Hello and welcome to episode 7 of The Ask Sri Vishwanath Show. Today I want to talk about why we should never ever try to change someone else’s nature and how you can help him or her to do exactly what you want.
Today’s question comes from Raymond who lives in California. He says “I’m having a tough time trying to communicate with my wife and son. They don’t listen to me and they never implement what I’m saying. What do I do?”
I think we would all like to find a solution to this problem! I know I certainly would! Seriously though, if you asked your wife she would probably have the same complaint – that she is trying to communicate with you and she is trying to get you to do as she says. I bet your son would say the same.
Dharma
Today I want to talk about something very important. It’s called dharma. The first law of dharma is that you must never try to change their nature, never try to disturb their minds. This is so important. You cannot change a person’s nature no more than you can change an animal’s nature.
Take for example a snake. If you come across a snake in the wild are you going to ask to change its nature and not coil up and bite you? No because it doesn’t understand you. You cannot change its nature. You can only harness it. In the same way you cannot make a cow behave like a lion.
Krishna says that even a man of knowledge acts according to nature. “The whole world acts according to nature. What avail can repression be? Senses have attachment and aversion to objects they bewilder the intelligence of even the wise.Stay away from them.”
What this means is that the word dharma is very important. Dharma is like the equivalent of data. It’s like all the data and knowledge from billions of years collected in one place. If you examined all this data from the people who existed over the last few hundred years you’d see that you really cannot change the true nature of a person.
Time and resolve
It’s impossible to change someone’s nature before time. Time is the most critical factor. It only happens when time triggers an internal resolve in that person. Think of when you are watching a movie. You may find yourself asking why she didn’t do this or why didn’t he do that but you can’t make the actors on screen change. They have to stick to the script. You’ll find that they only change when there is a transformation within themselves.
Unfortunately due to lack of data we must wait for time to make that change. It could be today, tomorrow, next week or even years from now. We would like it to happen right now but it doesn’t work that way.
We must follow dharma. Dharma states that you must never ever disturb a person’s mind. Do not try to initiate a change before the time is right for that person.
Love
So how we communicate good things? How do we communicate effectively to our family and friends? The people of dharma say that you must speak with love. Speak with love before thy soul stirring words. Before you communicate you have to draw yourself back and communicate with love. Love means a genuine interaction.
Genuine caring by drawing your forces in and know you cannot change the true nature of a person. The only trigger you have is love. Love means consciousness. Move towards the light and your consciousness will connect with the other person’s consciousness.
Imagine you are talking to your wife or son for the first time. Don’t bring in past conversations or arguments. You cannot change their behaviour through intelligence and good intentions. You must learn that the only handle you have is love.
This is what the wise sages did. They triggered this handle of love which is unity, time and consciousness. When you do this you will move closer to the other person’s consciousness. Then communication will be easy. The context and content will change and the end result will be beautiful.
If you can make this one change by learning that you cannot change a person’s nature then the majority of your pain and unhappiness will disappear. You will become so close to the other person’s consciousness. Love will help you to do this. Withdraw your intelligence knowledge and experience back into yourself. The only thing that will be left will be the light of dharma.
Detachment
You also must learn the value of detachment. This part will be easy if you learn to communicate with love. If you get that right then your life can change today. It will help you achieve appendance, joy and success. Withdraw your intelligence and secondly you must be detached.
Pray
Thirdly you must pray to god. You must ask god to give blessings to the person that you want to change. Pray for your wife or son or anyone else you want to communicate with. Give them the blessings needed to generate that resolve.
Ill share my story with you. I went to the United Sates when I was younger. Before I went my father never came to me to tell me not to smoke or drink or go to bars. We never did that here. He never told me not to do it but thought never came into my mind to do those things because I was not brought up in that environment and because of the qualities that were already in me.
If I had actually wanted to do those things nothing my father said could really have stopped me. If that was my nature then he could not have changed it but it wasn’t in my nature to do those things.
Similarly I used to get very angry when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to. Nobody could change that in me. Even I couldn’t change it, until the time was right. It was when I read the Bhagavad Gita that I found out that anger is a weakness. A weakens that comes from a rajas gunas. You can blame whoever you want but it will not solve your problems until you withdraw into yourself and replace the anger with love.
You must move closer to your consciousness because your consciousness never experiences hatred or anger. Remember anger that lasts for more than 30 seconds becomes hatred.
So remember you cannot change anyone’s nature. The only handle we have is love. Withdraw your knowledge and intellect and replace it with love. Keep on trying to love. Once you get there you’ll be successful in everything you do.
I hope that answers your question. Remember you keep asking questions and I’ll keep answering them.
