Page 35 - 102717-James Allen-Byways to Blessedness-flipbookversion_Neat

BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS 31

A man’s sympathy extends just so far as his wisdom reaches, and no further; and a man only
grows wiser as he grows tenderer and more compassionate. To narrow one’s sympathy is to
narrow one’s heart, and so to darken and embitter one’s life. To extend and broaden one’s
sympathy is to enlighten and gladden one’s life and to make plainer to others the way of light and
gladness.
To sympathise with another is to receive his being into our own, to become one with him, for
unselfish love indissolubly unites, and he whose sympathy reaches out to and embraces all
humankind and all living creatures has realised his identity and oneness with all, and
comprehends the universal Love and Law and Wisdom.
Man is shut out from Heaven and Peace and Truth only in so far as he shuts out others from his
sympathy. Where his sympathy ends his darkness and torment and turmolis begin, for to shut

others out from our love is to shut ourselves out from the blessedness of love, and to become
cramped in the dark prison of self.
“Whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his
own funeral dressed in a shroud.”

Only when one’s sympathy is unlimited is the Eternal Light of Truth revealed; only in the Love
that knows no restriction is the boundness bliss enjoyed.
Sympathy is bliss; in it is revealed the highest, purest blessedness. It is divine, for in its
reciprocal light all thought of self is lost, and there remains only the pure joy of oneness with
others, the ineffable communion of spiritual identity. Where a man ceases to sympathise he ceases
to live, ceases to see and realise and know.
One cannot truly sympathise with others until all selfish considerations concerning them are
put away, and he who does this and strives to see others as they are, strives to realise their
particular sins, temptations, and sorrows, their beliefs, opinions, and prejudices, comes at last to
see exactly where they stand in their spiritual evolution, comprehends the arc of their experience,
and knows that they cannot for the present act otherwise than they do. He sees that their thoughts
and acts are prompted by the extent of their knowledge, or their lack of knowledge, and that if
they act blindly and foolishly it is because their knowledge and experience are immature, and they

can only come to act more wisely by gradual growth into more enlightened states of mind. He also
sees that though this growth can be encouraged, helped, and stimulated by the influence of a riper
example, by seasonable words and well-timed instruction, it cannot be unnaturally forced; the
flowers of love and wisdom must have time to grow, and the barren branches of hatred and folly
cannot be all cut away at once.
Such a man finds the doorway into the inner world of those with whom he comes in contact,
and he opens it and enters in and dwells with them in the hidden and sacred sanctuary of their
being. And he finds nothing to hate, nothing to revile, nothing to condemn in that sacred place, but
something to love and tend, and, in his own heart, room only for greater pity, greater patience,
greater love.
He sees that he is one with them, that they are but another aspect of himself, that their natures
are not different from his own, except in modification and degree, but are identical with it. If they