Gurudev, sometimes I find it difficult to explain to other people the benefits of meditation.
See, you don't try to convince people who don't know what meditation is. Even if they get convinced, they will not do it. So better leave it. Say to them, "You have not meditated, you have missed something great in your life", that's it, and you walk away with a royal attitude. They will come behind you.
It is not your convincing power that will make people start. It’s your conviction that will make them start. How much conviction you have in what you believe. That changes the world around you.
Do you know what the spider does? It makes a net all around itself from its own saliva. It walks and weaves a net. The spider does it all by itself! This is what you must remember. Have this conviction that you create your world, you create the people around you and you create the situations around you.
Don't give too much importance to what others think, what others say because it has no basis. They just vanish in no time like bubbles in the air.
Why do we give so much importance to what people think? People who you think are great friends, how much time will it take for them to turn against you? Hasn't it happened? You have done so much for people and they have turned against you. How many of you have this experience? For no reason, they became your enemy. You wonder one fine day what happened to this guy, what happened to this lady? You can't find logic. You search for a reason why they have gone against you, and you can't find one.
Similarly, someone who you did not know come to your help. Hasn't this happened? All this happens on its own law. If your time is good, even enemies behave like friends, and if your time is not good, it can happen the other way around. So remember you are like the spider. You weave your world around yourself. When you move with this conviction, everything falls in place, not you trying to convince somebody.
People having known something is good, still they don't do it. Who does not know exercising is good? Civilized, educated people, they all know, but do they do it? No! Educated people know very well that junk food is bad for them. Do they stop eating it? No! So it is not necessary that people do what is good for them. But when you give them a vision of something beyond, something mysterious, something more beautiful, then they will want to find out what it is. When you trigger the interest in them, trigger the spirit of enquiry in them, then the people will walk the path, not because they know or they are convinced.