Why don't people like me?
Questioner: Good evening, Acharya Ji. So my question is, I actually have two questions. My first question is regarding me personally.
The thing that I face is that when I am speaking to someone in a group, I always tend to provoke people with my ideas and whatever opinion I have. Like, for example, I can tell you: when I’m talking to people regarding what you teach, what other gurus teach, like Osho, maybe; so they often like the ideas that I tell them regarding the various texts that we have. They are often provoked; that is one example that I’m telling you.
And I don’t know this happens to me in every sphere. Whatever ideas I’m telling, when I think that I’m talking to people, often the conversation gets really awkward at that point. They start to repel me. And if I’m talking to someone new, well, I often come across as charming, but eventually, when they get to know me, my depth, they often don’t like me enough.
So what can I do to make myself more likable, even though I have provocative thoughts, as people have signaled to me previously? That is my first question. Should I continue with the next question also?
Acharya Prashant: No, let me respond to it.
See, the purpose of communication is not merely to send a few words or ideas to the other from your side. The communicator, or the speaker, is also responsible for what the other one has received. In fact, the communicator or the speaker is responsible even for what the other one has interpreted or construed.
So when you speak, obviously you want the other to understand, don’t you? And if you find that instead of understanding, others rather get provoked, they react and they resist, then your own purpose is not being served, because I’m sure that is not what you had intended. And if that’s what you had intended, then there is a serious problem, because the ego can find a lot of pleasure in instigating others, in getting others to flare up, react, get angry.
The ego might say, “Look at my power. Look at the potency of my words. With a few words, I got all these fellows so worked up. See how angry they are. See how I broke their poise, their peace.”
Because if you can get somebody to react, it’s almost like getting him enslaved. You now have his number, his handle. You know where to press the button. So the ego can find that quite pleasing. You have to be cautious.
However, let me assume that is not the case with you. Let me assume that it is not with the explicit purpose of eliciting a reaction that you speak. Let me assume that you speak with the right intentions. Then you must know the limit of your responsibility. And your responsibility, as we said, is not limited just to what you utter. It is not limited even to what reaches the other. It extends to what the other feels about it, how the other interprets it.
So you have to first of all begin with that in mind, right?
There are people who say that their job is to speak the Truth, and after that how the others receive it is none of their business. Even that is not a very honest position to take. How the others interpret you is very much your own business. And that’s why attention towards the audience is needed. That’s why there have to be a thousand ways to communicate the same point. That is why empathy is needed.
If empathy is not there, the other one will not open up. If he will not open up, there would be no listening. If there is no listening, there is no communication. You're not speaking to the walls. You're not speaking to an audio recording device. You are speaking to conscious people with all their frailties, their imperfections, and their needs. People have their pains, their biases, their pasts. They don't come from nowhere. We all stand at specific positions of the ego, and it is from these positions that we listen to whatever we do.
Therefore, the speaker has to first of all know where the listener is standing. The right examples have to be crafted. The right language has to be chosen. The right tone, the right words, and the right time and the right occasion have to be chosen.
We have stories, fables, and anecdotes that we have in which a student comes to the teacher and asks a particular question, and the teacher says, “I will answer you.” And then, eight months later, when the opportunity presents itself, that's when the teacher says, “This, this is the answer.”
There has to be this kind of sensitivity to having the right time and the audience in the right frame of mind. You cannot just have an attitude wherein you care for only your own righteousness, thinking nothing of the other. And then the next moment you get kind of hurt when people do not reciprocate your or we would deadly kind intentions.
If you want your kind intentions to be reciprocated, then be really empathetic. Know that your responsibility, as we said, extends beyond just speaking. We communicate to bring wellness to the other.
We do not communicate to speak the Truth. Nobody can communicate to speak the Truth. There exists nothing like the Truth to be spoken. The purpose of communication is wellness or welfare, not Truth.
Equally, you could say that what brings real wellness to the other is the Truth. Nothing else is the Truth. So, if you are failing to bring wellness to the other, for sure it is not the Truth that's there in your words.
Now, after this kind of care and depth of compassion, there still would be a few or many who just won't listen or who would listen to you from predetermined hostile centers. Then you can probably say that you have come to the utter end of your responsibility, and now you cannot do much more with such people. And then what you would be saying would be probably admissible.
