How can I convince spiritual elders about true spiritual concepts?

Śrī Balaji asked: Namaste Swāmi! Generally, it seems effective when I discuss the divine spiritual knowledge with people who are open-minded and who are interested in rational/logical discussions like my peers, students, professionals etc. These people are willing to discuss for hours on topics in a friendly manner and all the points given by You can be presented in a convincing way.

But with certain other types of people, I have found it especially difficult. This includes some spiritually inclined elders in the family circle, spiritual gurus or devotees. Usually when they talk to younger relatives/devotees on minor topics, I stay quiet trying to correlate what they say with coinciding aspects of Your divine spiritual knowledge. The problem arises when they speak about key topics incorrectly such as:

• Claiming that there is mutual opposition between the Śiva and Viṣṇu (Śiva-Viṣṇu bheda).
• Claiming that it is sufficient to merely chant the name of God and that there is no need of any deep knowledge.
• Talking ill about Incarnations or spiritual gurus.
• Talking ill about the followers of other religions.
• Saying that the path of their community alone is the highest because of the high spiritual level of their people.

On the above topics, when I open up and start to make counter-arguments, they show impatience, become provocative and try to cut me off using tactics such as jumping from topic to topic, picking one word or statement that is irrelevant to the main point and finding fault with it etc. This creates a lot of pressure and I forget many key and excellent points You have provided on the above topics. After the discussion, I continue to feel the pressure for several hours since I failed to communicate the excellent points of Your divine knowledge, maybe due to the lack of frequent memorization of the points.

Kindly provide some pointers on how to change my attitude or approach to effectively communicate the divine knowledge in the above situations. Sincerely, Balaji]

Swāmi replied: You can record the exact points made by such people in those discussions and pass them on to Me, so that I can give suitable replies, including all the necessary points about how to answer them. For the time being, I feel that this is the best way.

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