Dear Gurudev, I am involved in several community service projects, and have many leadership positions, and now the politics around me is bothering me and making me less effective. Please advice.
Wherever there are people, politics is bound to be there. Don’t shy away from it and don’t worry about it, you be rock solid. What appears to be politics will find its own way out. Have faith that only the best will happen to you and you will be able to do only the best! Keep these aphorisms with you like a treasure.
When you resist politics then you get deeply into politics. Your perception becomes political and you will get paranoid about it. All those who are paranoid about politics get deep into it. You should not mind it and then it will never bother you.
What is politics? Different people have different mindsets, and they air their opinions. For a while these opinions remain and then it all changes. Some people praise you and the same people will make nasty remarks about you, all this is very common. You should take this for granted or you will become uptight. When you are uptight you are not aware of how you behave.
It is better to keep oneself on a higher pedestal, smiling, laughing, accommodating and accepting that there is politics. Let politics be there, so what? You have to create this confidence that you will move through it.
Our trouble is that we expect everyone to be Mr. Perfect or Ms. Perfect! We expect everyone’s behavior and dealings to be perfect. We expect everyone to be saints but they are not, this is the trouble . And when anybody does anything different, we say, "Oh there is politics!" People’s actions is nothing but politics , it doesn’t have to be dirty all the time, though most of the time it is. So let it be!
It takes quite a bit to rise above all this and keep your mind on the infinite, and that is enlightenment! You rise above it.
Water is never scared of mud. So if something is muddy, you are water, you can wash it all off! Just remember this,politics is mud and I am water, I will run over it.
There is a beautiful poem in Kannada ‘If someone builds a home in the forest and is afraid of animals, what can I tell them? If someone has built a home on the sea shore and is scared of the waves, what can I tell them? And if someone has built a home in the middle of a market place and is complaining about the noise, what can I tell them?'
Similarly, when you live on this planet, people will give you compliments and people will give you derogatory remarks. They will create politics. How can you be afraid of politics when you are on this planet? Never complain about people playing politics, that is what they will do and will continue to do.
Lord Krishna never complained to anyone about the politics played by the families. He didn’t say, "Don’t play politics, I will not come to you", no! He was right there! Even during the time of Jesus and Buddha, there was politics.