Tolerance by Samael Aun Weor

The phrase, “Do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you,” could be translated thus: “Become conscious of others and yourself.” So accordingly, if one does not put himself in his neighbors’ place he fails totally and will therefore neither Love nor understand anybody. But in order to put ourselves in another’s place and understand their point of view, we must reject our self-esteem.

This “I” must be eliminated if we truly want to understand another’s point of view. Normally, nobody sees another’s point of view, because we all live so dominated by the “I” of self-esteem and are incapable of putting ourselves in their place.

We are incapable of truly comprehending until we kill the “I” of self-esteem. This would be a big essential step forward. All these psychic elements personifying arrogance, intolerance and superiority must be destroyed in order for us to make progress towards awakening.

For example, arrogance makes us feel superior to other people. In reality, however, it only makes us behave like despots. An arrogant person can never feel Love for another. Therefore he cannot awaken. How can he, if he is arrogant?

What can we say about the “I” of superiority? Why do we feel so superior, high and mighty, so important in front of others. Why, when we are in fact only miserable worms in the mud of the earth.

Superiority is another obstacle to awakening. Superiority breeds intolerance, and intolerance breeds criticism. The critic sees many defects in others and fails to see any in himself. He is therefore blind to his own faults. So it is obvious that only when one puts oneself in another’s place, and sees with their point of view, can the individual develop and learn tolerance towards others. The result of tolerance is then the disappearance and eradication of criticism.

Therefore, it is essential to learn how to place ourselves in other points of view. We criticize a person who has robbed, but can we be sure we have never stolen from another? Can we honestly say we have never committed a theft?

Somebody commits adultery, and we criticize again. How can we be sure that never in our life we have not done the same thing? Then again, we see someone guilty of a particular defect, and criticize once more. How can we be certain that we also are not guilty of the same defect?

However, when one develops tolerance, the destructive criticism within us disappears and the Psychological and destructive “I” is destroyed. So this is what we need to do. Develop tolerance within, allowing the natural annihilation of intolerance to eventuate.

As tolerance develops, intolerance is destroyed. This is very clear in the most complete sense of the word. If for just an instant we could exchange our personality with our neighbor, we would be amazed to discover just how much we criticize him. Then with the experience of changed personalities we would learn not to criticize.

(Snagged from a post by a moderator at GnosticTeachings.com who also uses the name Chela. No relation! Thanks Chela for this wonderful morsel.)