Dear Gurudev, how do I get rid of manipulations? Is it to affirm ourselves?
Listen, if you are manipulating, stop it right away because it is not going to give you any good results. When you manipulate, you will realize, "Oh my God, I didn't get anything in my hand? All I got is mud!"
After manipulating, you will see that you didn't get gold in your hand, you got mud! It is not worth it. Okay, if you get gold by manipulating, then I would say, "Yes, manipulate". But that will not happen!
So, if you think that you are manipulating, then take a sankalpa (determination) not to do it anymore. If others are manipulating, have compassion for them.
Manipulation happens because of insecurity or over-ambitiousness, and both are not in a healthy state of mind. If you are over-ambitious, you won’t reach anywhere! It is like riding the horse on the merry-go-round. Where does it reach? Nowhere! Where you got in, from the same place you have to get out. This is over-ambitiousness. Just know that over-ambitiousness is sitting on that horse which runs very fast on the merry-go-round. It’s not going to help you.
If someone else is doing that, know that they are immature. Let them realize that and bless them. But you come out of your illusion. When you think others are manipulating, your anger towards them and your wanting to cut off from them makes things even worse. You get into the negative cloud. Do you see what I am saying?
You think, "Oh, that person is manipulating", and you start being nasty to them, and that is equally as bad as manipulation, not any better; it all smells foul. It doesn’t matter whether it is a rotten banana peel or a rotten tomato, both are rotten. So anger is equally wrong as manipulation; nastiness is equally as bad as someone’s manipulation.
See, usually anger comes because of your self-righteousness - 'I am right'. This ‘I am right’ brings such anger and makes you behave nastily. It is as bad as someone telling lies. Got it? You getting nasty or angry, don’t think it is right, that is equally bad.
So, if between two people, one is angry and the other is nasty, or one is telling lies and the other is nasty or angry, you leave them both and walk away because they are settling scores among themselves, you don’t have to interfere. This is good advice.
