Question: How can we see the divine in another human being when each human being has so many faults?

Sri Chinmoy: Since you would like to see the divine in others, you have already covered half the distance. Some people do not want to see the divine in others. On the contrary, they want to see only the undivine in others so that they can criticise and ridicule. But when you become a sincere seeker, at that time you try to see the divine in others in spite of their limitations. By seeing someone's limitations, we only delay our own progress. And, at the same time, we do not help the other person in any way. If we find fault with somebody, his undivine qualities are not going to disappear, nor are ours going to decrease. On the contrary, his undivine qualities will come to the fore in his defence, and our pride, arrogance and feeling of superiority will also come to the fore. But by seeing the divine in someone we expedite our progress and help the other person to establish his own life of reality on something divine.

In the spiritual life, we have to see others with the heart of a lover and not with the eye of a critic. Each individual knows his own limitations, but still he should think primarily of his divine possibilities and divine potentialities. By constantly thinking of his divine potentialities, by focusing his attention on his divine possibilities, he is able to enter into the realm of fulfilling reality.

To see the divine in others, we have to love. Where love is thick, faults are thin. If you really love someone, then it is difficult to find fault with him. His faults seem negligible, for love means oneness. This oneness comes from our conscious acceptance of his reality as it is. A mother, in spite of knowing her child’s countless limitations, does not stop loving him, because she has established her oneness with him. If there is imperfection in the child, the mother claims this imperfection as her very own. And when the child grows up, he feels that his mother’s weaknesses are his own.

If you find it difficult to love the human in someone, then love the divine in him. The divine in him is God. Just because you are a seeker, you know that God exists in that person just as God exists in your own life. Even if it is difficult to love the human as such, for you to love God is extremely easy because you know that God is divine and perfect. So each time you look at an individual, if you can become consciously aware of God's existence in him, then you cannot consciously be disturbed by his imperfections or limitations.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Fifty Freedom-Boats to One Golden Shore, part 4, Agni Press, 1974
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