Politeness or Brutal Honesty? Real Love Doesn’t Sugarcoat
Questioner: Namaskar Acharya Ji. And we're very grateful you're here. You've come all the way. So, who am I? That's irrelevant. We're just very grateful that you're here. Thank you very much for your presence.
My question is more of a conflict, and I'm in a constant conflict, and what is the thin line between being polite and kind, or what you say sugarcoated or politically correct versus blatantly truthful, which can also be a kind of compassion. When you witness your loved ones or close ones constantly being in a victim state and putting it onto others and more circumstantial, when you know that it's more perceptional and self-induced?
But when you are trying to convey that, then you are the one who's being given statements like that the way you are, there will be no one left in the world who will like you, then all such people will leave you anyway, everyone has their own journey.(Duniya mein koi bhi nahin reh jaayega jo aapko pasand karega, fir to aise saare hi chhoot jaayenge, sabki apni journey hai). you cannot pinpoint. Why does it matter to you? (Aap apni taraf dhyan do, aapko kya farq padta hai). So it's been a constant conflict where that thin line is. I would be, I think I manifested you here. So I did.
Acharya Prashant: Thin line for whom? It depends on who you are. It depends on what you are choosing to be. "Politically correct," you said in the beginning. See in your daily life, in your relationships, you can choose to be the politician or the preceptor.
The politician has a purpose, an ambition, right? The politician wants to become something and stay there, and therefore he will have to compromise with the truth. We're talking of the relationships that we have, right? We are not talking of politicians of the kind that we have in assemblies and parliaments, because that's not the question here.
So if you are acting politically correct, you must know that you have a personal stake somewhere. No politician can ever speak absolute truth to his audience. He'll have to dilute the truth. He'll have to compromise there, because there is something that he wants in return from the audience, right?
He cannot afford to antagonize the audience, and if the audience is not ready to take the truth, the politician will not come up with the truth — even if he has it, assuming he has it. That's a politician. And you can be the politician in your relationships.
I want something from you. So I'm not going to run the risk of truth. I want something from you. So I'll bring to you what you desire and not what you need. I need something from you. So I'll bring that to you which pleases, not that which elevates. I'll bring something pleasing to you rather than something elevating. That's the politician in relationships.
And then there is the preceptor in relationships. The preceptor is a teacher. I could have said "teacher, you know — just to make"P " and"P " sound cute, I did this, you know, I don't need to do this. Fine. The teacher. Or you could be the teacher in relationships. But that sounds so uncool — "The teacher in relation... teacher." What else do I say? teacher, preceptor, sage, real friend. "Friend" is fine. Or you could be the friend.
The friend does not have anything at stake. The first commitment of this one — the sagely friend is towards the truth rather than the person he or she is related to. So this one is not going to compromise. Now, in the short run, it would appear as if the politician does better. The relationships of the politicians would appear to be better in the short run, and most of us are concerned only with the short term.
So there, the politician looks like prevailing. And that's why most of us prefer to be politicians in our relationships. But in the long term, it's the preceptor that wins.
The politician seems to care too much about the other — the one he is related to. So he says, "I don't want to hurt your feelings. I want to be polite. I don't want to be too straight, in your face, too rude. I'll say things in a way that doesn't displease you. In fact, I'll not say the right thing at all. I'll keep you enclosed in the kind of illusions that you prefer."
In the short term, this seems to work. In the long term, it's the way of the teacher, the friend, the preceptor or the prophet that seems to work. It depends on you, how much love you have.
If you don't have enough love, then you will choose to be a politician in a relationship. But if you have enough love, you'll choose to be the prophet in a relationship. It depends on how much love you have. Love not really for this, this one, the one you are related to — love for that, love for this.
If you don't have love for the first thing or the first one, how can you have love for all the others you are related to? In fact, if you want to judge the person you are related to, that's the way to judge. Don't see whether that person loves you. See whether that person loves the truth.
Never ask, "Do you love me?" See whether the person loves the truth. If the person loves the truth, everything is fine. You don't need to ask — are you in love? Do you love me? All these are needless questions. The only question to be asked is, do you love the truth?
Truth. The first thing, the first one.
If that is loved, all will be in place. And if that first thing itself is missing, then you might keep professing love or commitment or loyalty or whatever — the fact is that your relationship will remain self-serving and violent. Are you getting it?
