Don’t Try To Make Others Understand If They Don’t Want To

Understanding brings peace

"If you try to understand, you are no more in the trips of the ego: domination, aggression, violence, anger. A distance is created." - Osho

If you understand, there will be peace. If you don’t understand, there will be disturbance, tension, and anguish. Whenever somebody is in anguish it shows he has not understood the deeper meaning of things.

You go on accusing others—because of them you are in anguish. Nobody is in anguish because of others. You are in anguish because of your nonunderstanding or your misunderstanding.

A man came to me and said that he was very disturbed because his wife goes on quarrelling, tries to dominate him, and the children don’t listen to him. “Their mother has become too influential and the children listen to her; they don’t listen to me. Do something for me. Through your grace let my wife become a little more understanding.”

I said, “That’s impossible. Through my grace—or anybody’s grace—the other cannot be made more understanding. You can be. When you ask for the other’s understanding you miss the whole point. Why does the wife look dominating? Because you are also struggling for domination, you are after the same goal. What is wrong if the children follow the mother? But you would like the children to follow you—hence the struggle.”

You will be wasting your life unnecessarily if you try to change others. They will suffer if they are not understanding, why should you suffer? You simply understand that everybody is trying to dominate. You drop out of it, and your struggle disappears.

If you try to understand, you are no more in the trips of the ego: domination, aggression, violence, anger. A distance is created. Now you can look at things and you can laugh: how ridiculous you have been! You will laugh. But you always think, “The whole world is wrong. If I could change everybody then I would be happy.” This is the ignorant point of view; this is the base of unhappiness. Once you understand that it is not for you to change the whole world, the only thing that you can do is to change yourself.

Abridged from Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing by Osho

Osho is known for his revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation, with an approach to meditation that acknowledges the accelerated pace of contemporary life.

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