Criticism, Manipulation, Verbal Abuse

Criticism, Manipulation, Verbal AbusE

[00:45] Q – How do we positively handle criticism?

Do you have any tips on how to positively handle criticism?

[00:50] A – Your Critics Are Your Best Friends

Guru Deva, Maharishi’s master, my teacher’s teacher, Guru Deva, had a fabulous saying: “Your critics are your best friends.” Why? They’re providing you with a critique—a critique. A criticism is not someone dumping on you. A criticism is a critique. What does a critique mean?

Let’s get out of the negative connotations of the word critic or criticism. Let’s think of it as a critique. Don’t you want somebody to assist you in having an understanding of how you could improve? Of course, you do. 

Don’t you want people giving you constructive comments about how you might be able to stop making so many mistakes and live a life that’s free of the repercussions of those mistakes? Of course, you do.

You see, we think this way because we’ve been trained badly. It’s not your parents’ fault, really. They didn’t know either. We’re living in an age of ignorance. This is an age where clarity of thinking is not the specialty of this time.

So then, you hear somebody make a comment that’s intended to assist you in rising up from a less high level of performance to a more high level of performance, and you automatically think, “Oh, she hates me,” or, “These people hate me.” That’s a very big jump. Someone sees you buttering your toast with a fork, and they say, “Wouldn’t you like to use a knife to butter your toast?” And then you break down in tears and go running off, “They hate me, they hate me.”

They’re just trying to help you get your toast buttered. Hate doesn’t come into it.

[02:54] Thank You

So when somebody bothers to provide you with a critique, it’s an opportunity for you to interact with that information base and improve your performance—improve your successful performance. The very best thing to do when someone criticizes you is to say, “Thank you.” Not, “Oh, you hate me.” Just, “Thank you. Thank you. I’m going to see what I can do to improve upon this.” Don’t we want that?

I’m told—and I’m not sure how far it’s historic, but it’s a great story anyway, and it’s instructive, so we can relax about the historicity of it—that Abraham Lincoln, evidently or supposedly, when somebody had noticed that he had changed his mind from a comment he had made six months prior about a particular policy, had gone 180 degrees and made an opposite statement six months later. A journalist, who was fairly clued in, said, “Sir, you have said the exact opposite of what you’re already on record as saying six months ago.”

To which Abraham Lincoln, at least according to this story—whether it’s apocryphal or not doesn’t really matter—said, “I’m the first to admit that I’m a better man today than I was yesterday. I’m the first to admit that I’ve evolved, and my thinking has evolved. First to admit it.”

We need to think about things this way. We’re in an evolutionary stream, and things are moving all the time. Naturally, it could be helpful for us to have some comments here and there about some pitfalls on the way.

And we should be grateful if someone is happy to provide us with a critique. It’s an important aspect of our evolution. Rather than having this kind of weakness of thinking, “Oh, my whole identity is completely at stake now because somebody suggested that I don’t butter my toast with a fork. Now I have to think about how many times everybody’s watched me butter my toast with a fork. Oh my God, what does it mean? I’m just a terrible creature. Oh no, no, no.”

All the person was doing was kindly trying to assist you by saying, “There could be a better way. Would you like to try a butter knife? It might work better.” But instead, we decide that our life is worthless because somebody said forks are not the best and that a butter knife is the better way.

We need to grow up. We need to grow up, basically. Critics are your best friends. Thank them for their critique.

[05:50] Q – How should we respond to criticism when it’s harsh?

How should we respond to criticism when it’s harsh?

[05:56] A – With Compassion and Gratitude

It’s not our responsibility. If somebody speaks in a rough fashion, it’s not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to know that all reports are reports upon the state of consciousness of the reporter. We’re always happy to receive a weather report about someone’s consciousness state.

If somebody’s speaking in a gruff fashion or something like that, they must be in pain. And so we’re compassionate about that, but we’re still grateful for their critique. “Thank you very much.” They may have used rough words because, who knows, maybe they have gastroenteritis or something. Maybe they’re experiencing a toothache along with the gastroenteritis. Whatever it might be that is making them speak roughly, we have sympathy, but they are our critic, which is what we want.

We want to know how better to present ourselves to the world or what to let go of. Consider it to be something that you take away and sleep on.

I’ll give you another story. When I was a very young man, I had to lecture at a very young age on the effects of meditation. I was just barely out of my teens, barely. I was sitting in front of a group, and there were two psychiatrists who sat in the front row.

I didn’t know they were psychiatrists until they told me, but when question time came, one of them said to me, “Well, we’re psychiatrists. I’m from this hospital, and he’s from that hospital.” I was frozen with fear. There were another 30 people in the room listening.

One of them said, “You have mannerisms.” And I said, “Yes, what are they?” One of them said, “Well, you tend to favor your lip a little bit with your tongue when you’re trying to think up an answer, and that indicates to us that you’re actually a very stressed young man.”

I felt a little more stressed when I heard that. And the other one said, “Yes, and I noticed that your foot is kind of wiggling, bouncing up and down.”

