Hurt by Those Around You?

Questioner: I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m a second-year graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. So, in my daily life, my habits that I think have morphed into compulsion with time, and it disturbs me when people don’t do the same as I do. Like for example, I have a habit of making my bed the first thing in the morning, the moment I wake up. Now, generally, it is regarded as a very good habit, but the problem arises when people don’t do the same and it starts disturbing me. Now, this I feel like shouldn’t happen because I cannot control the people around me. So how do you suggest I work on this?

Acharya Prashant: Work on what? Please clarify.

Questioner: Work on handling compulsions like these.

Acharya Prashant:: No but why do you want to work on them? What problem do you face?

Questioner: With time I just started feeling that just because I’m doing something, it doesn’t mean everyone around me should have the same habits. And I feel this is fundamentally wrong of me, as a person, to expect that because I cannot control anyone.

Acharya Prashant: No, you want to control your habit of making the bed right in the morning or the habit of feeling hurt when people don’t approve of you?

Questioner: The habit of feeling hurt when people don’t do the same. I am fine with my habits.

Acharya Prashant: Then you need to be very clear about what you do. In that case, even if people don’t approve, it doesn’t matter because you already know, by yourself and for yourself, whatever you are doing. No?

When you know for sure that a problem, a problem in mathematics, has been rightly solved by you, someone comes and starts picking holes in that, it doesn’t bother you beyond a point, or does it? In fact, if the fellow tries to say too much, that fellow falls in your esteem. The solution remains where it was. The fellow is dismissed. No? Where is the question of hurt?

Hurt comes when you are not sure of yourself. You are saying you are all right with your habits, but not all right with people criticizing you. You feel hurt. If you feel hurt, that clearly tells you that you do not know what you do, and why you do it. If you know that making the bed, for example, is the best thing you can do with your time in the morning, then why would you pay attention to someone objecting to it?

The problem arises only when you yourself are not sure of why you do certain things.

Then the real problem is not the hurt, the real problem is ignorance. The real problem is a lack of self-knowledge. Know what you are doing, know what you are doing things as, and then there will be not much need to look at others for validation or approval. And then their rejection or condemnation also won’t hurt that much.

Questioner: It’s not about more of what they tell to me. It’s about my want. I just feel like if I have a particular habit, everyone should have it because it’s not particularly anything wrong. For example, making the bed in the morning. And I think it shouldn’t influence everyone because now that I’m not at my home, I’m in a hostel, I’m living with my roommates. So, I cannot control their habits. It’s about my control upon myself.

Acharya Prashant: Do you really know what is best for yourself?

Questioner: I think so.

Acharya Prashant: If you really know that, then why don’t you know what to do to get rid of your hurt because that’s the best thing to do for yourself, and if you do not know what is best for yourself, how are you so confident in determining what is best for others? How do you know that others too should have the same habit when you do not, for sure, know what is good even for you?

This kind of irritation at others arises from misplaced self-confidence. “I’m just confident of myself without ever taking the effort to know where I stand, and what my inner mechanics are.” Confidence is a false front for understanding. To understand something is one thing, and to be just confident is totally another thing.

When you know what you are, what life is, where do habits come from, and what do we need to spend our morning hours doing. When you know these things for yourself, with clarity, then you will be in some position to advise others as well. Otherwise, it’s a case of the blind leading the blind. “I compulsively make my bed in the morning, I need to first of all shut out the others, and figure out what else is compulsively present in my life.”

All that which is compulsively present in your life needs to be examined. That helps. Really helps, and when you are someone who realizes things, then you will be in a great position to helpfully, and compassionately advise others as well. So, get into this habit, get into that habit, see how they affect you, see where they are coming from. See if those habits are an escape from something, see whether those habits want to point at something.

Try to get into your inner world, and you will find lots of treasures there. Very important information lies hidden in the inner self. Explore it. You’ll enjoy it.

Questioner: Awesome, if I can follow up on that. How did you use that state of self-realization that I have done something, where I know that this is good for me, that this is the way I should go ahead with everything?

Acharya Prashant: No, you already know what is good for you, in a very fundamental sense. Ever since you were born, look at the baby on its very first day. Does it like being suffocated? No. So we all need space, and space is freedom. Does the baby like being hurt? No. So, we all need the kind of strength that can never be hurt. We all need something that is hurt-proof.

Nobody in the world likes to be cheated. So, we want something that you can absolutely rely on. Nobody in the world really likes to die. So, we all want something that goes beyond time. Right? So, these are the things that you must care for in your life. These are the things that you must bring into your life. Simplicity, Truth, and equality you have to be very careful of things that take you away from these basics.

