On cutting people out

Spirituality
#1

Over the years I’ve read and personally observed that the more sadhana we do, the more our circle of friends and acquaintances tends to change, mostly unintentionally. We may not be blatantly avoiding some people we used to spend time with, but as our lifestyle and interests change, we drift away from them. At what point do you think it’s right, if ever, to intentionally cut an old friend out of your life because of great differences?

Here’s a personal example of a friend who has ongoing issues with substance abuse, financial dependence (mooching), narcissism, delusions of grandeur, and selfishness. I would like to be a good influence, but it’s very difficult to be around this person and not get dragged down into negativity. He says he wants to change but is clearly unable to do so. Would it be selfish of me to cut this person out of my life?

#2

In my view, it will be selfish if you cut this person out of your life, owing to your judgment about what this person is. It will not be selfish if your yoga practice has transformed you so much that he has become either incongruent with your new level of awareness or is a drag on your further progress.

Judgment is subjective, what Yoga calls as ?incorrect knowledge? and your description indicates a profuse negativity in it. This will highlight your emotion of dislike influencing your action more than any natural progression. After all, it has to be about you and not him. It is important to see if you have naturally outgrown the terms of friendship that will render it pointless to carry on ?for the old time?s sake?. If you have grown in awareness, you will feel sympathy for him, if anything at all.

But, it is true that life and our choices change dramatically as Yoga brings about transformation. The delicate balance here is not to feel ?holier-than-thou? and treat the once dear things or people with relaxed indifference.

#3

Ah, the ebb and flow of living. Friends come and friends go. No need to attach to the feelings of why. Just know this happens. Friends come into our lives for a reason and they leave for a reason. We learn much from both. They may leave temporarily and then return to stay. If you have felt you’ve been a good, compassionate friend, continue being a good compassionate friend. Don’t expect anything in return and you will never be disappointed. Accept this is who they are at this time in their life. You can love and support friends who struggle and fail (ie. drug abuse) as easily as ones who succeed. If their behavior is violent, abusive or something similar you can let them know you do not accept this type of behavior, but you can accept them for who they are now, and know someday they will understand. (but perhaps not in this lifetime)

And I do agree that as we change, we surround ourselves with like minded people. Some people (I am one) are fortunate to have some who have remained loyal friends and have embraced the change in me and were open to exploring those things that prompted my change…i.e. Yoga.

Thanks Trinley for posting this. I hope you find a way to be at peace with this issue. It is a tough one.

#4

[QUOTE=trinley;52148]Over the years I’ve read and personally observed that the more sadhana we do, the more our circle of friends and acquaintances tends to change, mostly unintentionally. We may not be blatantly avoiding some people we used to spend time with, but as our lifestyle and interests change, we drift away from them. At what point do you think it’s right, if ever, to intentionally cut an old friend out of your life because of great differences?

Here’s a personal example of a friend who has ongoing issues with substance abuse, financial dependence (mooching), narcissism, delusions of grandeur, and selfishness. I would like to be a good influence, but it’s very difficult to be around this person and not get dragged down into negativity. He says he wants to change but is clearly unable to do so. Would it be selfish of me to cut this person out of my life?[/QUOTE]

I think you’re asking two different questions. One, the more general question about when and if to cut out old friends, and the other which to me is very clear, and that’s if you should cut your substance abusing friend out of your life. Yes, you should. Not so much for your sake but for your friend’s sake.

#5

A long time friend of mine, one I referred to more than once as a martial arts brother (I am more of a martial artist than a yoga person ? sorry) vanished one day. I called him and he answered and sounded not himself and rather annoyed that I was bothering him. I tried to call a few more times after that but he no longer answered any of his phones.

He had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and he beat it, before I meant him, by spending some time at Zen Mountain Monastery and then getting back into martial arts, this is when I meant him.

We trained together for years and went through various teachers together and we both went through divorces dur9ng this time and we still trained together (basically we beat the heck out of each other on a regular basis)

He got involved with a woman who also had a history of drug abuse but he brought her into martial arts to help her. Eventually she found an excuse to go back into drugs and he worked a trying to help her but after years of staying clean he failed, relapsed and disappeared.

I learned all this years later when he returned to MA and we sat down and talked about everything that had happened to him. He lost everything, his house and all that was in it, his job, his pension, 2 cars, a Harley, and his dog breeding business? and the woman too. He got himself into rehab and was working his way back? and then one day after class he started telling me he saw this woman again and he was thinking about going out on a date with her. I asked him if he thought this was a good idea?. That was the last time I saw him.

I had his number I thought about calling him but my wife talked some sense into me. If he wanted help he knew where to find me and if he was back into the drug culture I could not afford to have him around my wife and kids.

Basically sometime you have to let people go because if you don?t it will drag you down and possibly hurt others like family.

And I still watch the papers and check the web to see if there is any news of him at all. To be honest I am expecting to see either an obituary or an arrest. And this is all very sad because he was a very talented martial artist and at one time a responsible father and grandfather.

#6

What a sad story Yulaw! Must be awful for you not knowing about your friend. I do hope he is and will be OK. But you must know that whatever he decides, it’s his decision. You can be there to love and support, but in the end it is up to him to find his path. And yes, you can let them go, but you can also welcome them back with open arms when they return.

#7

When I was about 18-19, I literally cut contact with everyone around me, including my parents - no exception whatsoever. This is the stage when I’d first gotten my spiritual experiences, such as out of body experience, clear-grasp, immersing in the now-moment and so on. Then I realized that the culture and country I am living in is a total disappointment, and that people are sleepwalkers, just like sheep, thus make no effort to change themselves; hence I had become increasingly misanthropic and deliberately drifted myself away from people. I was afraid that they were going to poison me with their cultural, interpersonal and lingustic idiocy. I was of course right about that for I was so enmeshed in meditation that I was able to see through things.

