Q&A: Meditation

I shall tolerate the world, I shall. Only by tolerating the world shall I be able to help my mind to ascend and my heart to transcend.

When I get upset with someone who does something to me, I can't meditate the way I want to. How can I overcome this?

When you are upset, naturally you cannot tare. You cannot welcome a friend and an enemy into your house at the same time. Your enemy is your agitation and anger, and your friend is meditation. Suppose someone does something to you and you become angry with him. Even when several hours have elapsed and you have forgotten your anger, it can still pull you down. You have forgotten, but you have not forgiven. Unless you have forgiven, you have not illumined your anger. Sometimes you will quarrel with the members of your family and then go to sleep. The next morning you will find that you cannot meditate. You have totally forgotten the incident, but while you were sleeping the strength and velocity of your anger have increased. So it is always better to illumine the anger immediately.

When somebody does something wrong to you, try to feel that it is an extended part of your own consciousness that has made this deplorable mistake. Enlarge your heart and feel that it is you yourself who have done wrong. In that way you won't become upset. What you have to do is stop thinking of others and think only of perfecting yourself. That does not mean that you are ignoring the world's problems. No. Your own perfection will help others. When you achieve something, you will see that very thing in a small measure in others. Similarly, if you see something wrong in others, tomorrow you will see that very thing in yourself. And if you see something good in someone else but not in yourself, that particular thing will soon develop in you. If you see a person who is sincere and you are not sincere, just because you are conscious of his sincerity, your own inner sincerity will come to the fore. Your inner being will try to communicate with the sincerity of that particular person and, like a magnet, it will draw sincerity from that person or from the Supreme, who is the Source.

From now on, try to perfect your own nature instead of looking around to see whose imperfections are standing in your way. Pay all attention to your own self-discovery. When you have perfected yourself, you will see that everybody on earth will gain in perfection through you.