17. *Feel grateful to your enemies too!*

People ask me, 'Swamiji, how can we feel gratitude towards our enemies?'

I ask you, why not? Your so-called enemies are responsible for making you stronger. They are a challenge to you; they make you grow. By hurting you, they show you a different perspective of life to deal with. Why not then feel gratitude towards them?

After all, you want to grow, do you not? Every moment, you want to become more intelligent, do you not? If these people did not open up opportunities for you, you would be living deluded by only friends surrounding you. That is not going to help much. You need to get roughed out; only then you will rupture and intelligence will flower.

The seed has to rupture for the tree to grow. If the seed is happy remaining a seed, it will simply disintegrate with time and die, that's all. No transformation will happen to it.

When it comes to so-called enmity, an ordinary man will make it look ugly. He will take it to a point where everything becomes a vicious cycle, moving from hatred to hatred. In so many families, there are feuds. It becomes ugly and too much to deal with. Why? It is you who have allowed it to grow in that way. You did not function with deep awareness and intelligence. You were not functioning with fulfillment and so you allowed it to grow in an ugly fashion.

If you were functioning with fulfillment, you would not have been able to see any space for the enmity to grow. It will be an unknown language to you. Even if the other person wants to continue the enmity, you will not feel any hatred towards him. If he wants to end the relationship, you will end it only with gratitude again!

In so many families, people don't look each other in the eye or they actually even take pains to avoid each other in public places. Why all these unnecessary things? Why are you wasting your energy in these kinds of things? Never allow hatred to consume you. Look at it with deep awareness and intelligence. Hatred will disappear and only love and gratitude will remain.