What are the repercussions of deliberately trying to hurt other people? A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi
First Words from Podcast
I grew up in a house with two boys, a grown man, my mother and me. If you’re female and you’ve grown up in a household where there’s male and female children, you know that there’s some division of labor that’s not equitable. And there are things that just happen that are related to gender differences. So when I was about 11 or 12, I was angry about something my brother had gotten away with. I didn’t feel I got away with so much. So we were driving in the car somewhere and squabbling in the back seat, and then I told my mother that my brother hit me. It was an out and out lie, and I knew it was a lie. I just wanted him to get into trouble, to get back at him. The minute I said it, I looked at him and this little flicker of hurt went through his face. I never forgot that.
Then there was another time when I was much older. My mother had a very difficult relationship with her mother. My grandmother would never let anybody cook with her. She’d even give people recipes with ingredients left out so that the recipes would flop, and so no one could really compete with her cooking. Apparently there was a lot of contention around these kinds of things with my mother and my grandmother. So I was maybe in my twenties, and I was in the kitchen cooking with my mom. She said, “Don’t you think we work well in the kitchen together?” And I was angry at her about something and so I said no. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I looked a her and saw the hurt in her whole body and her face. I never forgot that either.