Questioner: Hello sir. I've been following you for the last five or six years. I think what I've learned is, like, in a lot of my aspects of life, I feel like I'm always chasing validation. And I have never really understood that certain parts of my life I feel like I don't need validation — and those are not the good actions.
And there's certain parts where I feel, which are the good things — which I know I should be doing — I need validation. And I get that validation for a certain time, but then I can't kind of continue that action. So I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Acharya Prashant: You can hear my being on this. I mean, I'm saying something to you that's not coming from any particular textbook or any pre-validated source. How do I know whether any of what I say to you makes any sense?
The moment the question arises, there's a problem. You have to be sure of yourself. You have to ask yourself, first of all, whether you are brutally honest in your dealings with others. You have to know for yourself that you are giving not just 100% but a little more than that to the other. Now you'll not need to look into the other's eyes and beg for validation.
I'm already doing the maximum possible. Now whether or not it pleases you, there is no way I can do anything extra or more. So if you say I am doing well, fine. And if you say I am doing poorly, that too is fine. So I don't need validation then. But that requires you to be ruthlessly honest with yourself first.
When the inner eye is missing, then the outer eye keeps roving. "Can you please certify that I'm talking sense? Can you please attest that I'm not an idiot? Can you please assure me that my decisions are correct?" All that happens when you are not talking a lot to yourself. Others should not become easy substitutes.
Your first relationship is with your own inner truth. And it's the most powerful source of validation.
Others, how will they ever know you beyond a point? There must be people in your life, right? You think you know them really well. No, you do not know people really well. How will anybody know you really well? So even if others validate what you are saying or doing, does that hold any value? This person does not know me, but he says, "Sir, you are great." Now this attestation — must it matter to me? He does not know me anyway at all. So even if he's certifying that I'm wonderful, why should I be inflated because of that? Are you getting it?
The only person who can know me well is me. If I have to ask somebody, I'll ask myself. If I have to ask, "How am I doing?" I'll ask myself. But that would require you to be impartial. “Nirmam.” That's the word from Gita. “Nirmam.” That will require a certain detachment from oneself. A love for truth rather than personal weaknesses.
Doesn't matter even if I have won the race. I know for myself I didn't run well. They might have given me the gold medal, but I know for myself — I'm not proud of how I ran. Are you getting this? The problem is not that we go and seek validation from others. The problem is that we have a broken relationship with ourselves.
We keep talking about relationships. We don't talk of the first, most fundamental, most important relationship. All your life, you have to live basically with yourself. Even when you are with others — have you not experienced loneliness? You might be surrounded. You might be in a crowd and still there is loneliness. Not experienced that? Because you have to live with yourself.
So maintain that relationship. Do well there. And the word there is — honesty. Honesty. No trick, no magic, no formula can be a substitute for that. Honesty. All wisdom literature, all spiritual practices, all philosophy stops at that point, honesty, that little thing. Because there can be no proof.
If you say, you know, "I'm a fearless man," how can it be proven to you that you are not fearless? That's something internal. And in absence of honesty, you can continue nourishing your illusions and keep telling yourself, "I'm fearless. I'm fearless. I'm fearless."
If you say you don't have fever, the doctor here can prove to you that you have fever. Right? But if you say you don't have fear, how will I prove to you that you have fear?
Maybe, I can display that you are afraid in some situations. But you can come up with an argument and say, "No, no, no, this I was doing just to please you, just to humor you. I was not actually afraid. I was afraid by mistake. And even if I'm afraid, that's not my fault. I have been taught to be afraid. So that means I am not afraid. I have been taught to be afraid."
You can come up with any kinds of smart or cunning arguments. Therefore, what you need is honesty. Otherwise, there can be all kinds of devices and pretenses. And we are masters at it. Try telling somebody the truth, and the kind of resistance you get is bewildering. Anything can be accepted but truth is greeted with colossal resistance. And such arguments — you will be confounded. I mean, you might start thinking, maybe there's a point there.
The fellow might be an idiot but when it comes to defending his falsenesses, he becomes the wisest, the smartest man possible. Want to awaken somebody's potential? Make them resist the truth, and they'll give it everything they have.
Be with yourself. Just honestly. And to be inspired to do that, and to believe that it can be done — read about people who live that way. Or, if you are very lucky, live with people who live that way. Usually we are not that lucky. So read about such people. Therefore, great literature is very important. Be all right with yourself.
I'm not saying you must not take others' opinions or feedback. That's all right. But the primary judge must sit within. You need not look at yourself through others' eyes. The inner eye must be one's own. And that's all.
