This tendency of those you love and help trying to harm you is more common than one expects. It stems primarily from an egocentric attitude wherein one takes everything that one receives from the world and others as a natural right. So when someone does some good these people believe that they naturally deserved it. In their mind the one who is doing good is not doing anything special but doing only what they are expected to do. There are even degrees in this egocentricity ranging from being critical of the person doing good to even trying to harm them if for some reason you are unable to fulfil their (wrong or right) expectations. They take you and your goodness for granted and the good done to them as an entitlement. If you try to do more good either out of sympathy or moved by goodwill they become often (though not always) aggressive because their ego laden self esteem gets burdened and the only way they can get rid of it is by this extreme egocentric attitude that there is nothing good in you and what you are doing is moved by some selfish desire. Yet they do not refuse the good as it is an entitlement! It is a kind of projection of their nature onto others.
What can be done about them? Well nothing much except prayer. I believe we should not change our ways simply as a reaction to their ingratitude. We should continue to be giving if this is our innate nature though with the knowledge that the recipient will neither acknowledge nor reciprocate. If we do it with the right attitude it can even help us progress. The right attitude in giving and doing good is of course not self-righteousness which is another form of ego, a subtler sattwic ego instead of the crude ego of the ego-centric person. It is what Sri Aurobindo describes in the Synthesis of Yoga.
‘Whoever the recipient, whatever the gift, it is the Supreme, the Eternal in things, who receives and accepts it, even if it be rejected or ignored by the immediate recipient. For the Supreme who transcends the universe, is yet here too, however veiled, in us and in the world and in its happenings; he is there as the omniscient Witness and Receiver of all our works and their secret Master.’
At a higher stage one can even feel compassion towards these because with their attitude they close their doors to love and hence they suffer inwardly quite a bit.
On the other hand, at the other extreme is gratitude. It is the material expression of the psychic life upon earth. Yet genuine gratitude is a rare thing and if one finds it one feels joy as gratitude is only a slightly modified form of love.
It is the same story with the Avatars but at a larger cosmic level. Besides with them the resistances of the subconscient rises up using those who are open to darkness to become instruments to attack them even physically. As to the average humanity, the Avatar is a wish fulfilling god whom we can take for granted even though we keep contradicting them and their work through our life and actions. Yet out of immense compassion they accept and bear human ingratitude and pay the price of our ignorance with their suffering.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
