Why Bother to Change Anyone?

What should we do when someone whom we are endeavouring to help refuses to change despite our strenuous efforts to inculcate in him the right values? This has been the quandary not only of parents and teachers but also of friends, well-wishers and so-called spiritual people.

While the intentions to change, educate and reform others are undoubtedly noble and perhaps even laudable, particularly when directed towards those who might not ultimately benefit from such altruism, one should earnestly venture to ask oneself whether one is, in the first place, in a sufficiently exalted position to change anyone. Good intentions towards helping others do not, in themselves, translate into the capacity to help them.

To put it, albeit quite crudely, what makes one think that one actually possesses the capacity, qualities and moral standing necessary to impose one's values upon another, whether that person be one's child, charge, subordinate, friend or disciple?

Unless one is adequately reformed oneself, one lacks the indispensable competence to reform others. Only one who has been properly taught can teach another person, and only one who has been morally, legally and spiritually led can lead others along the path to enlightenment and perfection. Only someone who is both a qualified swimmer and a qualified swimming instructor is qualified to teach a non-swimmer to swim.

The standards required of those who undertake to guide, reform, change and teach the world increase concomitantly with the responsibility they assume for leading their followers towards the attainment of success or enlightenment. This incontrovertible rule applies equally to material and spiritual life.

Knowledge and, for that matter, wisdom cannot, in themselves, serve as reliable yardsticks by which to determine one's qualifications to guide the world along the right path. In the spiritual sphere, only a self-realised person who has attained the acme of spiritual attainment should endeavour to change anyone, including the world.

All the same, the world has seen, much to its utter disappointment, that highly qualified personalities of the types described above, particularly in spiritual life, have, on many occasions, failed quite abysmally to change those whom they have sought to help. It is therefore no wonder that people who are destitute of the qualities indispensable to spiritual masters baulk at reforming an unrighteous person. That is perhaps understandable in the case of ordinary do-gooders. But it does not augur well when even certain highly qualified spiritual personalities fail in this endeavour, notwithstanding the scriptural assertion that their mere glance is capable of transforming even a recidivist given to the most heinous ways of life.

A close study of such accounts in the scriptures would reveal that it is not that enlightened masters and God cannot change such an incorrigible, demoniacal personality; rather, the recalcitrant individual, it may be said, obstreperously refuses to change and remains obdurately impervious to all genuine spiritual efforts to help him. We have seen this, for instance, in the life of Duryodhana, the notorious Machiavelli of the Mahabharata. In point of fact, when one examines life more closely, one would discover that there are quintillions of individuals like Duryodhana in the universe, whose names and lives would "saturate" countless volumes of the Itihasas?

In Tamil, there is a saying கழுதைக்குத் தெரியுமா கற்பூர வாசனை, which translates literally to: "Does a donkey know the fragrance of camphor?" The closest equivalent proverbs in English that convey the exact same meaning are: "Honey is not for the ass's mouth", "Casting pearls before swine", "A blind man is no judge of colours". 

The same has been said by அவ்வையார் (Avvaiyaar) and திருவள்ளுவர் (Thiruvalluvaar):

In Avvaiyar’s "Moodhurai" (popularly known as Vaakkundam), Stanza 15 uses a brilliant analogy involving a wild pigand a water lily to convey this exact sentiment:

"கற்பிளவோடு ஒப்பர் கயவர்; கடுஞ்சினத்துப்/ பொற்பிளவோடு ஒப்பாரும் போல்வாரே; - விற்பிடித்து/ நீர்த்நீலம்பூவோடு எளியக் கருப்பஞ்சாறு/ ஆர்த்தாலும் பன்றிக்கு அது கசக்கும்."

Avvaiyar explains that even if you feed a wild pig delicious sugarcane juice or offer it beautiful, fragrant blue water lilies, it will not care for them. Instead, it will always prefer to scavenge in the dirt and mud. Similarly, a low-minded or ignorant person will never understand or appreciate noble values, no matter how much you try to teach him.

Thiruvalluvar addresses this trait of the ignorant (கயமை - Baseness / அறிவின்மை - Ignorance) in a few couplets. The closest philosophical equivalents are:

Kural 410 (From the Chapter on 'Learning' / கல்வி):

"விலங்கோடு மக்கள் அனையர் இலங்குநூல்/ கற்றாரோடு ஏனை யவர்."

Just as an animal cannot comprehend the depth of human knowledge or refined arts, an ignorant person cannot appreciate the value of wisdom, much like the donkey in the proverb.

Kural 1073 (From the Chapter on 'Baseness' / கயமை):

"தேவர் அனையர் கயவர் அவருந்தாம்/ மேவன செய்தொழுக லான்."

While satirical, it implies that low-minded people completely lack the capacity to judge what is inherently good, refined, or fragrant (noble), living only by their immediate, raw instincts.

In a similar vein, Saint Manikavasagar has said in his Thiruvasagam:

முத்திநெறி அறியாத மூர்க்கரொடு முயல்வேனைப்/ பத்திநெறி தவிர்வித்துப்பரம்பரனே பயில்வித்தாய்/ அத்தனையாண்டு அடியனேற்கு அருளியவாறு ஆற்றிடேன்/ சித்தம் புகுந்து தித்திக்கும் தேனே யான் உன்னைவிட்டேனே!

In a word, one should not, however wise one may be, waste time talking to அறிவிலி (=fool, dunce) and மூர்க்கர் (=Brute, barbarian, ruffian, or fanatic/obstinate person) are not bothered about “முத்திநெறி” (the path to spiritual liberation, or the path to salvation, or the path to final beatitude)..