Hello and welcome to episode 33 of the Ask Sri Vishwanath Show. Today I want to talk to you about dealing with people that you love but who don’t listen to you.
Today’s question is form Michelle. Michelle asks: “how do you deal with someone whom you love and is close to you but does not listen to you?”
That’s a tricky and sensitive question. A lot of people have this problem and it can be very hard to overcome. Many things to do with spirituality don’t work inside a family and this is a real problem. However we can always share some tips that the great masters gave us to try and make things a little easier.
Suffering
Firstly we must learn to suffer. If you love someone and they don’t listen to you, you must learn to suffer. Suffering and love are never far away from each other. As emotions go they are always close. Sometimes we can stay on the side of suffering and we don’t venture over to the side of love. This gap can be easy to bridge and I want to show you how.
Firstly, by default when you love someone you want to change a part of their personality that’s not aligned to ours. We might want to bring out the best in them but we always want to change the person before they are ready. Sometimes that person is not ready to change and it leads to suffering.
Krishna says we must give up that attitude of wanting to change other people. Someone’s personality, whoever it is be it your mother, father or brother cannot be changed until they are ready. You can supress the emotions but it will always spring back.
The law of dharma
So the first law of dharma is to stop trying to change the nature of a person. We all understand that you are coming from a place of love and good will but you must understand that you are going against the law of dharma and this is why you are suffering. Krishna and all the other wise being say that it is impossible for someone to feel bad about themselves or to go through pain unless they have released pain at some point or done things that are against the law of dharma.
Give up that attitude of wanting to change that person before they are ready. When you do this miracles happen and you will be able to communicate consciously and the gap will be bridged. It will happen fast when you give up the attitude of wanting to change someone.
Keep loving
If you keep loving the law of dharma will work for you. You are loving but you are also suffering because of your attitude not because of the other person. Try it for even a few days and you’ll see how well it works. What will happen then is you will communicate through consciousness and you’ll feel wonderful and you’ll want to give even more love.
Sri Ramakrishna says that as the different logs of wood, come together on a wide ocean, having drifted together for a while, depart. So man and woman, husband and wife, sons and daughters – they come together for a short time and then depart. We are all here for a very short time. It might seem like a long time but it’s really not. You live your life and then all of a sudden the time comes for you to depart. Don’t forget this. You are not going to get ten million years to bond with someone. You are going to depart eventually and who knows when it will happen?
Keep working on your consciousness and keep working on raising the bar of love within yourself. Dropt the attitude of wanting to change others before their time is due as it goes against the law of dharma.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that even a man of knowledge acts according to his nature. The whole world acts according to their nature. What avail can repression be? No amount of effort will lead to you changing a person before they are ready. You can only supress their personality, not change it. Ordinary human beings do not possess the power to do this.
It’s very similar to evil. You can supress it but it will keep coming back unless the person is ready to give up their evil ways. The same goes for emotions like pain and hatred. It’s only supressed it’s not healed.
Healing happens when you love and give up this attitude. Just love while knowing this. This will heal and allow you to come in touch with your consciousness.
I hope I answered your question. Remember you keep asking questions and I’ll keep answering them.
