Real communication can happen only from the Heart || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Questioner (Q): I want to increase my communication with my mom and dad or with my friends; because this is what is trembling me. They want something from me, and they think I think only of myself, but I am not able to do either of them. What to do?
Acharya Prashant (AP): When an insecure mind talks to another insecure mind, anyway there is no communication. There is only an apparent exchange of words.
Only the heart can talk, only the heart can listen, so conversations are either genuine or they are not. Fake communication is no communication. So, when you say that "I am afraid of consequences, how do I act because my parents might feel bad, how do I take them into the loop?", please understand, the situation is already very bad and whatever else happens will be better than this. The key to improvement is to realize that you are already at rock bottom. Things cannot go any worse, we keep waiting for more damage, we say this much damage is acceptable.
You know, that is the nature of mind, everything in the mind is limited, so even your perception of the damage being done to you is limited. You can never know the full extent of your loss. In the domain of mind everything has a boundary, so when it rises to figure out how much it is losing, even that has a boundary, so it says, "I am not losing anything beyond that." No! You are losing a lot! And when you see that then these inhibitions and concerns become very petty then you say, "How can I stop because of these hindrances?"
Q: You mean I must do whatever I want to do?
AP: You will not do that if I advise you to do that. You will do that only when you see that you are causing a lot of grief to your parents by not being authentic, only the action of true love will give you the courage to really go, and tell someone that things are bad. You must have a great love for that someone, otherwise, it is very easy to just offer consolations. It is very easy to just maintain the status quo. Don’t we all do that?
Q: That’s what we have been doing for years.
AP: And it requires great love. It requires tremendous courage to put your relationship at risk. Only when you love somebody greatly, only then you will want to put the relationship at risk. If you don’t love somebody, then you will want to maintain the relationship. That’s a paradox. You must understand this - The one that you love greatly, for the one that you love greatly, be prepared to break your relationship with that one; and if you are not prepared to give up even on what you get from the relationship, the relationship itself, then you don’t have love. And if you don’t have love then why do you want to do something?
Q: Sometimes, it happens that to maintain the relationship hatred increases…
AP: Of course, you are maintaining a disfigured system, every day will be a burden. Your entire face, your mind, whole personality will get so distorted, you will not be beautiful anymore.
Q: You mean I must be truly loving to my dad and mom?
AP: You must first discover that the condition you are in is not love. Even though it is called as love, you cannot force yourself to love. Start with your immediate reality, which is not love, do not have fanciful projections about what is love. Start with this.
What did the lyrics say? What did they say?
‘A little close’.
Here, (pointing towards the heart) start from near.
What do you about love?
You only know of distances.