All I could say was, trying to be jocular about it, “Well, thank you very much. I’ll see if I can work on those little stress traits that I have as just a post-teen person talking to 30 people. But I think that if I hadn’t learned to meditate, I probably would have been performing Swan Lake up here. My body would have been going through every kind of gyration. So what you’re seeing is the result of me meditating for a few years. It would have been a lot worse. I think there’s been an improvement. But thank you very much.”

[09:13] We Want to Find the Gold

Interestingly, after those gentlemen left—having had no intention of learning to meditate, as they simply wanted to show up at a public lecture and let everyone know they were professionals—several people did learn to meditate that evening.

One very kindly lady said to me, “Don’t you listen to those mean men. We think you’re really nice, and we want to learn to meditate from you.” I was very grateful to her.

But I did stop doing the thing with my tongue—I didn’t even know I was doing it. And wiggling my foot? I don’t know—my foot was wiggling away or something like that. I thought, “Well, that’s an unnecessary part of the repertoire that I can let go of. How easy is that? Don’t wiggle the foot; don’t lick the lip.” Evidently, I don’t do that anymore, so I have those two psychiatrists to thank for it.

Even though they were attempting, in a way, to self-aggrandize and make me look bad, it didn’t matter to me. I was able to take something away.

We don’t care what someone’s up to, but let’s harvest from anything that somebody says. Let’s harvest what good can come out of it. Is there something good that comes out of it? Of course, there is always something good. Can you find the gold? We want to find the gold.

If you’re going to run and hide every time you think someone’s going to provide you with a critique, I can send you off to the swamis in North India, in the Himalayas. They can teach you how to be a monk and live in a cave, where you never have to come in contact with another human being for the rest of your life.

If you don’t really want that, learn Vedic Meditation, practice it twice every day, and grow up. Get to the grown-up table.

[10:39] Q – What’s the best way to handle manipulation or manipulative behaviors?

What’s the best way to handle manipulation or manipulative behaviors?

[10:45] A – Manipulative Behavior Requires a Reward

The very best thing, always, when somebody is lowering themselves into manipulation, is to be loving and compassionate. Loving and compassionate might also mean not letting them get away with it. That’s also loving and compassionate. Why? Because we don’t wish to allow someone to violate the laws of Nature in that way and to give themselves a harder time.

So how do we identify manipulative behavior? First of all, you know what the word means. To what extent are you being led by someone else to sets of behaviors that do not actually serve the interests of the whole but serve only the interests of the one?

We can identify manipulative behavior as it always comes as a pattern. There’s no one who ever manipulates just one time. “I’ll just try this once, and then I’ll never manipulate again.”

Manipulative behavior is a behavior that requires a reward in order for it to be continued, and typically, it is an entire methodology to manipulate. Manipulate means considerable thought has gone into how to cause you, the person being manipulated, to feel as though it’s incumbent on you to either perform an action or to stop doing something. Generally speaking, it has to do with a suffering competition.

The manipulator typically will use competitive suffering. “I’m suffering more than you. Look, you’re playing that Bach. I have an allergy to Bach. It was identified by a particular doctor who identifies people who have certain music allergies. I took the music allergy test, and Bach—it’s no good for me.”

The underlying quote here is, “I’m suffering more than you. I’m suffering more than you, and you’re the cause of my suffering, and you don’t really want to make me suffer anymore, do you?”

Or, “You go ahead. You go to the movie with your friends. I wish I could do that, but I can’t do that because I have problems with flashing lights and things. But I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. I don’t suppose that if I were you, I wouldn’t want to stay here with me either and massage my feet. I’d prefer to go off to the movies with my friends. But, no, no, you go ahead. You go ahead. I’ll find a way. I’ll be okay. If things get bad, I can always call the emergency line. Well, go ahead and have a fun time at the movies. My feet will handle themselves.”

[13:44] A Suffering Competition

Manipulative behavior—and what is the technique of manipulative behavior? Suffering competition.

“I suffer more than you. Let’s make you feel guilty, and then you’ll alter your behavior in my favor because I’ve managed, through some kind of not-so-subtle technique, to cause you to feel guilty. I’ve studied you carefully. I understand what’s going to make you feel guilty, and I’m going to pull the guilty strings and then adjust your behavior.”

It’s always an attempt to control you. Manipulative behavior is an attempt to control you, and I believe it is incumbent upon healthy people—if you’re healthy, it’s incumbent upon you—not to be controllable. To be uncontrollable. To be uncontrollable.

So, if the person trying to prevent me from going to the movie with my friends but instead wanting me to stay back and massage their feet was being manipulative in that way, I would tend to say, “I agree with you. I don’t know how you get through a day. The suffering you go through—it’s astonishing to me. You must be superhuman. It’s phenomenal. I’m going to go to the movies. Thanks for giving me permission to go. I’m heading off now.”

