When a person stumbles upon something that changes his life, his very first impulse is to seize everyone he loves by the collar and make them see it too. I know this impulse well from decades of teaching my course, Creativity and Personal Mastery.
Let me tell you about a friend of mine. He had, by a rare accident of birth, deep family ties to Ramana Maharshi – one of the great sages of the age, a living fountain of precisely the peace he said he longed for. To sit in Ramana’s presence was a thing people crossed oceans for. Today his earthly body is gone but his presence is still strong. I meet people from different continents every time I visit Ramanashram in Tiruvannamalai. And my friend, who could have visited almost any weekend, kept not going. He would plan the trip, and something would come up. He would resolve to go, and the resolve would quietly dissolve. Years passed like this. At last, a little embarrassed, he tried to explain it to me. “Srikumar,” he said, “the call has not yet come.”
The call has not come. I have never forgotten the phrase, because it names something we are deeply reluctant to accept: that readiness cannot be manufactured – not in ourselves, and certainly not in another person. My friend was neither lazy nor a fool. The door stood wide open and the treasure lay inside, and still he could not walk through it, because something in him was not yet ready, and no amount of urging from me or anyone else could make it ready.
We forget this constantly. We find a teaching, a practice, a book, a way of seeing that has lifted a great weight from us, and we press it upon our spouse, our children, our friends – you ought to do this, you really must read that, it would change everything for you – and we are baffled and a little wounded when it bounces off them like a pebble off a wall. We were certain we were being generous. In truth we were trying to hand someone a gift their hands were not yet open to receive.
Many times, during my business school professor days, one of my students would come to me and say they had recommended my course to a friend “who really needs it.” I would smile and thank them. I knew that the vast majority of those “who really needed it” would never register for the course.
Two thousand years ago, the same truth was put more simply. “He that hath ears to hear,” said Jesus, “let him hear.” Not everyone, at any given moment, has ears. It has nothing to do with intelligence or worth; it is a matter of ripeness, and ripeness keeps its own calendar.
So, what are you to do when you can see so clearly what would help someone you love? You may drop a hint. That is all, and it is enough. Lay the thing gently within their reach and leave it there – without insistence, without the wounded look when they do not pick it up. If they are ready, they will notice it and take it, and it will feel to them like their own discovery, which is exactly as it should be. And if they are not ready, no force on earth will make them so, and your pushing will only irritate them and strain the bond between you.
There is an old line I am fond of, and I will leave it with you, for it has spared me a great deal of wasted effort: do not try to teach a pig to whistle. You will not succeed – and you will annoy the pig.
Peace!
