SEEING THE WORLD FEELINGLY

In a play written by Shakesphere, King Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?".  Gloucester, who was blind answers: "I see the world feelingly."

Shouldn't we also see the world and others with feeling of love and compassion. The problem is as soon as we become selfish and identify ourselves with our mind and senses, we disconnect ourselves from our own feelings and thereby we disconnect ourselves from the feeling of others too. This is when, we reduce people to mere commodity whose only purpose is to satisfy our selfish desires. Selfishness makes one insensitive to the needs and feelings of others.

History is filled with stories of people like Ravan and Kamsa who didn't mind inflicting pain and suffering on people because of their own selfishness.

In the Ramayana, there is the character of Queen Kaikeyi. When she became selfish and started to think of her own interests and enjoyment, she became so ruthless and hard-hearted that she couldn't even get a clue of the suffering she was inflicting upon others. She became so insensitive that she banished Lord Ram who was not only completely innocent but was also very young, to the the most dangerous forest for 14 years. Not only that, even when her own husband who loved her more than his life was dying in front of her, she remained unmoved. And what to speak of the millions of citizens of Ayodhya who were all suffering due to the banishment of Lord Ram. This is what selfishness does to us. We get completely alienated from the world and the people living in it. The irony is that even though she was the most beautiful, she appeared most ugly to others. Selfishness makes us look ugly in the eyes of the world.

In our school days, we used to write essays of autobiographies of a tree or a bird. One of the things I remember everyone would invariably express in these essays was the feelings of a tree or a bird. We would connect to their feelings. Somehow as we grow up, we tend to neglect doing this exercise. I think it's so important to try to put ourselves in the shoes of others and connect to their feelings. This feeling-centric approach helps blossom the flower of our hearts which otherwise remains tight and closed.

Just like history has recorded the lives of selfish and insensitive people, there are also examples of great souls who exemplified a life of selflessness, a life of genuine compassion to others. Their hearts felt pain seeing the suffering of others. The Bhagvat-gita begins with the example of Arjuna who had such compassion that he didn't want to fight the war even against his enemies. Arjuna is showing through his example that one of the prerequisite for understanding Bhagvat-Gita or spirituality is to have a soft-heart. A heart that feels for others can easily develop loving feelings for God.

The pinnacle of selflessness and compassion was exemplified by Vadudev Datta, one of the great devotees of Lord Chaitanya. He prayed to the Lord - "Oh My Lord, I can't tolerate seeing the suffering of the living entities in this universe. May all their suffering fall on my head - let me suffer eternally, but in exchange, please liberate all of them." Witnessing this level of compassion melted the heart of even The Supreme Lord.

Someone asked Mother Theresa - "What is the problem in this world?" She gave a very interesting and a profound answer. She said that - "The problem in this world is that I am a sinner." What did she mean? She meant that as long as we are still selfish and have personal interests, we will only add to the problem of this world and create suffering for ourselves and others. If we want to be of any positive help to the world, there is no other way than to develop a pure and selfless heart. We are either part of the problem or part of the solution. We have to make the choice.

Let us pray to the Lord to help us see the world not through our senses and mind but our through our heart and soul and thereby make the world a better place to live.

- Achyut Gopal Das