about the people whom you have met and will meet. Follow your normal routine, don’t change your actions – change your view! Change your thoughts! Change your words!

It will take some time because it is a very stubborn habit but you can change habits like that by working against them! Remember to always think positive before saying something, maybe slow your reactions down a bit to gain time not to blurt out all your doubts but instead appreciate any positive possibilities of what was said or presented to you!

Most of all, don’t give up. You will have some further instances of negativity but you can straight away apologize once you notice. Keep at it – and not only you will notice the change, your friends will notice, too! People react differently on positivity. They react positively. A whole new world opens up to you! Enjoy it!

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Everything bad happens to me! – Negative People and their Joy of being Victims – 19 Nov 13

I yesterday told you about negativity and our experiences with negative people in groups, for example at the Ashram or at workshops. I mentioned how they make others feel uncomfortable and negative as well and gave an idea for how you can deal with such problems. A friend of ours made a very comment to that: such negative people are actually not at all aware of their own negativity! They believe they are just victims of this bad world!

It is true. Their own negativity makes them blind for the fact that this is actually coming from inside themselves. Everyone knows that saying that you can either see the glass as half empty or half full. These people will always see it half empty but not even realize that it could as well be half full. They get used to this view of things and don’t realize how negative they really are.

Instead, they blame the whole world around them for being so bad to them! They fall into the role of being a victim and wonder very much how it can happen that everyone has so great lives while everything bad happens to them! Why does everyone want to attack me? Why am I not allowed to be happy like others?

They just don’t realize that they are wearing these glasses to see everything in a negative light! That’s how nobody can really help them. The only possibility to get right of their negativity is for them to change their attitude and help themselves.

Unfortunately however they often get the habit of being the victim and then enjoy getting pity. This feeling is so nice to them at some point that they don’t want to come out anymore! They go on complaining and suffering loudly in order to get more and more sympathy.

Unfortunately that doesn’t work for a long time either! Imagine having such a friend around you all the time. In the beginning you may think that he or she really has bad fate and you might pity that person. After a longer time however you will notice that they simply keep on complaining and don’t even want to try and change something! On top of that you never get the chance to say that something is going wrong in your life as well! They expect you to cry for them, not for yourself! They want your attention – for their bad luck! If they refuse to come out of their victim role, their friends soon will make distance from them and in the end, they will stand there alone.

So if you, at any point, realize that you are the one who is negative, that you are asking others for pity and that you actually enjoy being a victim, it is your call to wake up before things get worse! You value your friends, right? So start listening to them and be happy for the good things in your life! Stop pitying yourself! Stop being a victim and see that your glass, too, is half full!

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Shaming and blaming Rape Victims in a Society of sexual Purity – 14 Jan 13

In the past week I have written about sexual crimes against women in India, about the reasons, which I see in both, religion and culture, and what has to change to prevent rapes and sexual harassment in future: the attitude of men towards women. A point to start, in my opinion, is how you treat women in general and especially those who have experienced such crimes.

How come that women, who are travelling alone in a bus or in the metro, get touched inappropriately but don’t react? How come that there are millions of rape cases every year that don’t even reach to the police? The reason is the shame that our society and culture associates with this. Sex and everything related is not treated openly, not talked about, not addressed at all. Girls will even hesitate telling their mothers that a guy in the bus got too close or that a man in a crowd fondled her. They are ashamed.

This is the general way how a big part of society treats such cases: you don’t see the anger against the real wrongdoer, instead the victim feels guilty and even ashamed that this happened to her! That is not something you should talk about! In the worst case, if she was raped, her honour is gone! I have written about this before and mentioned that the expression in Hindi means ‘he robbed her honour’. This creates big problems with the Indian concept of arranged marriage – who would like to marry his son to a girl without honour? Who would buy damaged good? No, it is better to hide that event, not to let anybody know. If you go to the police, talk will spread in town, people will talk and the girl’s future will be at stake. Rather bear it in silence, don’t tell anybody and just hope you don’t get pregnant. If you do, tell everyone you are going to visit an aunty in a far-away village and go and have an illegal abortion that can even cost you your life. Rape victims facing such a future often commit suicide – we read about it in the news. They kill themselves just because of the shame that they were raped and the fear of their future.