When you have done your utter best, even after that there do remain people who are beyond your capacity to mend. Because after all, listening and understanding are sovereign decisions. Irrespective of how hard you try, you cannot really force someone to understand or to move towards his own welfare. So a few people would still remain totally deaf to your words, totally impervious to your kind intentions. There you can excuse yourself. You can then honestly say, “I did try my best, but I couldn't succeed with these few people.” But obviously, that is to be said after you have done your best with total empathy.
How do you know whether you have done your best?
Here is a hint. When you are trying to reach out to the other to explain to the other, you'll have to leave your own position. You cannot say that I am a scholar, and therefore I will use scholarly language. You cannot say I love Indian history, therefore I'll come up with examples only from Indian history. You cannot say that the world of the other is untouchable. They live in filthy places. Therefore, I won't go close to them. You cannot say I speak from the heights of the Truth, and the listeners are all rolling down there in the mud. I won't stoop down to them.
The genuine communicator, and we are talking of spirituality here, because you said you want to bring spiritual Truths to people, will have to be a very versatile person. And that versatility is not a skill; it is compassion. He will be prepared to leave all that is secondary or external about him. Only the Truth at his heart he will not be ready to leave. He cannot leave that. He's helpless in that matter.
Except for that one thing, he'll be prepared to compromise on everything. He will stoop. He will change. He will bend. He can go left or right. He can switch languages. He can act juvenile for a while. He can start from where the audience stands. He will have no definite personality of his own, at least he'll try not to have. His need to wear a particular favorable personality would be smaller than his empathy towards his listeners.
So he'll not be hesitant in going to places that are generally considered off-limits.
When Truth is at the heart, then you have very little need to hold on to anything else. All else then becomes negotiable.
You cannot say; Your name, please?
Questioner: My name is Amrit.
Acharya Prashant: You cannot say, “I am Amrit, and I am a serious fellow.” Amrit being a serious fellow is something that keeps Amrit as Amrit, and that is the ego's need. Who is Amrit? A serious fellow. If Amrit needs to act chirpy and jovial for the sake of his audience, he must change, not change in the internal sense, change for his cause. Like one changes clothes. Do you keep wearing the same set 24 hours and 7 days? Different times, different places, and different clothes. Right, Amrit?
Similarly, your personality has to be very flexible. Your biases must be all disposable. There has to be only one thing important: the Truth. All else can be done away with as and when the need arises.
But unfortunately, we do not get too many examples of such empathy. And the general notion is that teachers carry a specific persona. If a teacher is particular about the persona he carries, and I'm saying teacher here because that's where you are coming from, right? When you are trying to initiate a spiritual discussion somewhere, you are reaching in that domain.
So teachers who necessarily carry a specific persona, I doubt whether they are of much use to their audiences. I understand that the personality cannot be fully offloaded. It is not something that you can actually take off like your shirt. But to whatever extent you can manage it, you must.
To your words, people listen later. The first thing that they listen to is your empathy. They want to see whether your face and your eyes carry their pains. If your eyes contain not a bit of the pain that they live in, they will not be able to listen to you.
Truth is not about lofty words and scholarly theories. Truth is, first of all, a deep desire to help. If they see that you want to help, they will listen. Then they will listen even if they are not able to make perfect sense of your words. In fact, then they may listen even if they are not able to make much of your words. But they will still listen, and they will even benefit without even understanding your words properly. They will still benefit.
On the other hand, your words might be accurate. Your arguments might be perfect. Your erudition might be flawless. Yet you will find your words hitting an impenetrable wall. If you're not coming from a position of empathy, and you'll wonder, you will say everything about my words or logic or my entire discourse is close to perfection, why am I not able to penetrate then?
It's not knowledge that penetrates the other. It's love. Knowledge is a small thing, a very small thing. The world has not remembered scholars so much. They are given their due share of admiration and respect. It is the great lovers who become immortal in the heart.
The saint is always above the scholar. And somehow the saint comes to know every bit of what the scholar knows.
Love is a great teacher. Love will be knowledge. However, it is not necessary that knowledge begets love.
