Friends

Are there people you are consciously turning away from ?

I thought of a Rumi teaching this morning when I contemplated on friendship. Many of my relationships have changed and  there are people I used to be with a lot,  who nowadays I have not even spoken to in a long time.

Others, who I wasn’t very close to, moved into my life. Less and less I feel the need – or even the impulse – to seek out the company of people with the ‘sour and bitter faces.’ That does not mean I turn them away of course, but I cannot help to  register the demeanor, the negative energy and in particular this obsessive  and all-consuming being in love with their own, fabricated false self, that is sprawling like the rampant growth of a parasite on a tree, taking away all the light and life, so it suffocates and dies off.

Rumi notices 5 characters in such a companion:

• stone hearted
• unsure of every step
• lazy
• disinterested
• keeping a poisonous face

And what is more is that I have to be on the constant look-out for these attributes in myself. It is attitudes, affective states of the egoic mind to hold on to compensatory patterns. To be in defense and in denial causes the heart to turn into stone. Fear makes me lazy, uninterested and unsure of every step. And I turn bitter and sarcastic, full of envy or self-pity, hating myself by hating the other. Do you think you are over it already ? Well, observe yourself….

There is a difference turning away from the need of others, even if they are bitter and unpleasant to be with, and not giving them anymore the energy of my attention, so that they can continue in their ways of brooding gloom and acid lament.

And it is vitally important to check the intent on this one, because  it is so easy to turn into the god-awful companion myself.

sour food improves the mood !