On the Qualities of Human Friends

 

 

"It is our duty to give love to all, even to those who tend to disappoint us. Love that is not given freely is not true, Divine love. Through such perfect Divine love you will be able to change the heart of your friend. Pure love always conquers in the end. It transforms the hearts of others as well as the heart of the giver."
(Swami Sri Chidananda)

 

     

On the Qualities of Human Friends

 

Hari AUM

Greetings and Salutations to all.

Some months ago I started a process of selecting a few young people for a group discussion on relationships. My only selection criterion for inclusion was a humanistic sensitivity because that is fertile ground for the development of empathy, which is really the source of our shared humanity as lived out in relationships and in our general attitude towards the world.

Finally the group of eight was able to agree on a date and the gathering took place recently. The average age was 27 and by agreement this was an all-female group. What follows is an account of this three hour gathering which had the goal to review within a spiritual context, the qualities of humanistic sensitivity, empathy, care, respect, and honor in personal relationships. By all means a weighty agenda. And although this group focused more on opposite gender relationships it should go without saying that significant relationships have no limitations of age or gender, etc.

As one might imagine, the group started with a general lament about the sad state of dating, the difficulty in meeting people, the poor quality of the people one meets and the miserable relationships that inevitably seem to ensue. This was followed by some initial male-bashing which evolved into self-bashing rooted in the inability of the members to properly identify the qualities meaningful relationships should be based upon.

The women noted how easy they can become lonely, at which point they might be more likely to pursue the first or only available option without much further reflection or subsequent observation. They also noted their lack of power to take relevant action when it becomes clear things are going wrong, because at the time they are content to be with someone, anyone, at least for the time being, despite knowing the inevitable unsatisfactory outcome and its regression on the path towards humanity.

Why we seek the company of others at the time we do is something everybody should investigate because that tells us a lot about our beings, although that is a huge subject area and not the focus of this writing. These women all possess the quality of humanistic sensitivity and they are all of a self-investigative nature. To them, relationships should ideally have significance and be helpful for the advancement of their humanity and so also for humanity as a whole. In other words, relationships should be about living, which is what they seek and strive for. Relationships should not be about those people helping us towards a slow death by aiding our avoidance to develop our humanity, more often than not for their own selfish reasons of avoidance.

The qualities of humanistic sensitivity, empathy, care, respect, and honor in personal relationships are better understood once one can get past the dictionary definitions and consider them in a more spiritual context. Let's look at them that way for a while. Keep in mind that the presence of one quality is only verified by the presence of the succeeding quality, and that if one quality is missing the entire pyramid falls apart.

Humanistic sensitivity is more easily identified by the absence of its antithesis, selfishness. People who are all about themselves more so than they are for others exemplify selfishness and lack humanistic sensitivity. The tricky part for the group was that some people see in one a means to satisfy their own selfishness and so may appear to be unselfish. One can easily be fooled. The clue to unraveling this is to look for the presence of the quality of empathy, which can be expressed like this:

"You know, like you I am human. I suffer just like you and screw up just like you. Our joys and sorrows are very much the same and I understand how hard it is for you because it is hard for me too since we share this human condition which is largely composed of self-created suffering. We are more similar than different. I understand all this because I live it, and I recognize that you live life just as I do, and so I can say, because we have this shared humanity, that I have a reliable insight into your experience of what it feels like to be human."

While disagreements and misunderstandings are commonplace in all relationships, once you find yourself misunderstood more often than not and the situation does not improve over time, it is probably not a suitable relationship, and while the statement of empathy by itself indicates an understanding of the concept, it is of course not enough. True empathy is only given life when it naturally creates care, and care is expressed as something like this:

"Since I know how it feels to suffer and I know you suffer in the same way, I care as deeply for your condition as I do for mine, and I will do whatever it takes to make things better for you, for me, and for the world since that is our mutual goal."

But how do we know the expression of care has validity? People can care largely because such caring takes care of their own needs more than their caring takes care of you. Well, we will know because true care is only given life when it is practiced with respect, and respect can be expressed as something like this:

"I understand that we are individual beings and that we have different lives, different views, and different ways we live our lives. I respect that and I am at peace with that. I am not going to tell you what to do or try to change you in any way – change is something we do by ourselves, something we have to learn and discover for ourselves, and in the end we have to change by our own understanding and volition. There is something permanent and meaningful in what is self-taught. I understand that we are both doing the best that we are capable of, given who and what we are and what we know. By agreeing to work together on making things better by means of our association and interaction we can be of tremendous help to each other without intruding on each other's individual paths."

Again, while the statement indicates a willingness to become co-workers against life's suffering and may also even indicate the beginning of a potential friendship, while significant, by itself is not enough.

If one has humanistic sensitivity which creates empathy, and such empathy creates mutual care, and there is respect, what follows naturally on these is the quality of honor, and honor, like charity, begins at home. First we have to honor ourselves before we can have honor for others. We can express honor as something like this:

"I honor myself, my humanity and my values created and developed by the qualities of humanistic sensitivity, empathy, care, and respect, specifically as practiced in personal relationships. In the same way I honor your being as it exists as an individual entity, and as it exists in my consciousness. In other words, I honor the you in you and the you in me. I further recognize the Gestalt-like entity we have created because of our association and interaction – that which we call 'our relationship' - and I honor that as well. I will not in any way knowingly or deliberately bring harm to you as individual in the world, or to that you existing within my consciousness. Nor will I bring harm to me or to our relationship simply because I have become incapable of doing so."

If one can attain to this level in a personal relationship then the relationship is significant and worthy. Then, in the presence of another human, we have no need for fear or mistrust, no need for shame or embarrassment, no need for lying, cheating, omission or deception, simply because we have nothing we would want to hide. On the contrary, we have a desire to expose those things that make us want to hide so that they can be brought to light and together with your friend, resolve them. We have then become our true selves in the presence of another human being, and becoming who we truly are is the goal we are all trying to achieve, especially those individuals initially having humanistic sensitivity.

Friends who have and share these qualities create in one another an openness of being we can take with us into the world. People not having these qualities lead us down the path of samsara - a perpetual cycle of developmental insignificance resulting in stagnation and experienced as being stuck in a bad place.

In my opinion, other than perhaps self-inquiry, friends possessing these humanistic qualities are the most significant evolutionary opportunity provided to us. And as we know, such friends are extremely rare. To become prepared for when they show up in your life, and to then recognize them is perhaps some of the most auspicious skills we can work on.

I am confident that in the southern Maine area, there are eight women who are today more suited to these tasks. May you be so suited as well.

 

And how should we deal with non-significant relationships since these make up the vast majority of our relationships in the world?

For the most part, develop an orientation of empathy and care to all people, regardless. Treat all beings with respect. With non-significant relationships there is not an overt agreement to work together towards the evolution of the participants to the extent there is with significant relationships, though there is always that potential, which should be respected. Honor all beings. Although with significant relationships, there is a greatly significant Gestalt-like entity produced in the relationship as the participants openly interact and associate. With non-significant relationships that entity is trivial though it has the potential to grow into significance. Honor that potential as well.

 

As always, the kindest of my thoughts and the most gentle of my blessings extend to you all.

Namaste.

 

 

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