THE MIRACLE OF NOT GETTING AGITATED
Balanced Reaction
IF you react to something by getting worked up, agitated and angry, the result will be negative. If you happen to face something very difficult—say for example somebody’s harsh words—and, not allowing yourself to lose your balance, you reply without getting provoked, the result will be nothing short of miraculous. The outcome will be completely favourable. This is because if you react by getting angry, it will provoke the ego of the person you are reacting to. He will unnecessarily become your enemy. In contrast, if you reply in a balanced manner, it awakens the other person’s conscience, and then you will be able to relate with each other in a natural way. Every person, you must remember, is your friend—real or potential. It is your behaviour that leads to this friendship remaining intact or turning the other person into an enemy.
Consider in this regard a historical example. In the 13th century CE, the Mongols attacked the Abbasid Sultanate. From Samarkand in the East to Aleppo in the West, they captured a vast stretch of the territory that formed a part of the Muslim Sultanate. But a few years later, something miraculous happened—the majority of the Mongol tribes accepted Islam. Once enemies of Islam, they became its followers. The noted historian Thomas Walker Arnold (1864-1930) researched this subject. In a chapter titled ‘Spread of Islam Among the Mongols’ in his well-known book The Preaching of Islam, he writes:
Tuqluq Timur Khan (1347-1363) is said to have owed his conversion to a holy man from Bukhara, by the name Shaykh Jamal al-Din. This Shaykh, in company with a number of travellers, had unwittingly trespassed on the game-preserves of the prince, who ordered them to be bound hand and foot and brought before him. In reply to his angry question how they had dared interfere with his hunting, the Shaykh pleaded that they were strangers and were quite unaware that they were trespassing on forbidden ground. Learning that they were Persians, the prince said that a dog was worth more than a Persian. “Yes,” replied the Shaykh, “if we had not the true faith, we should indeed be worse than the dogs.”
If you reply in a balanced manner, it awakens the other person’s conscience, and then you will be able to relate with each other in a natural way.
Dedication
Dedicate yourself totally for the attainment of a
goal. If any thought comes to your mind as may
distract you from the goal, fight it.