From Rodney Collin:

We are connected with everyone we have met or talked to or felt, because we have given them part of ourselves.

Whatever is strongest affects whatever is weakest. A crowd can be on the verge of panic and one strong person, by projecting confidence, can stop it. In a group of people who are trying to work one person can raise the whole level.

If we are honest, truthful and sincere with ourselves we will be the same with other people and something of that they will feel. Some day they will recognize it.

To be ourselves we must give attention, give interest, give whatever we can at every moment. Then we are ourselves, we have being.

Friendship and Right Action

Friendship means being alert to the needs of one’s neighbour and ready to help him. To say: ‘What can I do for my neighbour?’ is to think of oneself. To be, alert, open, loving, is all that is necessary. Then one will act rightly without trying to do right. To be oneself is to obey one’s conscience. Conscience is our alarm clock.

We can meet everyone, but it does not mean that we must invite everybody to live in our house. We must help people with pure feeling, but it does not mean that we must be sympathetic. Nobody grows by apparent kindness, for that makes people weak. Real kindness is when we push people upwards.

We must be alert all the time. If a person cannot digest more knowledge it is no use giving him any more. But if the next person is hungry we must give him what he needs. When we want to give someone an idea we must know how prepared he is. If we are going to plant a seed we must know if the land is fertilized or not. If it is not, we have to fertilize it first. 

We see someone pass; we must give him understanding. It is easy enough to give him money or an old coat. Desire to help others grows by seeing their need. When we really see their need, then we cannot but long to help. We must work to be attuned to others.

Love is the only power that can make help real. 

People do not understand each other. They do not see that they are all the same, all passing through the same difficulties, problems, diseases. Nobody is any better, nobody is any worse… If we respect others they will respect us, if we understand others they will understand us.

The Work of Harmony

We must all work, work with love, work with harmony. But it has to be real harmony, not just words, not by preaching but by action.

When we understand that we have to help other people, give to other people, then we are safe, for we are already stamped with what we have to be. The divine in us wants to become what it is supposed to be. The divine in us realizes itself in wanting to help others, and this is love.

To be awake enough to give attention to the person we are talking to, this is the work. So often we notice only our own reactions; this is sleep. To be awake means to be aware of ourselves in others.

From The Mirror of Light, published in 1955 from the writings of Rodney Collin, a student of P. D. Ouspensky, https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Light-Rodney-Collin/dp/132697646X

See also FourthWayToday.org articles on external consideration as a way to work with others: https://fourthwaytoday.org/podcast/1454/