Whose Blindness -- Whose Opinion?
By The Pathwork Guide
Greetings, my dear friends. God bless all of you. You all seek the kingom of God, the kingdom of love. Yet you encounter innumerable difficulties, difficultieswith other human beings, despite the fact that you are so full of good will and that you are awaref the basic spiritual truths and of the importance of love. These obstacles arise from your own blindness in which you are encased and from your lack of understanding of the blindness of others. This blindness of otehrs hurts you, while in your own blindness you are so unaware of how much and howoften you hurt the other person. If you can keep this in mind, my dear ones, it will constitute the necessary platform, the basic stepping stone forproceeding further.
With that in mind you will be aware of the danger whereby your own blindness (not the other one's) keeps you in your misery, in your hurt about a realor imaginedinjustice. True, something may seem or may even be unjust. But you will regard it differently when you realize what I am saying here. Whenever you sufefr because of other people, the others are no more blind than you are yourself-- and often even less. Understanding this, you msy begin to lookinto where your blindness is. You always make the mistake of battling against the other's blindness and lack of understanding, instead of trying to eliminate your own. This does not occur to you because you "see" your own case so "clearly"and continue to strengthen it by thinking in reverse. Bearing this in mind,you will automatically cultivate
an objectivity. This is one of the fundamental requirements for unselfishness and the capacity to love.
However, the more you concentrate on how you have been hurt, the more difficult it will be for you to leave out your own little ego and see the other person's point of view; and the more difficult it will be for you to accept that which you cannot alter. And the more you battle against all that which you cannot change -- which is everything and everybody except yourself -- the unhappier you will become. Thuis must follow, whether or not you find an outlet in a real or supposed wrong done to you.
The unhappier you become because of other people's wrongdoing, the less do you accept that which you cannot change. That does not mean that you should accept a wrong in a sick and masochistic way: in wanting to be tortured or wronged just to satisfy your guilt fbeelings. Accept it rather in a healthy attitude of realizing that the wrong of another person can never do you any harm in reality; but only as long as you prevail in the wrong attitude.
Every crisis, every breakdown, is the result of a basic wrong attitude. There never beed be a breakdown if the attitude is changed in time. If you truly want to realizze this all-important truth, you can protect yourself from all happenings, such as a crisis or a breakdown. It is never the outer circumstance that leads to it, but your wrong attitude to such happenings. In reality and in principle a breakdown is a childish temper tantrum in a stronger degree, but the basic attitude is the same. I discussed temper tanrtrums last time, in connection with one of the fundamental vicious circles in the human being. When a breakdown occurs, the subcosncious says: "you cannot do this to me; it is too much. I will be well again if the circumstances I abhor will change to my liking." This, my friends, is realy and truly what it amounts to. But this is the wrong attitude. Selfwill prevails to a strong degree when this emotional climate exists. The right attitude would be to turn about inwardly and to
An entity going from one incarnation into another with this wrong attitude in which selfwill and self-pity prevail, tries to force the world to his own liking. When this cannot be done by power, other means are sought, such as sickness or a breakdown. Such an entity violates his own soul currents to such an extent that, finally, in the incarnation in which this attitude culminates, a predestination toward insanity will be the result. This is one of the basic reasons for insanity. I do not say it is the only one, but I might add that allmother conditions creating insanity are, to some degree at least, connected with the condition cited here. We wish that this truth about the background of insanity would be more fully recognized in your world.