Skip to main content

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Overcoming Pride By Gratitude

We, ISKCON devotees are made from head to toe only by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and the Vaishnava's. We are products of mercy . Nothing actually belongs to us. So, how can we be proud of borrowed plumes! Think about it. When people applaud us for our classes, if we think properly none of the points we speak is ours. We are just repeating what we have heard or read. And even if we get some new insights it's by the mercy of Krishna in our hearts.  We should always remember that whatever respect, facilities and honor we get is only by the mercy of Krishna and the Vaishnavas. It's only because we have some connection with great souls, we are given respect. All great devotees live their lives in alignment with this fact. When Lord Krishna left this world to depart to His eternal abode, Arjuna remembers all the incidents in his life where he achieved extraordinary success. But he doesn't take an iota of credit. He is fully convinced that it is on...
Post a Comment
Read more

WHEN DOES OUR SEARCH END?

    Today a simple incident thought me an important lesson. Few days back, the nada string of the pyjama that I wear during my Yoga practice had come out. I stopped doing my Yoga practice due to this reason. Probably an excuse to take a break. I tried to find a safety pin to try to insert the thread back into it's socket. I searched a few places in the ashram where the safety pin could likely be found but, to no avail. I resigned from the endeavour to search and convinced myself that I will search for it some other day.  Today, I made up my mind to somehow resume my Yoga session. Which means, I had to find the safety pin - some how or the other. I searched one drawer but to no avail. Then, I searched the most obvious drawer. With a little searching, I found one safety pin lying in the corner of the drawer, as if waiting to be found. I was amazed and shocked to find it. It was as if someone magically put it there from the heavens. I had s...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE SERIOUSLY FUNNY WORLD

Someone is born, Someone dies. Someone is hired, Someone is fired. Someone is married, Someone gets divorced. Someone gets rich, Someone gets poor. Someone is praised, Someone is criticised. Someone is a success, Someone is a failure. What kind of world is this? Is this a serious place or a funny one? I would say - this is a seriously funny place. THE SERIOUS SIDE In the Bible, Jesus Christ tells his follower the story of Prodigal son - of a son who wanted to check out the world on his own. He forced his father to give him his share of money and left home confidently yet naively. The result - he slowly lost all his money and became bankrupt. Then, he realised all the warnings his father had given him and he understood that this world is after all not that easy - it is filled with all sorts of difficulties. This is the story of all of us. We all, confidently left the spiritual world, our original home not realising what we were getting into - we probably would have never imagined that...
Post a Comment
Read more