He Does What He Can, You Do What You Can
Questioner: Acharya ji, this is evident that the root cause of suffering is ‘I’ itself but practically the firm belief in ‘I’ never goes. Even in deep suffering the tendency is to find out the cause of suffering outside of me, some person or some situation. So, what is the way, when the suffering is there, it should keep reminding me that there is something inside me which is the root cause. But what I find about myself is that mostly I do not remember that always the root cause is something inside myself only.
Acharya Prashant: It will not always be so easy to discount the other’s culpability. Right? Some violent fellow appears and throws a stone at you and the stone hits you and you bleed. It will be obviously very difficult for you to conclude that your suffering is your own doing. Intellectually, you might succeed. You might say, “After all the stone hit only my body and the body could have continued to pain, but it was upon me not to allow that pain to turn into suffering,” which is all very good. But somewhere you will keep feeling that the other fellow had really no business hitting me with the stone.
It is now that the role of responsibility appears. When such a thing happens to you, wisdom lies in seeing that all is connected to all and even if you are not directly responsible for the conduct of the violent man, you still have a responsibility to reform that violent man. And now you have a responsibility towards that person, the tendency to feel aggrieved would be weaker.
Are you getting it?
Somebody has caused you pain. Alright, I see that the fellow has a great role in the pain that I am experiencing, but now that the fellow is within your mental field, you have a role in reforming that fellow, and that role has to be lived. If you are really ‘just’ to that role you’ll have very little space to care for your own hurt.
Actually, there is a bit of psychology behind this. When you feel hurt you made the ‘other’ very big. Your little child comes, and she may really smack you quite hard and it might even hurt the body but still internally you are not quite hurt. Why? Because mentally you continue to be much bigger than your child. So, you don’t feel hurt. A stranger comes and hurts you, you feel hurt and in feeling hurt you have made the stranger one ‘big’ fellow.
But when you take upon yourself the task to reform that violent stranger, then that stranger is now your student, your child. He is no more ‘big’; and if he is no more ‘big’, then you can no more be hurt. Do you see this? By doing good to the other; in some sense, you become bigger than the other.
That obviously cannot be the intention. I know I have just supplied the ego with very useful material. That obviously cannot be the intention in trying to do good to someone or reform someone. But that’s also what happens.
A fellow comes and attacks you or abuses you and you fight back. Then the two of you are equals; that’s -Scenario 1. A fellow comes and abuses you and kicks you and you kick back and abuse back. Now, the two of you are equals. Right?
Scenario 2 — the fellow comes, abuses you, hurts you and you recoil and you withdraw and you carry hurt within yourself. Now you are smaller and the other is bigger.
Scenario 3 — the fellow comes and abuses you and attacks you, and you say, “The fellow must be in deep pain; otherwise, why would he do such a stupid thing.” And you try to reform him. Now you are bigger, and he is smaller. So, you have to choose your response quite carefully.
It will be difficult to take an ideal position in all circumstances. In all circumstances if you just start saying that my suffering is due to myself and not due to the other, this position will be difficult to sustain, even though it is theoretically a correct position. Therefore, I am talking about the role of responsibility. If you cannot admit that you are absolutely and 100% responsible for all your suffering, then this is the next best thing to do.
Tell yourself, yes right now part of my suffering comes from the other person, I agree that part of my suffering right now comes from the other person because it is very difficult for me actually, genuinely, very difficult for me to tell myself that I am responsible for a stone that some random mad fellow has thrown at me. It is very difficult to convince myself of that.
So, I do the next best thing. What is the next best thing? I will tell myself, “Yes, that fellow is mad and violent and part of my suffering is coming from him but now that I know that he is mad and violent, I hold a responsibility. Had I not known that he is mad and violent, I had no responsibility. But now that he has thrown this stone at me, I will use my wound as his mercy plea. This is his cry for help and being who he is, he couldn’t have asked for help in any other way probably. The only way he could have asked for my help is by hurting me. By hurting me for no reason whatsoever he is actually communicating to me that he is in a very, very bad situation. And he had no other way of communicating this to me.” How will an infant communicate to the mother that he needs help? He has no graceful way to communicate. The only way that he knows is — he will yell and cry and probably spoil the sheet, and then the noise and the stink will force the mother to take care of the infant. Right?
So, that’s the thing about responsibility. If you cannot accept that you are responsible for your own suffering, then say, “Yes, the other is responsible for my suffering but I am responsible to reform, transform, elevate the other. I will have to agree that the other is causing me suffering but just as he is responsible for my suffering, now I will be responsible for his transformation. He is doing what he can and given his condition, all that he can give me is suffering. But given my condition, I will be responsible for giving him something better than suffering.” Right?
Now, this is constructive engagement with the other. When the other has hurt you, can you reach out to the other? This is far better than sulking in isolation which we usually do.
If somebody has hurt you, the chances that you will with goodwill reach out to that person are abysmally low. Are they not? In fact, you can reach out to any random person but not this person because you know that this person caused you hurt. Spiritual responsibility is to especially reach out to the person who has caused you hurt. You may ignore the others, but this person really deserves your help.
And if you take this responsibility up, you will be the first person to be benefitted, not the other. So, for your own self interest take upon yourself the responsibility to help the other. Remember, we said that when you help the other, you become bigger. If you do not help the other and allow him to remain an abuser, he becomes bigger, and your own self-worth diminishes. You become a victim in your own eyes. Right? And, that’s not a good mental identity to be in.
Tell me, what else is love? What else is love? If you are really a small petty, defensive and violent ego, you anyway cannot love. Right? All that you are concerned about is your own welfare, your own protection. Where is the question of loving the other? On the other hand, if you say, “you love,” then you want to do good to the other. Right? And, if the other is in need of receiving your goodness, then surely the other is not in a very good position himself. Correct? So, whenever you reach out to this person with your help, you will receive hurt in return. Love is about decoding hurt as a cry for help.
The other person is in no position to do any better than this. He will hurt, he will bite, like a little animal, a little snake or a little cat, somehow afraid, hiding somewhere in a corner, under the bed or someplace. And you are trying to reach out to the thing, you are extending a helping hand. And what does the animal do? Bite. But don’t get angry. The bite merely shows that the animal is really in need of help. Else it wouldn’t have attacked you. The little thing is very, very tense. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have attacked you. Getting it?
