When kindness fails¹⁵

Once upon a time, two disciples of a spiritual Master had a very unfortunate experience. One disciple was not doing well, and the other one was trying so hard to encourage and inspire him. There is perhaps something called being overly kind. One disciple was very, very kind and wanted to help the other one and do the work of the other one. Alas, the second disciple, instead of taking the help of the first one, rejected his help and did something absolutely wrong from the spiritual point of view. This is what happens at times. We try to please someone in our own way, but when our consciousness is not high, no matter how we try to help the person who has become a victim to irritation or some other undivine quality, we cannot be of any service to him.

At times it seems as though nothing works in this world! In one of her books Mother Teresa said, "I thought love could conquer everybody.” But then she said that, from her own experience, she had discovered that it was not true, not true. She said, “I loved, but I could not succeed in certain circumstances.” Sometimes even love cannot succeed. Then what shall we do? We always say that power does not succeed; love succeeds. But there came a time when Mother Teresa, who was all compassion, self-giving and forgiveness, said, “Even love does not work.” What can we do at that time?

In my case, many, many times when my kindness, softness, tenderness, politeness and everything else fails, fails, fails, then I use my powerful scolding, and it works. When I scold someone, inwardly I am so miserable. Outwardly I am pretending that I am very, very angry, but inside my heart I know how much I myself am suffering from the scolding that I am giving to someone.

This kind of thing I do for some good disciples who work very hard. When I appear to be angry with them, I suffer much more than they suffer. Outwardly I do not show them kindness and compassion, but this is only what is visible in the outer world. I become two individuals: one individual to use justice-light, and one individual to take the suffering. Inwardly, I am all kindness, all forgiveness.