How to increase patience when dealing with people? I’m a soft, polite person, but at times I really lose my patience when dealing with people, closed ones, or otherwise, e.g: I have been living alone for a year now, due to work and no one knocks my door on weekend unless known. I had joined a Meditation class online in the morning & suddenly my landlord knocked for a certain thing. Ideally, he shouldn’t have knocked straightaway, I did inform him and he left. But how to avoid that wave of restlessness.
—Koyal, India
Dear Koyal,
What you are trying to learn is pure yoga: working on keeping the emotional waves (vrittis) calm and quiet. In this way, we go deeper in meditation and in daily life we live more superconsciously.
Try, then, to see every disturbance as a blessing to train your “muscle” of patience. Say, for example, “Thank you, landlord, for knocking right when I am in a meditation class.” Or to another: “Thank you for being so closed, it’s my golden opportunity.”
Just be 100% aware that this is your purpose and training right now. It’s not about who is right (“he is wrong to knock”) but about your inner evolution, which is everything. Every little victory counts.
Meditate in the morning. Pray for the ability to remain patient always, in all situations. Then, as long as you can, hold your peace and love for people, no matter what they do.
Your patience will be tested again and again, and that is good. A boxer won’t get strong and victorious by fighting weaklings but by fighting tough ones.
Once you no longer live alone, the tests may increase: living with someone else easily tests our patience to the limit. We all have to learn it.
“Patience is the shortest way to God,” Swami Kriyananda taught. Why? Because then your waves (vritti) of reaction relax, and yoga (union) is closer. Patience, then, is pure yoga, meaning pure joy, in the end.
Good luck and all the best,
Jayadev