This is how the Indian society treats victims. There is a law to hide the name and identity of rape victims. The law is probably there to protect the victims, to encourage them to file their cases anonymously but to the public, it gives another message: this is something to be ashamed of, something that has to be hidden.

Instead of understanding however that the victim need psychological help, compassion and support from the people in her surrounding, just as you would give someone who survived a bad accident, the society makes that woman a kind of outcast. A male-dominated religion and culture has thus not only raised girls in a way that makes them weak but also blames them for the crimes committed by men.

It is nothing to be very surprised about though: religions tell women that they have to cover their heads and even faces with a veil or a burqa because men could get aroused by seeing their faces and imagining a vagina. Women are told to save themselves from those who do the crime. Men are not told not to commit the crime.

Start seeing women as humans. Don’t make them cover up to protect themselves, that makes them weak. Don’t teach them that they are worth less and stop placing a woman’s honour in between her legs! We have a lot to change! The idea that women are subordinates. The thought that women are easy targets and that only they can lose their sexual purity. The hiding of crimes due to shame and lack of support. These all changes have to be made in our society if we want to stop feeling ashamed of our country whenever we look at the newspaper.

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Rapist Mentality blames Rape Victims for their Clothing and Behaviour – 8 Jan 13

I yesterday told you about the gang-rape incident in Delhi and told you about the first reactions of government politicians and other important people. Of course there was a very high number of statements of all kinds of people as to why this happened and what should be done so that it doesn’t happen again. I heard a politician say that women should not go out in evenings. Many more politicians mentioned that women should not wear provoking clothes and should take care not to go out on their own at all. One even said there should be one dress code for all women all over India.

It is ridiculous and actually quite sad that our politicians rather think of blaming the victim than the rapist. Saying that women should take care what to wear and where to go or not to go alone means that it was this girl’s fault that she got raped, not the fault of the rapists. She provoked it. I have written before about such arguments and feel that any man who thinks in this way should feel ashamed. You are a man, where is your pride? You obviously cannot control yourself when you see a beautiful woman but you give lectures to women what she should do and should not do! Why don’t you put a big lock on your pants or, if you cannot control your body parts, cut them off and throw them away. Who is the weaker one, who loses control seeing the skin of another person? Giving such an argument means you think it is normal that a woman gets raped if she wears the wrong clothes. This is the attitude of a rapist, someone who thinks the other one provoked him to his actions.

That is exactly what another popular person thinks: yesterday Asaram Bapu, a popular Indian guru who has been in the news for many other controversies in the past, gave a statement that made people stare at their TV screens in disbelief! He said in clear words: “The victim daughter is as guilty as her rapists… She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop… This could have saved her dignity and life”. It is a shocking statement which shows just by itself what kind of mentality this man has himself.

According to a recent report I read in the newspaper, 93% of rapes in India are committed by people who are known to the victim. Family members, relatives, friends, neighbours or colleagues. People whom the girl knew before and who knew the girl. Now tell me, what kind of clothes or evening activities are responsible for this? Everything just happens at home, she did not go in any dangerous environment, she did not wear anything her parents didn’t consent to. She is just paying for the fact that she is a woman and some men believe they have to prove their own power over women.

Newspaper reports tell how fathers, fathers-in-law, brothers-in-law, brothers and uncles rape not only grown women in their family but even minor children, babies! If you think it is clothes that are responsible for rape, what were these 2-year-old babies wearing which aroused you so that a man had no other possibility than raping them? Where did they go, in which bar or disco?

It has to stop that people make women and girls responsible for the crimes that they have to suffer from. It is enough to bear the rape itself, they can do well without the humiliation of people blaming them to have provoked their attackers. In my opinion, there are a lot more factors in people’s religion and culture that are to blame! I will write about these in the next days.

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Victims Trying to have Pity, unable to be Happy – 18 Apr 09

A few days ago I was writing about playing the role of the victim. Now I was writing about happiness. Sometimes I feel that many people try with force and effort to keep happiness away. Otherwise this game and the role of the victim that they are playing could not go on. They are victims and cannot show themselves happy for a long time. They have to get hurt and be sad so that they can keep their image of being a victim.

It doesn’t even end at this point, it goes further: those who play the role of a victim then expect others not to be happy either. They do not allow anybody else to be happy but want to have pity. I think in this kind of situation it can be very difficult to protect yourself from this attack of sadness and misery.

