Teach without words

To put an idea into words limits it.  It restricts the idea to one aspect of itself.  People mistake the part that they have a name for, for the whole that they do not.  They think that what they perceive, is all there is to be perceived.

They mistake the part for the whole.

 As a means of communication, words are fallible. You say one thing; they hear another. People will see in any situation what they have already decided.

That person is just plain lazy. He’s always been that way.

I always get nervous on tests. My mother was exactly the same.

Her problem is, she doesn’t know how to say what she wants.

And on and on. There is no language you can use that will cut through their fears and judgments.  They themselves will have to ask for that to happen.

When you assert something in conversation, you also set up a resistance against it.  That is just the nature of your reality, what can be apprehended by the five physical senses. Action creates reaction. The more difficult an idea is for people to accept, the more it will draw their ire in defensiveness and ridicule.  At the very least, it provokes conversation, and, as we know, talking is not doing.

Let your message be carried in silence and deed 

What would that look like?

This would mean a total absence on your part of unsolicited advice, friendly reminders, concerned questions, or any other way you have of getting involved in their business without their asking.

 This will render you more silent.

Then let me be rendered a lot more silent.  Let me lose the power of telling any other being what I think they should be doing.

Extend this a little further.  If you would not tell them what to do in any way, you must also stop commenting on what they do. This is just a veiled form of telling them what to do.  Any form of conversation where you discuss, weigh in on, detail your reactions to, or judge the behavior of others, is just a form of trying to use word to control them.  And you would forgo that now.  If this will make you a bit more silent, embrace that silence.

But what if I want to help them? How can I do that?

That must be in deed, which means your example.  Whatever you would have them come to, be that thing.  Enlist all the aid of your trillions of cells, to become that thing now, on a cellular level, on a thought level.  If you want them to value love more than money, be that.  If you want them to be honest with themselves, become that with relation to your Self.

Let me be radically honest with my Self, and dismiss all artifacts, games and finagling of my small self.

The sage can act without effort

and teach without words

Lao Tzu

The Tao Te Ching