Giving Out Honey When You Receive Poison
“Act in accordance with the counsels of the Lord: that is, rise up in such wise, and with such qualities, as to endow the body of this world with a living soul, and to bring this young child, humanity, to the stage of adulthood. So far as ye are able, ignite a candle of love in every meeting, and with tenderness rejoice and cheer ye every heart. Care for the stranger as for one of your own; show to alien souls the same loving kindness ye bestow upon your faithful friends. Should any come to blows with you, seek to be friends with him; should any stab you to the heart, be ye a healing salve unto his sores; should any taunt and mock at you, meet him with love. Should any heap his blame upon you, praise ye him; should he offer you a deadly poison, give him the choicest honey in exchange; and should he threaten your life, grant him a remedy that will heal him evermore. Should he be pain itself, be ye his medicine; should he be thorns, be ye his roses and sweet herbs. Perchance such ways and words from you will make this darksome world turn bright at last; will make this dusty earth turn heavenly, this devilish prison place become a royal palace of the Lord—so that war and strife will pass and be no more, and love and trust will pitch their tents on the summits of the world.”
Abdu’l Baha
I have spent the better part of the last two decades trying to apply this quote in my daily life with moments of success followed by a great deal of internal difficulties and failure. The purpose of this post is to share some of the lessons I am learning and hope that you too will take up this amazing challenge. The promise of the quote is world peace which is the theme of my site and we all hope for. It is coming.
Lessons Learned.
- If you take out the factor of time when dealing with this quote, you don’t have to feel so bad about not being able to do it instantly. In order to apply the quote, what you first need to be able to do is to forgive, which is the ability to let go of hurt. If I were a more advanced soul, I wouldn’t get hurt so easily, but as I am just in the process of developing, I still get hurt and still react in negative ways. The tendency of the ego, when it is hurt, is to act by either fleeing, fighting, or freezing. Mostly I feel like fighting back as if fighting back is going to evoke some kind of transformation in the other. If it worked, we could all be fascists or mobsters and the world would get to peace. It just doesn’t work. The goal is not to give back what you have received that is negative. The goal is to give back something positive when you receive negative. The first step is to process the hurt. Processing a hurt can take time. Sometimes it takes decades, but if you let go of the hurt and give back some honey after a decade, then you have created world peace. It is a big ask to expect oneself to do it instantly even though that is the end goal. When you are first trying to give back a positive, allow yourself a lot of time and space to deal with the hurt. It is OK to stay away from a person who fired you if you maintain feelings of hurt toward them because being around them while you are hurt just brings out ego patterns that are not helpful.
- How to deal with the hurt. It is my experience, and this is just one of many hundreds of methods that might work, that hurt is best dealt with as a metaphor. I don’t know why exactly. I have just had a lot of success with myself and working with others to keep hurt as a metaphor. The metaphor explains the feeling. For instance, the first time I was fired from a job, I felt like I was thrown off of cliff. I was crushed. You can see the benefit in the metaphor. It makes the feeling so much more dramatic and then allows you the extended time and space to process it. Some cultures particularly the worldwide male culture has the tendency to tell you to just get over it, but if you feel like you have been run over by a truck or pushed off a cliff or stabbed in the back, it will probably take some time.
- How do you explain the metaphor? If I felt like I was thrown off a cliff, that means that before the event (the being fired) I gave the employers a lot of power over my life. I gave them the power to make me feel negative. It was like they were the owner of my feelings, positive and negative, and whatever they did would effect them. If they were good, I was good. If they were negative, I was hurt. How did I ever allow them to have control or power over my internal state? When I understand that they are just human beings with positive and negative qualities, then, even if I do get fired not so justly, it isn’t like being thrown off a cliff. It is more expected because they are just acting human. Being thrown off the cliff means that my expectations for them were much too high.
- Once I bring them back down to earth and back into being a human, then I can begin to transform the metaphor from such a drastic negative to a positive where I have internal control. What is a metaphor that I can have that puts me in control of my own internal state? The key is in the old metaphor. What I am doing is transforming the metaphor of being thrown off a cliff and falling. What is a likely metaphor that works? What works for me is the metaphor of flying like superman to reach my positive goal. If I feel like superman inside, then when they act out of their negative egos, it doesn’t much affect me. I can give them back the opposite of what I was given. In this case I can invite them into my home and show generosity.
I am inviting you into the wonderful world of this magnificent quote. Have a go!!!
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a 
Dreams For Peace 
Reblogged this on A Dreamwork Blog and commented:
The best way to deal with opposition is to offer sweetness. This article explains what I mean by that.