166. With regard to an individual showing anger or intolerance, this originates - like the cause of his religious outlook - in the mutual relationship between his deeper spiritual forces; therefore this is not a factor which can be removed on the part of the individual by a single act of will or by an order or prohibition coming from outside. But of course this does not mean that intolerance cannot be contested; on the contrary, it can be contested, but one needs to understand that this contest will represent a full transformation of the habitual mentality and nature created in this individual over thousands of years. Bearing in mind how difficult it can be to give up an ordinary acquired harmful habit or vice, whose connection to an individual could not possibly have lasted longer than quite a microscopic period of time compared with the connection to the nature of intolerance, it is easier to understand that intolerance cannot be eliminated all at once. But to get the better of that intolerance, it is of course necessary that, first and foremost, the individual is so far advanced in development that he is beginning to feel an irresistible urge to overcome it. To contest intolerance is, of course, the same as developing tolerance, which again is the same thing as developing a new faculty. But to develop this to perfection or to virtuosity - just as in developing virtuosity in any other kind of skill, for example music and languages - it is necessary to practise and train oneself constantly. So intolerance will be contested only by a single, constant force of will released in small daily victories. By this means one will eventually manage, step by step, to attain a change in one's inner spiritual strength, so that the tendencies of intolerance no longer exist and one has become a virtuoso in manifesting tolerance. The ability to be tolerant thus belongs to those realities which can only be attained by training and by practice, not by dictatorship. So, expressing anger or hatred towards a person because he shows intolerance will only prove that you yourself are at that same stage and still have not understood that the anger and indignation you show is precisely as unjust and as obvious an expression of imperfection as the other person's anger to which you yourself were subjected.