Physiotherapy Regina

                                               Entitlement to our history is a source for evil

                                                            Author: Mohammed Nazari

I was born in Iran. Iranian often take big pride in our old history. Often we prefer to call ourselves as Persian versus Iranian. After all Persia is known as an old emperor while Iran is known for trying to develop nuclear bomb and a trouble maker.

Sometime ago along with Donna, a Canadian friend of mine, on Youtube.com, we were watching a documentary on old Persian empire and the wars they had with Greek empire. This is going back to 2500 years ago. These two emperor had many wars back and forth, destroying and burning each others countries trying to take control of one another.

As I was watching this documentary when I saw the Persian emperor winning, I kind of felt proud and was ok with the crime they did to the Greek. However as the documentary continued it reached a point where the Greek were winning and destroying the Persian empire. Donna turned back and said: "look the Greek kicked your ass". At this time I took things more personal, getting mad to the extent that I thought I should go to this very good Greek friend of mine, James, and kick his ass for what the Greek did to Persian 2500 years ago. Forgetting what Persian did to the Greek in the first place and the fact that this goes back 2500 years ago and it has nothing to do with me and James.

I believe one main reason that I felt that way was that when watching this documentary

1. I felt more Persian and

2. to top it up, Donna called me Persian as well, attaching me to the 2500 years prior Persian emperor.

What happened 2500 years ago, victories or defeats, good or bad, pride or shame and so on, has nothing to do with me. I should not have felt any connection nor others should have connected me to my past. In another word:

Entitlement to our ancestors history is a BAD thing, since at the same time we have to carry the shame of their failures, while we have had no role in either.

This will result in being attached and stuck to the past, stopping us from being free and improving.

As a matter of fact most of wars, discrimination and prejudice is simply due to this simple mistake of entitlement and attaching our self to our past and/or others to their past that has nothing to do with us or them.

Although we do get affected, learn and taught from our past we should not attach our self or others to the past generations. Letting our self and others to be free and open minded.

I did watch the same documentary at a different time, this time all by myself and practiced what I preach in here, not thinking of myself as a Persian nor Iranian but as an outsider, someone who was born in Iran as luck and not a choice. While I am not proud nor ashamed of it, it is simply what it is.

This time I did not get too excited either way, when the Persian won nor when they got defeated by the Greek. I felt rather peaceful. I never felt that I should beat the crap out of my Greek friend, James, anymore. And as a matter of fact I saw a lot of details that I never saw the first time, simply because the first time I was opinionated and wanted to see what I wanted to see and took things rather personal.

 It is amazing how peaceful, rational and non judgmental one can be when there is no emotional attachment.

Please read my other blog "Who are you" and the difference between "Inherited versus Acquired identity".

I strongly believe a good portion of all HATE between the countries, nations, religions, ethnicities and so on will be eliminated simply by understanding this concept.

It is ignorant when:

1. We judge, like or dislike others for their past generations history or any other out of their control factors or

2. When we take pride or feel ashamed of our self for our past generations history or any other out of our control factors.