If we help someone but they don’t help us in return should we continue to help?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Another question is, sometimes we do something for another person when we help them, but when we need their help, they don’t help us.
So, what do we do? Yes, the nature of relationships in this world is that people don’t always reciprocate the way we expect them to. So, overall, if we look at our life, sometimes we also get help from unexpected quarters. If we look at our life, whenever we have succeeded, somewhere, something, maybe we needed a job and somebody suggested we go here, somebody gave a contact there or whatever.
If we look at our life, often our mind magnifies the times when things went wrong, when people didn’t help us. But, if we look at other times, things went right for us also. There are times when people have helped us.
So, sometimes, what happens is, overall, life evens out. So, it is that a person for whom we do good, that person may not do good in return for us. But somebody else will do a good turn for us.
And overall, life evens out. So, it depends on the specific situation. It’s not that specific relationship, specific situation, specific relationship.
If that person is just interested in exploiting us, just using us, then we may just say, no, you didn’t help me. So, it’s reasonable to stop helping that person. If it is done in a vindictive way, you know, you did not help me, so I will not help you.
If it is done at the same level of consciousness that other person is doing, then it becomes vindictive. But, we all understand that we have limited time, we have limited energies, we have limited resources. And we all would like to foster the relationships, all would like to foster deep relationships.
So, we would invest our time, energy and resources in relationships that are going to be reciprocal. So, if we are not getting reciprocation in a particular relationship, then we neglect, we may decide not to invest in that relationship. Not because we want to get back at that person, but simply because we want to invest our time and energy somewhere it is more fruitful.
So, to be reciprocal is not to be revengeful. So, tit for tat is motivated by the same level of consciousness. You did like this, so I’ll do like that.
But we are not talking about tit for tat here. We are talking about a situation where you helped the other person, but the other person didn’t help you. So, it’s not that it’s exact same action because you have already taken the first step forward.
So, we are talking here in terms of Krishna also says, Krishna says, as all people surrender to me, I reward them accordingly. So, reciprocity is a basic function of human relationship, is a basic feature of human relationships. Neutrality is fine as a principle, but neutrality is not meant to be like stone-like.
Neutrality should be impartiality. But neutrality is not unemotionality. If we meet somebody and then we appreciate them for something and it’s just no emotion.
And somebody goes and scolds them, there is no emotion. And you think that’s very unemotional person, but how do you develop a relationship with such a person? If somebody is speaking nicely with us, we speak nicely with them and then the relationship develops further. So, in any relationship for it to develop, there has to be some reciprocity.
See, love can be one way, but a loving relationship has to be two ways. The other person doesn’t reciprocate, there is love, but there is no relationship over there. So, that doesn’t mean we break the relationship, but it is like different relationships can have different levels of intimacy and then according to the level of intimacy in a particular relationship, we may decide to invest appropriately, proportionately.
So, because we have limited time, we may decide to invest more in a particular relationship and where we get reciprocation and less in another relationship where we don’t get reciprocation. Does this answer your question?