​How to respond when our becoming spiritual is deemed socially unacceptable?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much.
So, how do we deal with the, if we become very spiritually conscious, it’s not socially accepted, so we may get isolated. How do we deal with that? So, there is two different aspects which we needn’t confuse. First is that in this world, the nature of life is such that whatever we do, there will always be some people who will criticize us.
We can’t avoid criticism. So, there is a story of, there was a man and his son, they were going along a horse. And they both were riding the horse.
And some people said, just see, so cruel, you know, both of them are burdening the poor horse. Then the father said to the son, son you get down. And the son started walking.
And some other passersby said, what is this? No, doesn’t the father have any love for his son? He is comfortably walking on the horse. He is making his small son walk. Father said, son, you climb up the horse, I will get down.
And he started walking along. And some people said, what is this? The son is young and healthy. The father is getting old now.
Why is the son riding comfortably making the father walk? And the father didn’t know what to do. He said, son, get down. And they all three started walking.
And then people said, what nuts! A horse is meant for riding. You have a horse and why are you walking? So, the thing is, no matter what we do, we will be criticized. If we wear a particular kind of dress, a particular kind of clothes, some people will say, why are you not wearing that kind of clothes? If we have a particular kind of hairstyle, people will say, why do you have that kind of hairstyle? So, we can’t let our life be dictated by what others will think of us.
Actually, we wouldn’t worry so much about what others thought about us, if we knew how little others thought about us. What does that mean? Actually, if we see somebody behaving in an odd way, we may think, why is he doing like that? Why is she doing like that? But it’s not that we constantly think about that. Why did he speak like that? Why did he do like that? No, we all have our own life.
We have our own issues. And we don’t, just because somebody is behaving oddly, we don’t give up our rest of the life to think about them. So, when we turn that around, it is not that people are going to think too much about how we act.
So, we wouldn’t worry so much about what others thought about us, if we knew how little others thought about us. So, basically, if we consider, this is a little painful reality, but, you know, everybody, for them, in their life, their life is like a movie in which they are the hero. And everyone else is extra.
Everyone else is more or less an extra. Some extras are more important, some extras are less important. But actually everyone else is extra.
So, we don’t have to worry too much about social unacceptability or anything like that. That’s the first point. But secondly, even when we practice spirituality, it is not necessary that we have to parade our spirituality to everyone.
We can be like normal people. Say, if we are students, we study. If we are working in some social group, we work in that social group.
It’s not that all the time we have to be showing off that we are spiritual. When we are doing a particular activity, we do that activity. And eventually, if by our spirituality, we become calmer, we become more focused, then people will notice that.
You know, what happened? You know, suppose we start practicing meditation regularly and we become calmer, then six months ago, in a particular stressful situation, we would have just crumbled. But now we are able to calmly deal with it. People will ask, hey, what happened? How are you able to deal with it so calmly? Then they ask, then we can talk about our spirituality.
Usually, people don’t mind what we are doing unless we, as long as we let them do what they are doing. As soon as people start feeling that, you know, you are imposing your thing on me, then they become very hostile. So, if we just practice our own spirituality in a non-exhibitionist way and when people enquire, at that time we share the spirituality with them.
So, then the level of social acceptability will be much lesser. Sometimes what happens is, if something works for us, hey, this is good, then we want to tell everyone about it. Which is in one sense good, but just as when we started practicing something, it took time for us to become convinced.
It took time for us to get some experiences, to realize something, then they take off. So, like that different people will require different amounts of time. So, if we don’t impose our ideas on others, we just practice them ourselves and share when they ask for it, then usually the people don’t become too hostile.
And that way we can keep practicing. Does it address your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, please.