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There are many stories of spiritual
masters embracing the presence of an annoying student in their community.
There is even one story that documents a teacher paying an irritating
person to live among his students. From an everyday perspective, this is
difficult to comprehend. We generally work hard to avoid people and
things that we find annoying, so they don’t bother us.
From a deeper spiritual perspective,
however, irritation can be an important teacher and indicator that we are
making progress on our path. Being able to remain centered and awake even
when we feel uncomfortable is much more impressive than doing so in an
environment where everything is to our liking. No matter how good we are
at controlling our circumstances, there will always be factors and people
that we cannot control. How we respond to these experiences determines
the quality of our lives. The goal of spiritual development is not to
learn to control our environment — which is more of an ego-driven desire.
And while having some measure of control over our external reality is
important, it is when we are confronted with a person or situation that
irritates us, and we choose not to react that we know have made progress
spiritually. When we master our internal reality, we will become the
masters of our lives.
The more we try to eliminate
annoyances, instead of learning to handle them gracefully, the further we
get from developing the qualities that come with spiritual growth, such
as patience, tolerance, and acceptance. It is often in the presence of
people and experiences we find annoying that we have an opportunity to
develop these qualities. Fortunately for most of us, our lives offer an
abundance of opportunities to practice and cultivate these traits.
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