With your witnessing there will be a few difficulties: your old friends may not remain your friends any more, not that you have done any harm to them but simply you have changed and now you no longer fit with their state, with their consciousness. So don’t be worried about that. If you are married and you find that your wife is falling far away from you then it is better to tell her what you are doing: that if she wants to be with you, if she loves you the way you love her, you would like her also to be a companion on the path of meditation. Otherwise, soon you will be so far away from each other that everything will be misunderstood.
Your children will find that you are a different person — you are no more the same old papa. It is better to help your children to learn a little bit of witnessing. And don’t think that they cannot learn; they can learn better than grown up people because they are fresh, they are not loaded with any past. Just you have to be more friendly with them than fatherly. And before the rift happens it is better to make it clear to them, “It will not be my fault if the family falls apart. I have chosen a path which is going to give me something and I would like it to be shared by you all.”
I don’t want any family to be disturbed by anybody in the name of spirituality, and if we can be a little more loving and compassionate and make them understand — and they will be able to see that you are less angry, you are less tired, you are less frustrated, you are more loving, more compassionate — they will surely come with you.