Give them the suffering trophy. How do you stop manipulative behavior? Give them the suffering trophy. That’s all they want anyway. They want the trophy that says, “I’m suffering more than anybody, and for me, just sitting here for five minutes is more difficult than anything you’ve ever been through in your lifetime. I’ve survived the last five minutes. It must be easy to be you.”

“For me, it’s absolutely the most difficult thing to even survive a given moment. But I manage to do it every day. Now you go ahead and enjoy yourself. I’ll just stay here and keep on succeeding to suffer. I’ll survive it. Don’t worry about me.”

These kinds of things—so obvious, manipulative behavior. Just say to them something like, “You’re amazing. I don’t know how you do it. I’ll let you know how the movie was when I get back. Bye.”

[16:32] The Greatest Crime Against Nature

If you allow a controller to control you, then you are complicit in a crime. You become complicit in a crime. And the crime is that days and nights of your time are passing irresistibly, and days and nights of their time are passing irresistibly. The crime is you’re allowing controlling manipulative behavior to actually waste time.

The waste of time is the greatest crime to commit against Nature. One moment gone, and no dollars or pounds or any amount of money—there’s no power in the universe that can bring back that moment.

You could lose a million pounds sterling, and with a bit of applied creativity, you could get it back again. You lose one moment, and there’s no power on earth that can get it back. For us to agree to let somebody waste time—waste their time, waste our time—through these paltry manipulative, controlling techniques, we don’t want to be complicit in that crime. We’re not going to let them get away with it. Just don’t participate. Don’t engage.

You also have to remember that people who manipulate regularly fail. So if they try to manipulate you, and you just have a bit of a laugh and go on your merry way by yourself anyway, don’t feel bad about it. It’s probably the third or fourth time that day that that’s happened to them.

It’s their responsibility. They’ve set it up. They set that up. Just don’t let them succeed. Every time you let somebody succeed at that, you’re helping to train somebody to behave badly in the world. Don’t be complicit.

[17:59] Q – Can you share any strategies for responding to verbal abuse?

Can you share any strategies for responding to verbal abuse?

[18:03] A – Just a Noise

See, you go to a party, and everyone’s dressed nicely and all of that. Instead of having drinks on a platter, the butler coming around serving everyone has a dagger on the platter, and he’s calling out and saying, “Would anyone like to stab themselves? I have a dagger here. You can be the stabbed one, but no one’s going to stab you; you have to stab yourself. Is there anybody who’d like to stab themselves with this dagger?” My advice is: don’t pick up the dagger and do it. Why volunteer to be the offended one? Why volunteer to be the offended one?

All reports are reports upon the state of consciousness of the reporter. All reports are reports upon the state of consciousness of the reporter. No one’s reporting on you. No one’s reporting on you.

If you buy into their report, it’s because you’ve hypnotized yourself to think that maybe they’re right, and it causes you to doubt yourself. When you refer to something that somebody utters—some noise they make with their mouth—as verbal abuse… Somebody toots their horn on the street: beep, beep, beep, beep, like that. I can only be offended if I agree that it was something to do with me or if I agree that it was because I was doing something wrong. Otherwise, just a noise. Just a noise.

Someone’s making some sound with their mouth, reporting on their consciousness state. Why would you consider it to be verbal abuse? They’re reporting on their consciousness state. Be nice and quiet, take in the information, and make your decisions about whether you’re called into action or not, but you cannot stop someone from behaving according to their level of consciousness.

[20:02] A – They Must Be Suffering

Now, if you’re a teacher of Vedic Meditation, you have an opportunity to inspire them through your uplifting behavior—your inability to be offended, not taking the dagger and stabbing yourself with it, not volunteering to be the offended one, which is something you do to yourself; nobody does it to you. If you’re a teacher of Vedic Meditation, perhaps you can inspire them to come and learn to meditate because you were not reactive to their… what maybe they thought was abusive, or some third party watching might have thought was abusive, but to you, it didn’t seem to be so.

And maybe they’re going to want to learn how to be like you. If you’re a teacher, you can teach them. 

If you’re not a teacher, you can guide them to the nearest Vedic Meditation teacher. Then their consciousness state can go through a change. Someone who does that—they must really be suffering.

Someone who makes those kinds of noises that are intended to wound—not that you’re wounded by them, but they’re intended to wound—it’s like somebody throws a water balloon at you or something. It kind of either bounces off you or maybe it bursts and makes your clothes wet. But the intention? Are they intending to wound you?

If somebody’s intending to wound you through speech, they must be really suffering. They must be in pain. And they’re bringing it to us. They’re in the right place. “Bring your pain to me. That’s fine. Let me quietly listen,” rather than diving into feeling a little bit like, “Gosh, maybe they have it right. I’d better start rebutting this and refuting it.”

Rebuttal and refutal—this rejection—is dangerous to your own immortality. It makes you suddenly conforming with your own worst expectation and your own worst fear and the worst expectation of whomever it is that’s making the noise. Just don’t engage on that level. Don’t engage on that level.

Someone’s doing something. It’s their state of consciousness. It’s their responsibility, not yours.