Rules Of Self Defense: Compared to Hope, Faith & Love

Rules Of Self Defense Are A Contradiction

You may think it's a contradiction that there are rules of self-defence because when you are defending yourself the rule book should get thrown away. And you would be correct for the most part but the rules are not what you think.

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Consider Hope for example:

Hope, I think is the most marvellous word in the English language.

There is a story of a young minister who was visiting an elderly woman on her 99th birthday.

They talked at length about her long life and at the end of the visit, the young minister said " I hope I am able to do this with you again on your 100th birthday.

The sprightly 99-year-old replied, " I don't see why not a young man ....you look healthy enough to me."

Hope springs eternal.

Sometimes we look at our lives and think "What a disaster".

There certainly has been no shortage of terrible times in my life.

I remember during one of the most terrible times in my life. A friend of mine put me on to a book called "The Power of Positive Thinking".

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The Author quotes Isaiah chapter 40:31:
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint.

This verse was the start of my journey to learn all about hope and it was hope that got me through that year and many others.

People Need Hope

So many throughout the world turn to religion in one form or other?

Some in this country (Australia) and in fact through most of the western world, would like to convince you that religion is dying and that most of the world doesn't believe in anything.

Don't let anyone fool you. It is not true.

The facts are that more people are turning to religion than ever before.

Why?

Because people need hope and the human condition continues to let us down. Believing in nothing leads to nothing.

The thing I have learned most about hope is that it does not exist in isolation. Hope is intrinsically intertwined with faith and love.

What does Hope have to do with Self Defense?

One might think that this is a funny thing to talk about in relation to Self defence. But consider this, Self defence is most effective when we have three things, Faith Hope and Love. With these three things together all obstacles can be overcome. Effectively these become the rules of self-defence.

You need to have the courage to look after yourself in a dangerous situation.

But how do you get courage?

One way is to practice for particular situations. But what if that situation is never exactly what you practised for? You had better hope that you had learned the principals of what you had been practising so that you can come up with a creative application in that situation. Faith, Hope and Love is just such a principle.

You may have heard stories about people running into burning houses to save others or doing things in a war to save lives that they wouldn't do normally.

People call that courage. But it can also be called Love and if you look hard enough where there is Love you will always find Hope and where there is hope you will find Faith.

Let me explain that: to have the kind of Love that I have just talked about, one has to have hope because no one does an act of courage if they think a situation hopeless. And to enter into such an act of love you have to have

faith. Because you have to Believe (have faith) that a thing is possible in order to commit to it.

To be a true Master of Self-defense you have to have Hope and that requires you to have Faith and Love as well.

Hope gives you the ability to look for the most effective response when you are defending yourself or others because it allows you to believe (Faith) that there is an effective response in your situation. And Love for those you are protective gives you the courage to enact that response.

Who'd of thought the rules of self-defence could be so corny?

Enjoy
    Sensai
        Richard