So your annoying neighbor is Divine ...

Now what?

It's easy to say someone is Divine. It's much harder to act that way, in a way that respects both the divinity of the neighbor and yourself. Especially when everything they do irritates you. So how do we handle this?

First we need to examine our own feelings. How do we feel towards this person? The more angry we are, the more careful we have to be. While there's nothing wrong with appropriate anger (indeed, it's better to admit you're angry than it is to try and deny one's own feelings), having a right to be angry does not mean a right to act on that anger. And it certainly does not let someone act in whatever way they wish. Anger is not an excuse for action.

Now we need to think about what is appropriate. It is appropriate to try to get a person to stop behaving in a way that interferes with our own Divinity. There's nothing immoral about calling the cops on someone that's playing loud music at 3AM and keeping one from sleeping. There's also nothing wrong about going over and asking yourself. There is something wrong with going over to pick a fight with someone because the music's loud, however.

The other person is Divine. They have a right to their own desires and their own space, and we cannot wish them (or at least not profitably) to be other than they are. Instead, we need to see them as they are and accept that, even if what they are to us is supremely annoying. And while we have a right to protect ourselves from being transgressed upon, so must we also make certain we are not in our anger transgressing. We can do anything reasonable to try and create peace between us. We can wish the person far away and happy. But we cannot take matters into our hands to get revenge for slights, imagined or real.

Remember, what we do, we do to ourselves as well as to other people. No matter how much the other person irritates us, when we let ourselves focus on them instead of on our own growth, we let the irritation with the other person win over ourselves. We give a piece of ourselves up to this person that we claim we cannot stand, and lose our ability to be happy in ourselves.

Actual choices of what we do depends on the situation. The important thing to do is to not let the person dwell in our minds and consume our thoughts. This person is Divine. Let them be Divine separate from us, and move onwards.

Questions:
What does it mean to you that someone you can't stand is Divine as well? What would change if they weren't?
How do you want to treat people? How do you actually do it? Why is there a difference, if there is one?
How can you make peace with people that irritate you without compromising yourself?