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Our dealings with our enemy should be considered with more delicacy than our dealings with a friend. This fact is generally overlooked by man, and he deals in any way with an enemy, while he is considerate to a friend. Sometimes one insults one's enemy, spoiling thereby one's own habit, and making the enemy still more insulting. Sometimes by constantly dwelling on the faults of the enemy one impresses one's own soul with the same faults, and focuses them upon the soul of the enemy; if he lacks these faults, they may by reflection develop in him and cause him to become a still more bitter enemy.

It is as unwise to underestimate the enemy's bitterness and power to do harm as it is to overestimate them. Very often a man, blinded by his ego, fails to estimate the power of the enemy and he says, "Oh, what can he do? What do I fear?" giving way to an impulse when driven to it by the enemy. This is a defeat; keeping steadfast and calm under such circumstances is a victory. Complaining about the harm caused by the enemy is a weakness; avoiding it by taking precautions, facing it with strength and checking it with power are the things worth doing. It is wise to take advantage of the criticism made by an enemy, for it can help to correct us; and it is foolish when one laughs it off, considering oneself to be too good to be like that.

In the case of revenge, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is right when one is sure that kindness and forgiveness will have no power whatever upon the hard heart of the enemy, but on the contrary will make him worse. But so long as there is a chance of meeting the enemy's revenge by kindness the above law must not be practiced. It is better to suppress the enemy before he can rise against us; and it is right to throw him down when he has risen against us.

It is wise to be watchful of the movements of the enemy, and to safeguard oneself against them; and it is foolish to allow oneself to be watched, and to let the enemy safeguard himself against us. It is right to decrease the power of the enemy in every way possible, and to increase one's own power and make it much greater than the enemy's. It is right to know the secret of the enemy; and it is more than right to keep our secret from him.

Precautions must be taken that nobody should become our enemy; and special care must be taken to keep a friend from turning into an enemy. It is right by every means to forgive the enemy and to forget his enmity if he earnestly wishes it; and to take the first step in establishing friendship, instead of withdrawing from it and still holding in the mind the poison of the past, which is as bad as retaining an old disease in the system.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

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