Tolerance and Personal Responsibility

Spirit (Ling): Greetings. We hope that your time of recreation was pleasant…

Sitters: Yes thank you.

Spirit: Your friends all send you greetings, and wish you the best for the coming year in health and knowledge.

Sitters: Thank you very much.

Spirit: We, or should I say selected ones of us, depending on what we are interested in, have some of the time had pointed out to us, the word “Tolerance” and what it means in personal responsibility.

Now you may say, “I can’t tolerate that person”, and in thinking that, you are responsible for your own backward step, because surely you should look on that person not as “I can’t tolerate that person”, although you may feel it… but it should come into your mind, “Why?” And you may find that it is for some trivial reason.

His manners you may consider appalling, but you may find out that that particular person had no opportunity for the refinements of living. I think you have an expression that perhaps would be appropriate here, that says, “He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth”… but that man was not! So you, instead of condemning this person, and yourself indirectly, should try and bring understanding and tolerance, into your thinking.

Another example could be with your neighbour, whether you live in a house or a flat… the noise of their TV, that box that many people are fixed to, or their radio, it’s so loud!  Instead of being intolerant and thumping on his door and perhaps being aggressive, it may be more tolerant if you made a few enquiries, and it would be a humbling thing to find that the rest of the family has to put up with that noise, because one member is very deaf, and it means a lot to them to hear anything! This of course may not be the case, but it is examples that you should think on, before you are condemning, before you are intolerant. The fault may be not theirs, it may be yours and after all you are responsible for your own thinking!

This was pointed out to us because many of us, (we’re not angels over here and we too become intolerant), we wonder why do people on earth behave in the manner they do, why won’t they listen to us, why do they reject us, and I don’t necessarily mean us personally, but in many cases, the people who give them the messages from us – and then they may accept a lot of miscellaneous rubbish, from others?

So we ourselves must learn to be tolerant and realise that with our teaching, to have it absorbed into the minds of people, must take a long time. We must be tolerant and remember that we ourselves have not suddenly acquired this knowledge. It has come to us over a long period of time and I’m speaking of hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, and we have to wait with our teaching ‘till people are ready to receive, the same as you must… so we must be tolerant and not condemn.

So there are two things we hope you may have learnt from this small talk tonight. One is to understand the word ‘tolerance’ and how you should make use of it, and the other is that it is your responsibility, your reactions to the word.

God bless you and give you understanding.

Goodnight.