The result was amazing hatred, physical and mental suffering, intolerance, antisocial and antisexual attitude at an amazing rate, and so on… the pain taught me well though…

Meditation (awareness practices) didn’t initially teach me to be more compassionate towards other humans; it brought my oppressed hatred to the surface in an unwarranted way, and I became terribly misanthropic, nihilistic, buddhist and suicidal…

Cutting people might be necessary for some, if it is for spiritual development. You can teach spirituality to unready minds until you are ready…

#8

The Great Mother guides all - sometimes in very dramatic fashion.

You can not save everyone.

Work around them. Be around them in the proper spirit. If you can benefit them then do it, if you can’t then do not worry about it.

They must come to the turning about of their accord, of their own time.

#9

[QUOTE=High Wolf;52223]You can teach spirituality to unready minds until you are ready…[/QUOTE]

Freaking computer…it actually should have been:

You ‘cannot’ teach spirituality to unready minds until you are ready…

#10

[QUOTE=lotusgirl;52222]What a sad story Yulaw! Must be awful for you not knowing about your friend. I do hope he is and will be OK. But you must know that whatever he decides, it’s his decision. You can be there to love and support, but in the end it is up to him to find his path. And yes, you can let them go, but you can also welcome them back with open arms when they return.[/QUOTE]

Thank You, it has been a little over a year since I last saw him but life goes on

#11

For some it?s best to separate themselves from the negatives and expose themselves to the positives.

#12

trinley,

“a friend who has ongoing issues with substance abuse, financial dependence (mooching), narcissism, delusions of grandeur, and selfishness. I would like to be a good influence, but it’s very difficult to be around this person and not get dragged down into negativity”

Then one’s sadhana has not really been effective. The so called “negativity” is not created by the other person, but by you because one’s state of mind is still very much dependent upon outer forces. All that is needed is something you dislike to happen, and at any moment it can come crashing down. Otherwise, even in the midst of a great tragedy, you can remain absolutely balanced and centered.

It may be far more useful to continue practicing the sadhana until you come to a point where your state of consciousness is no longer determined by the outside influences rather than trying to control the outer world. And if you want to control the outer world, it is going to be endless. Even if you do so to the best of your abilities, one is never going to have absolute control - the stream of life is such, that it is unceasingly changing. And there is no certainty where the stream is going to move even in the next moment. One can either travel with the stream out of unconsciousness or out of consciousness.

Other than this, if the relationship is naturally drifting apart, let it drift apart. One can never force it into existence. Otherwise, it is constantly a power struggle between egos. You want the other person to conform to your desires, the other wants you to conform to his, both are clinging to their own prejudices, conflict is inevitable. If it has any life in it, it will sustain itself without even your doing. And any relationship is just going to be a mirror reflection of the states of consciousness of the individuals. If two people are naturally in harmony within themselves, then one does not even need to do anything at all for the relationship, it will blossom as a force of it’s own.

#13

All meetings end in separation just as all buildings end in ruins

#14

Thank you for your replies. To answer, I’d like to give some more detail to a couple replies. I welcome more thoughts if anyone is still interested in the discussion.

[QUOTE=lotusgirl;52183]Ah, the ebb and flow of living. Friends come and friends go. No need to attach to the feelings of why. [/QUOTE]

I agree here, but I feel that this case is a little different which makes it more difficult. In this case, it’s not me questioning why my friend is drifting away. It’s me wondering if there ever comes a point where I have to actively eliminate someone from my circle of friends. Sometimes it must be done actively, like in this case where I normally see this peson quite regularly, he lives close to me, and we have a long history together. That makes it kind of hard for us to just drift apart, as we never have. I hope that makes it clearer what the difficulty is for me. Thank you, lotusgirl.

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;52342]Then one’s sadhana has not really been effective. The so called “negativity” is not created by the other person, but by you because one’s state of mind is still very much dependent upon outer forces.[/QUOTE]

True enough. This factor also contributes to my confusion with the issue. The problems that I mentioned above are indeed due to my own mind. If he were argumentative, it would only bother me if were attached to ‘my side’ of the argument. At times, I think that I should never cut people out, because they are part of my practice. What really pushed me to the brink to ask this question was a recent event that occured with this person. I had taken off my diamond ring and set it on a table while he was in my house. (He had recently asked me if it was real.) A few hours later, I wondered where it was, and my first thought was whether he had taken it, which is not an unreasonable thought given his problems with drugs, debt, forgery etc. Soon after, I remembered where I had put it, but I realized that I call this person a friend but don’t even trust him not to steal from me. At that point, it seemed less about my sadhana.

#15

it is easy to be a master on the secluded mountain…
try to live a spiritual life inside the real society with its non-virtues…this is the real challenge…I think walking away just shows ones spiritual immaturity…and some mental issues… sorry

#16

Lotusgirl, after careful consideration of the situation and of all these helpful posts, I think I better understand the wisdom of what you said! My confusion came from the fact that I thought I had to [I]actively[/I] reject this person or [I]actively[/I] maintain the friendship. When I finally stopped ruminating over what to do, it came to me (fittingly) that I don’t actually have to [I]do[/I] anything, and the thing will run its course. Sometimes it’s like I’m trying to redirect a river to where [I]I[/I] think it ought to go.

So thanks!