Gerda is walking along the path. I see her through the window. I feel my features harden. Gerda comes from Bochum and has a vacation home near us. Most of the time she comes alone. For my taste she comes much too often. This time she is not alone. She walks along the path together with her husband. I guess he was allowed to come along once again. That is unusual. Most of the time she comes alone.
Gerda is a spitfire. She has something bad to say about everyone. Of course, only if the person in question is not present. It goes without saying. Gerda knows everything, and she knows it better than anyone else. Gerda judges what she sees and hears in a fraction of a second, and her judgments may well be different one day than the next. Depending on the situation, so to speak, as it just fits best. When, as is usually the case, her words lack any substance or truth, she impresses her listeners with a resolute tone that does not tolerate any counter-opinion. A tone that says, „Whoever doesn’t understand this and whoever doesn’t have this opinion is really dumber than the police allow!“ The simple people bow to this tone and believe all the mean things she says about the others. Some go out of her way. Helplessly. They don’t know how else to escape this poison. They are all no match for her. Gerda comes here, recovers, stirs up discord between the people who live here, and leaves again in high spirits.
With me, she went over the top. She wanted to mess with me. That was four years ago. Since then I have ignored her. It is repugnant to me to be near her. If I encounter her, I pass her by in silence. Every time it is a triumph for me. Every time it is for me as if I said to her, „You see, I have not forgotten. You thought you could do it to me like you did to the others, didn’t you? You thought you could pour poison on us with impunity and get away with it. You thought that if you messed with me in your self-righteousness, there would be no consequences. Now look. Every time we see each other, I remind you of the consequences. Everything has consequences. Only most of them you do not see. But I remind you of them. I don’t want you to get away with it quietly!“ I don’t like them!
Now she walks along the path. With her husband. They both look at our property. I see how they walk, how they look and how she talks about what she sees. The property line is long and I see it through the window from the beginning. I have the urge to go out. To show myself. To show her that she can’t just secretly spill poison on us again, that I see it all and that I know it all. Everything has consequences. Everything she has to confront at some point. That’s what I want to show her. That’s what I want to tell her at this moment.
They walk past our property. He even turns around three more times. Looks at the driveway, the carport, the cars. Then they are over. I feel anger. I feel it subside again. What causes this anger? I ask myself. How can this woman cause these feelings in me? This rage, this not liking, this disliking, this triumph when we meet? I ask myself. It is the separation that Gerda creates, I answer myself. Through this separation she generates pain in me. It is the pain of separateness that collides with the inner desire for unity and the knowledge of this unity. Each of us has this desire for unity. Probably Gerda, too. And each of us cries out like a wounded calf when another inflicts this pain of separation on him through word and deed. Some cry out loudly, while others carry the pain further within themselves or perhaps no longer even consciously perceive it. Everyone is driven by this consummation of separation into the realm of fear and anger and – at worst – into the realm of hatred. – No. Not everyone, but everyone whose perception is not firmly enough grounded in the spiritual. Everyone who perceives more the material separateness than the spiritual unity.
So I answered my own questions while still standing at the window. One more time. A hundredth time. So I realized for the hundredth time how far I still have to go and how much I am still stuck in separateness. Each time the anger subsides after seeing Gerda talk about me, I know she will be my test. Every time I know that at some point I will have to stop when we meet – and that I will have to apologize. With all humility and knowing that we are all one. I know this and so the triumph is also always a brief one and a childish one when I pass her in silence. I feel then how deeply I am at the mercy of the material mind in those moments. I do not feel good then.
I am looking forward to the time when I can meet Gerda in humility. I will then be a completely new person. I am looking forward to this time and actually can hardly wait for it. But I have to wait. It will come on its own. I can do nothing to hasten his arrival. He will come and I will pass my test with friends and be so much freer than I can perhaps even imagine today.
I have to thank Gerda for giving me these insights. She is also one of my great teachers.