How To Handle Difficulties With PeopleFrom the mystical viewpoint, there is no such thing as difficulties with other people; the only difficulty is within ourselves. We need only to clear our own psychological confusion; then, that inner clarity enables us to handle anything coming from the outside. On the human level we may find others to be troublesome and disloyal, but, if our essential self dwells on the spiritual level, we cannot be injured. Like this:
“I suppose I’m too sensitive, but how can I prevent people from hurting my feelings.”?
“No one on earth can hurt you, unless you accept the hurt in your own mind. What if you are offered a sour apple but refuse to take it? To whom does the sourness belong? As the false sense of self falls away, so does your acceptance of the sour apples of criticism and unkindness from others. The problem is not other people; it is your reaction.”
Let’s see how increased insight changes our attitudes and, thereby, lessens our difficulties with others. Our awakened awareness reveals that nobody is really as happy as we previously thought. We see through the masks that people wear; we see how hard they work to convince themselves and others that all is well. It’s all an act, and how clearly we realize it. Their nervous social and business pursuits, and their empty amusements, no longer fool us. We know they wake up the next morning with dread of the day.
We understand all this because we have first seen through our own pretenses. They are repeating the very same wearisome stage performance that used to keep us so tired.
This completely alters our viewpoints and relations. We are no longer critical or envious. Our previous envy sprang from the illusion that others had more out of life that we, but we know better. We see them as secret sufferers, just as we used to be. Seeing this, we can no longer think or act harshly toward them. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once remarked that if we could see the concealed sorrows of others’ we would be very tender toward them.
We forgive them as we forgive ourselves. Our new gentleness toward ourselves can now extend itself freely to others.
And now we understand something for the first time, something previously blocked by pride and vanity: Love is not of the human self, but of the Supreme within us. This makes us smile for a dozen reasons; one, being that we need no longer work at love; we need only rest in the Supreme, which is love itself.
From this lofty height, various expressions of love among people, including affection, drift down.
A world of weary people yearns for affection. What a sadly needed form of love affection is, whether it be a cheery word, or an understanding nod, or a touch of the hand. Rich people would gladly give up their treasures for this precious jewel. Those with power and prestige would exchange everything for someone with whom they could experience the affectionate way of life.
Exchange of affection between two people, perhaps man and woman, is possible only when both possess the capacity. It cannot be one-sided. A person capable of giving genuine affection will also be able to receive it, for they are two parts of the single ability, just as a wave advances and recedes.
Affection grows naturally as we awaken to our true nature.
Source: “How To Handle Difficulties With People,” from Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, by Vernon HowardLove Always
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