You want to be at a point where there is no desire. Nobody likes being desirous all the time. Desire, is in some sense, an irritation. Beyond that is suffering. So, we want to come to the end of desire. So, you have to avoid situations, people, and places, we just keep provoking desire in you. The body is going to meet its end one day, so you have to desire situations, thoughts, and concepts that make you more body-identified because nature is immortality.

That’s how you navigate through life. I know it won’t be very clear. I don’t expect too much from a 10-minute conversation, but I just hope it’s a good beginning for you.

Questioner: Yeah, so that did give me a lot to think about, to be honest. I feel that was a very good insight, and I’ll definitely think about it. Thanks for this.

Questioner 2: My follow-up to this is that we know that we want to seek clarity in our lives, simplify what we do, and identify why we are doing that. But sometimes I feel that, yes, I am seeking clarity in my life, and simultaneously I start feeling superior to the people who are surrounding me. In a way, maybe I can say I feel overconfident, that “Okay, great I am seeking clarity in my life. I’ll be at a different stage, maybe.”

But again, that overconfidence makes me feel impure, and it just makes me to negative again. So, what is it? Is it the overconfidence? I'm not even sure why I get overconfident when I am seeking clarity, because I know that there is a lot to go. It’s a journey, it’s a long journey.

Acharya Prashant: See, if it’s a long journey. Let’s say it’s a very long journey, 1000 km. Right? You have traveled 3 km, and somebody else has traveled just 1 km. Does it make sense to feel superior to this person? Three by a thousand is hardly a number you can feel proud of. If you have to compare, compare yourself against the target. Why compare yourself against the competitor?

And the target is very far. The target is infinite. Anything in comparison to infinite is zero. Divide anything by infinity what do you get? Zero. So, is three by infinity really bigger than one by infinity? How do you feel superior to the other person then? See, feeling superior is a mark of lack of clarity. Also, knowing that three is greater than one as a fact, is one thing. You’re entitled to know that fact, but thinking that three being greater than one makes you closer to the target is just another thing altogether, and it’s false.

What do you have a love for? Comparisons or the target? If you are always looking at the other, or at least sometimes looking at the other to feel good, then why do you need to target? Just be better than the others and feel good. The real targets are for those who feel good only with respect to the target. Nothing else helps them feel good. Comparison with a laggard is a cheap way for self-gratification. Is it not? “I am better at least than the one behind me.”

You are entitled to feel good. That’s called joy. That’s called liberation, but that should only be in the context of the real thing. The fellow behind you is not the real thing. If anything, the fellow behind you deserves your compassion. Think of yourself. You are far from the target, and you are not good. You feel uneasy and restless.

Think of the one who is worse off, how uneasy must he be feeling, and what’s the point in claiming superiority over this poor fellow? He is so poor. If you have to compare, compare yourself to the target. If not to the target, at least with those who are closer to the target. Compare yourself to a Krishna, to a Buddha, to a Mahaveer, to an Ashtavakra. Compare yourself to them, but they don’t even come to our mind. Why don’t they come to our minds? Because we have no love for them.

We have a love for the ego, so all the material that can feed the ego comes to our mind. Fall in love, and fall in love with the right thing. If you compare yourself with all the pygmies, then in some sense you are in love with the pygmies, because they are the ones giving you happiness.

Do not let anything give you a cheap kind of happiness. Fast. This is called fasting. This is the real meaning of fasting. What does fasting mean? Giving up all easy and cheap pleasures, right? Like biting into a Samosa. It’s a cheap pleasure. “I want to fast.” So, fast.

Tell yourself, “There is the real thing, and only the real thing can give me real happiness. If I have to have a relationship with those who are somehow behind me, the relationship will be of compassion. I’ll help them if I can, without a feeling of superiority, because superior I anyway am not. What superiority am I talking of? Three by infinity versus one by infinity.” Hardly any superiority, and the ones who are really superior, their superiority consists of going beyond this duality of superiority and inferiority. That’s what makes them really superior. They do not think of superiority.

Questioner 2: What exactly happens is, maybe you can say that my joy of being a little clear towards something, automatically gets converted into that feeling of superiority somewhat, and then it’s just a cycle. Then I work towards not being superior, and then this is again happening because of the surroundings. People say that we are an average of five people we are surrounded with, so this is just happening.

Acharya Prashant: Think of this. If you get happiness by comparing yourself with the average of these five people, or whatever the concept says, why will you seek better people at all? Happiness lies in being with the inferior ones. So, don’t allow yourself to relish this happiness.

Questioner2: Understood.

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