From my experience I would like to say that only love can give you the strength to protect you. I believe that if you are not protected by love it will be impossible to save your happiness. Only love can dissolve everything and only with love you can live your life with a smile.

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Sexual Abuse in Childhood – Are you a Victim? – 25 Feb 09

Yesterday I talked about people who like being victims. For them it is nice that they get pity and that people feel sorry for them. This is how they enjoy being victims. I knew a woman who claimed to do healing work. She told each third woman who came as a patient: you were sexually abused in your childhood or in your past life. This healer also told me that she was sexually abused in her childhood by her father. When she also said this about her patients, many of them said ‘No, I do not remember anything of this kind.’ But she said: ‘Maybe you do not remember it but it is like this. Maybe someone has touched you when you were a child. And that needs to be healed.’ She told to one woman that she had been abused by her babysitter but she did not believe it.

This woman’s whole idea was to make people victims. They should believe that they are victims. Then she would feel sorry for them and pity them. Of course these poor people then would need to get her treatments and attend her workshops and seminars to be healed and to receive more pity.

I do not see people like this woman as healers. I see them as confused business people who want to confuse others and want them to be victims. Like this their business can grow.

I am not saying anything about someone who has really suffered from this pain in their childhood. I have all sympathy for them and I understand their pain. Many people come to me and many women talk to me about intimate problems also share their hurt and pain of their childhood. Among all people whom I have met there were also women who told me that they think they were sexually abused. But they are not sure. Then I wonder how and why they have got this idea. Some even say that they do not exactly remember what happened, who did and when it happened but something happened. If it was not sex, then somebody touched me. But I do not remember who, when and how. I feel something was there.

I understand those who know, who suffered and who have their pain still in their memory. But I do not understand why those, who do not remember when, why and who did what, want to be a victim. It is okay, if something happened in your past and you do not remember it clearly, accept it and let it go. Do not go into this role of a victim, there is no need to do that!

I can tell one experience of myself. When I was seven or maybe eight years old the wife of my mother’s cousin, who was in that time maybe 35 years old, was guest in our home for two or three weeks. It was summer and it was very hot. It is usual in India that people lie down and sleep after lunch and daily we all lay down for a nap. This woman always took me in her arms and lay me onto her body. I exactly remember that I felt her body and I know she also touched me. And I know I enjoyed something but I was very innocent and did not know at all what sex is or what happens with the body in that time. In that age we were still playing naked on the streets. She felt my body and I felt her body. Deep inside me I felt that somehow it was not right, something was wrong. But now I can only laugh about this. Why should I become victim? Why do I need to carry this burden of thinking in this way?

I hear many times how people make such a big thing out of this. I clearly want to say that I do make a difference between people who were really victims in their childhood, went through this pain or suffered from being raped and people who have got this idea from some other person who planted this doubt into their minds. Being a victim is not a cure. It can be a tendency of behaviour and you have to be brave to leave it. You need to have the strength to step out of the role of being a victim.

Today’s food was sponsored by the praxis for Physiotherapy Heide Baser in Germany. I thank the team who gave their tips to the children to sponsor their food!

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Do you Enjoy being a Victim? – 24 Feb 09

Today I had a very interesting talk with my dear friends Roger and Mady. I was sharing some of my experiences with them. On my journeys I meet many people and as a healer I have to face many problems which are routed deeply in people’s hearts. When I analyze their problems psychologically there is always this question if they really wish to be cured.

I often meet people who come to me for healing particular issues and they tell me that they are since many years suffering from this, this and this. But many times I feel that they are not ready to leave these problems. They want to hold them and keep them because if their problem is gone, they will miss it. They do not find anything with which they could replace it. They will not have any issue. After spending some time with a problem, the problem becomes a companion and they like to keep it. After a while with this problem they like to be in the role of the victim.

They do not want to remove the label of victim. They pretend to the outer world that it is a problem but they do not make a decision to leave their problem. People who have received sympathy because of their problem will miss this sympathy because they got used to it and like it.

I am healer and I would like to give them healing in a smooth way like a sweet tablet which cures them but sometimes it is necessary to give them a bitter tablet, sometimes it is also necessary to give them an injection and sometimes it is even necessary to do surgery. And I do it because my aim is to cure and to heal them.