God is just as much in your enemy as in your closest friend…..

We’ve been busy.  We went away this weekend…back to Uniontown to a church thing at the United Christian Temple, the church our friends Susan and Galen Winebrenner pastor.  We were blessed by the fellowship and the message.  They are wonderful people. 

But I’ve fallen a bit behind in the series I was writing…

This morning while surfing about willy nilly on the web, I came upon a rather odd yoga blog…I happened upon a writing about friendship by Paramhansa Yogananda From Clarity Magazine - Winter, 2006. 

It kind of fits with what I’m writing about….by making us think about who is (or who should be) our friend.  Copy and paste of several excerpts below…

Extend the boundaries of your friendship-
True friendship is broad and inclusive. Family love is merely one of the first lessons in the Divine Teacher’s “Course in Friendliness,” intended to prepare your heart for an all-inclusive love. Extend the boundaries of your love to include your neighbors, your community, your country, and all countries.
Consider no one a stranger. Feel that the life-blood of God is circulating in the veins of all races. We are Americans or Hindus for just a few years, but we are God’s children forever. The soul cannot be confined within man-made boundaries.

The antidote to all hatred-
There are people you see each day for whom you feel no sympathy. Learn to adapt to them, and to love them. Always practice loving those who do not love you, feeling for those who do not feel for you, and being generous to those who are generous only to themselves.
To be a true friend to all, you must learn to see that God is just as much in your enemy as in your closest friend. Constant contact with the Infinite in meditation will fill you with divine love, which alone enables you to love your enemies.
The heart’s love is the antidote all hatred. If someone is broadcasting hatred to you and you are tuned to that hatred, you will receive it, but if you are tuned to love, the hateful vibrations will not touch you.
You need not fawn on your enemy, but silently be of service to him whenever he is in need. If humility and apologies on your part bring out your enemy’s good qualities, by all means apologize.
The person who can do this will have attained a certain spiritual development, for it takes character to be able to apologize graciously and sincerely. Do not, however, encourage a wrong doer by being humble and apologetic.

And the really, really hard part…..

To be a true friend to all, you must learn to see that God is just as much in your enemy as in your closest friend. Constant contact with the Infinite in meditation will fill you with divine love, which alone enables you to love your enemies.