When is inaction is not an option? Sometimes we are faced with situations or people that/who have violated our rights or other people’s rights and we are aware of it. It may feel it is easier to let nature take its course or allow Brahman to take care of it for us. Also, we contemplate that ‘action’ may require getting out of our comfort zone, commitment, perseverance, and sometimes a great deal of time and money too. We may also talk ourselves into justifying the inaction as that keeps us in the comfort zone.
Listening to my intuition has worked for me. When I know that inaction may cause harm to others as well – time to act. Sometimes inaction may encourage the perpetrator to take us as weak and encourage them to continue this encroachment or injustice. If rules are broken, and we have the ability and option to take some action – we must follow through. It is easier let the fear of failure or rejection stop us from action. It is important to understand that regardless of the outcome action must be taken if it pertains to dharma and/or principles. I do my best to seek counsel and support from all I need and follow through with the necessary action.
In one case, our neighbor sued us for $1000 for trimming a tree that he claimed was in his property and ruined his privacy. However, the tree was at the fence line. He also claimed that he had done a survey and that the fence was in his yard but declined from sharing the survey. My guts said otherwise. The PGE folks have been asking for our permission when they needed to trim trees that looked like they were in their yard. Getting a survey done would cost us almost $4000. He expected that he would flex his muscles and yell at us and we will bow down. I insisted we do the survey and not just pay him $1000. Guess what, after we did the survey we found out that not only was his second fence and dog-run was in our yard, five feet beyond his 2nd fence was within our property. The fight we had to put up was rather grueling and tense as police had to called and stay on stand by while we took down the fence and built a fence on the property line. He pushed the construction workers and my husband and flinging many racial slurs at us. He also came very close to pushing me but I stood my ground and warned this 6 foot 7inches, ex -football-linebacker to not come any closer and also called the sheriff. What he did not know was that we had video camera documenting the incidents. Although we ended up spending a bunch on the lawsuit and building our own fence, it was worth it. Needless to say, he knows he cannot extort from us or harass us and would have to think twice before he did any such tactic on others. When I created an awareness in the neighborhood of what we had to deal with, it was interesting to find out that he has been doing similar tactics on others and many had given in to him in exchange for temporary peace.