is working with a teenager who has gotten involved with drugs at school. She has been working with young people for ten years and has now added the when-which-how technique to her counseling practice.
Because she is accustomed to imposing tough love on her young clients, the practice of transferring the heart virtues to them is a somewhat new approach. She has seen too many repeat offenses, and consequently, her application of the virtues is often accompanied by the expectation of failure. This is not necessarily her fault, but simply the result of her long experience in the field of witnessing the inability of users to overcome their drug habits.
In this case, the negative expectations of the counselor are a difficult hurdle for her to clear, due to the negative emotional miasma of drug addiction. In order to manage these negative expectations, she must work to build positive emotional energy into her life by substituting the virtues of the heart for the negative expectations of the past.
We see in both these instances that the time factor plays a large role in the practice of when-which-how. For what are expectations, but the anticipation and hope of an outcome or result that is most often the desire of the ego-personality instead of the higher self. This is why cultivating neutrality toward the work of the virtues is important.
We must be willing to place faith in the intelligence of the heart to manage the situations we encounter. We practice when-which-how and stand aside to allow the virtues to do their transformative work. We stand aside, but remain vigilant, ready to initiate any follow-on expression of the virtues if necessary.
The bottom line is that our expectations put a spacetime, ego-personality “spin” on the virtues that is unnecessary and is most likely detrimental to their effectiveness. If we expect too much or too little from the results, we are projecting our desires onto others, thus prejudicing our judgment as to when, which, and how we will practice toward this person or situation the next time.
This in all likelihood means that the next time, we will approach the encounter from the spacetime perspective of the ego-personality, with all the baggage of the past. This is not how we practice. We practice with a neutral, non-prejudiced attitude, centered in the energetic heart, and aligned with the higher self. This is that neutral, inner spiritual sun that shines its divine love on all, without the time-bound, prejudiced memory of the ego-personality.
