How do we deal with our tendency to perceive others negatively?

Transcript

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How do we deal with negative perceptions about some devotees? Now, the first point is that we should know that the mind has a default tendency for what psychologists call as attribution error.
Attribution error means we see a behaviour and we attribute the cause to that behaviour. So, for example, you know, if I sleep 3 hours in the afternoon, what happens? What was the behaviour? If he sleeps 6 hours, he is a lazy monk. So, what is happening? Same activity, we see an activity, but we attribute a cause to that activity.
So, in general, people whom we like, when we see an activity they do, then we try, we generally attribute the positive cause to them. If somebody has taken 4-5 packets of sweets, he must be going to give the sweets to some guest. And if somebody we don’t like we think, my God, he is going to go secretly and eat it all.
So, what happens is, we, our attribution is often determined by our disposition towards people. So, once we know this tendency, that the money has this fallacy or attribution, then we can evaluate. Okay, this person did this.
Do I know the reason why he did this? I don’t know. So, before passing judgment, let me find out. So, that’s the first normal mind picture.
The mind may perceive like that, but we don’t have to entertain that perception all the time. So, we can think of something constructive. Now, what does that involve? Now, again, this sort of thing can be in three areas.
That means, that is a devotee whom I am close to, I have to work with, I have to live with. Another is a devotee I just see once in a while. I don’t have much to devote.
And third is, I have some connection with some people, but not much. So, in the third situation, better to tell none of your business. None of your business.
Mind your own business. You don’t have to bother about it. If I go to temple just one time, sometime, and I see something wrong in the temple.
I may think it’s wrong. It may not be wrong also. Even if it’s wrong, every time I have a good connection to someone, so many things come into that picture.
Isn’t it? I have to be sensitive, I have to be thoughtful, I have to learn the whole picture. Otherwise, I will create a negative perception about myself as being a hypothetical person. So, if it’s not something which is directly connected to me, just tell none of your business and forget it.
So, we can become free from most of the mind’s problems when we resign as the CEO of the world. You know, we have taken a self-appointed position as the CEO of the world. I have to connect this, I have to connect this, I have to connect this.
Resign from that position and in fact, our mind becomes significantly peaceful. So, first is that. Second case is, let’s go to the other extreme.
I know the devotee, I have even worked with the devotee and that particular behavioral work or whatever, it troubles me. So, in that case, it’s best that I communicate. It’s best that I communicate and I ask.
So, if I have a relationship and I do this, so, why do this? Can you explain? Or if we find it difficult to ask that devotee, go and ask his counselor or someone in a single room that devotee can communicate that and get things clarified. So, one of the characteristics of Kanishka Adhikari is they talk about each other instead of talking with each other. Talk about he did like this, he did like that, he did like that.
And talking about each other never resolves those problems. So, we can be polite, we can be respectful, but get things clarified. And sometimes that devotee will say, it’s such a habit for me, I can’t give it up, please stop it.
Then we can not go on if it’s not a very serious problem. So, now we have to know that sometimes even other people know that something is wrong, but it’s not something which may seem very easy for one person, maybe for another person it’s quite difficult. So, it may well be that we should be able to accommodate individuality.
It means, say for example, some devotees may have a nature to sit and chat. Another devotee may find it extremely difficult. They just have to get up.
Put it down, put it down, stand up, walk, something like that. Now, we should be able to jump, jump in love. One sits and chats in goodness, one talks and chats in passion.
They are very simple situations. So, something different people have different natures and they can deal with things according to their natures. So, we have to accommodate individuality.
And let me give you an idea. Let’s say it’s a heartbeat. In this heartbeat, we get a concept that person is trying to correct.
So that means we communicate and then either that devotee changes the behaviour or we understand why this person is doing like that and then we accept it and then we live with that. So one devotee, you know he started my classes and he would always, as soon as the class started, he would close his eyes. Now, what would happen is, he would say, you know if I keep my eyes open, I get so distracted.
I get so distracted and I keep my eyes open. Now what happens is, outside I am just sitting right in front of him. So now he has to be sitting right in front of me to completely close his eyes.
So it used to be very odd. And you know when somebody closes his eyes, you can’t know whether the person is here or the person is sleeping or not. Actually when I did that program for 3 years, it took me a lot of time to get used to that.
You know, come enthusiastically sit in front of, you know, he couldn’t close the eyes. But then, after the class, whenever I would talk to him, he would say, this person is not a very nice person. And I would say, who is he? So it took me some time to accept that this is how a devotee is.
It’s okay. And that’s how, see some people have their verbal or audio intelligence much sharper than their visual intelligence. And their eyes simply actually distract them from the sound.
Now others might say that their eyes, you know, how the speaker expresses, what are the hand gestures, what are the facial expressions. They all arrive to the intelligence. But for some it may not.
So we have to accommodate individuality. And third is in between the two. You know, the devotee is not, we are also connected with him.
What the devotee does doesn’t matter so much to us. But we have some connection. Then we can decide about the circumstances.
You know, if a circumstance comes up and then we have the opportunity and there is a heart to heart talk, we can tell that to him. So in general, negative perceptions, firstly, we shouldn’t entertain them ourselves. When we don’t entertain them, it doesn’t mean that we just become blind and somebody may do something wrong, it is over to us.
No. We have to know that I have to behave according to my own character. So if that is troubling me very much, then I will try to go about correcting it if I have the authority to do it.
But if I don’t have the authority and that doesn’t matter so much to me, then let me not bother much about it.