You have been practising meditation for a very long time. Many years in fact.
A guest in your house, one day sees you meditating. He comes up to you and says your posture is not right. Fold your palms this way, touch your fingers like this, and face this specific direction. How does he know you ask? He read it in a book.
You get irritated. And rightly so. Years of live meditation, versus reading from a book – really? Who does he think he is? You decide to give him a piece of your mind.
But you also think about it a bit more. “What am I doing all this meditating for? To control my mind, and my tongue, isn’t it?”
You mull over the learnings here. “The spiritual aspirant always has to face two sides of the coin. One, as a person making the suggestion, I do not know anything about the spiritual level reached by others. So telling anyone to do anything differently or to change their routine is not my place. And two, as the recipient of unsolicited advice, I can only control my reactions and responses. This way I gain mastery over my mind and tongue, and also ensure I do not hurt the other person.”
We can surely listen to advice, and even test it out, but if it is unsuitable, we can choose to ignore it. Why get angry, and mess up the rest of our day?
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