‘Our critics are the unpaid guardians of our souls’, said Corrie Ten Boom (I think the book name is: Not good if detached). However, sometimes few guardians overstep the line (lakshman reka) and instead of guarding our soul, begin to hurt it—seriously too. My general principle of every criticism on my personal life (as a sannyasi) is to ignore them. Because others have every right to attack my life as a sannyasi in every way. If I began to respond to all such personal attacks, it is not going to serve any purpose in my life. However, when some criticized some of my convictions on certain values, I tried to give my response—some time very harshly too. But as I am advancing in age (and also in experience in a limited way), now I have decided to give it up also. If some of my critics are out of concern for the truth, if I point out my mistake in my conviction, then I try to rectify it. However, unless I am personally convinced, I don’t change my views. Because, if we begin to change our conviction according to every opinion of others, then we cannot finally hold any conviction. Above all, we need to remember that great people cherishconviction and small people entertainopinion. Opinions may create some suffocation but conviction might demand our very life itself.
But our basic nature never takes any adverse criticism easily and however we try to ignore them, yet it will daunt us through our subconscious. Now I try another method to overcome it.
When I read any kind of adverse comment on my life or writing, then I say this: by such comments, I am helping that person to vent out her/his tension and anger against me. So I am happy to serve them in this way too.
After writing this, I checked the quotations that I collected on this subject and the following few are worth pondering on this subject further.
It often seems that being critical and producing a critique are being confused and conflated.— Werner F. Menski, Hindu Law, Beyond Tradition and Modernity, Oxford, (2003), Second impression, 2005, notes, 102, p. 524
…Criticising the group is no criticism. It amounts to no more than judging the opinions of the group. But abuse must necessarily be personal….— RABINDRANATH TAGORE, GORA; Translated from Bangal with notes by SUJIT MUKHERJEE; Introduction by Meenakshi Mukherjee; New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, (1997) Second edition 2001, p.9
…a `Critic’ in the sense of using … powers of discernments but not a `Judge’ in the sense of being censorious. Censoriousness is a compound sin consisting of several unpleasant ingredients–The censorious critic is a fault-finder who is negative and destructive towards other people and enjoys actively seeking over their failings.–John Stott. Christian Counter Culture.
We should no longer make excuses for ourselves by saying, “I have to tell others what they are doing wrong to prevent them from making a mess of things”. In reality however, we enjoy correcting others and reproaching them, often the real source of our criticism is rebellion or annoyance, because someone did something against our wishes.–M. Basilea Schlink. You will never be the same.
…indifference to human opinion can be disastrous if it is not linked with fear of God. But with this proviso, some independence of human assessments can be valuable asset to the disciplined man whose aim is the glory of God….–J. Oswald Sanders, Paul the Leader
Nothing is so futile as trying to defend our moral flaws against the sharp eyes of the world. We should remove the grounds of the criticism rather than deny it–Tozer. The Root of the Righteous.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing while others judge us by what we have already done.–Longwell.
…The spirit of hypercriticism is one which is concerned with personalities rather than with principles. That is the trouble with many of us in this respect. We are really interested in the person we are criticizing, not in the particular subject or principle; and our real desire is to condemn the person, rather than to get rid of the evil that is in the person. That, of course, at once renders us incapable of true judgment….- D. Martyn Lloyd Jones. Studies In The Sermon On the Mount. Inter-Varsity Press. London. Reprint. Jn. 1966. p. 179.
…The moment somebody corrects us he/she becomes our enemy, very rarely we thank a person….— Swami Amalorananda, Atma Purna Anubhava, Anjali Ashram, Mysore, 2000, p.126
…Manner of correcting is also important. If you are whole time afraid because the other one is ‘touch-me-not’ the person will resent it, then you are not going to correct, then community is useless. So we are not to get from the community only what we like we should also get from the community what we need. So spirituality freedom – all is a communitarian dimension. The moment we make it individualistic we are desecrating something very sacred.
Today we have got a framework of a community but we have go accumulation of individualism and that is why we never have community life. Each one going his/her way in the name of freedom, in the name of being human….—ibid. p.126
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