When a Missionary Earns Respect - (2547)

Not By Talking or Writing

It is really not by talking or writing interesting or profound things that really any missionary earns the respect of others, it is through his or her behaviour in the difficult and testing times.

A missionary acting with dignity, control, trust and good will in a very stressful time is such a powerful testimony of the path that it can win the hearts of those partaking in the same circumstances.

Sometimes, even the powerfully ethical decisions and actions of a person working on him or herself can even bring others to Gnosis.

Many times we can hear that a missionary is at this or that point on the path, and taken in good faith they may well be, and that certainly inspires respect because to get there one has to have many values and has made great efforts and sacrifices all made with sincere love. However, some half mediocre half ethical reactions can easily make that respect a little sketchy or shaky.

To make things a little more confusing perhaps, to judge people on the path is as they say here in Australia: "to do your head in". Why? Because of the many erroneous concepts that we have.

Our concepts of how someone on the path should be are mostly wrong, because we are not where they are and the path is a little particular and really we can't know what is going on. We for example, may think that a person on the path should be nice, but this is not always so. It turns out that being nice does not really advance you on the path (maybe at certain points, stages and times) and not being nice does not stagnate you either.

Freeing yourself from this one concept can help a person enormously.

End (2548).