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Spirituality
Rise
Up For Better World
There is a beautiful story in
Panchtantra.
In a huge well lived two groups of frogs who were always
fighting for territory and resources of the well. The king of one group
who was very intelligent decided to befriend a cobra and get him into the
well so that it could finish off the other group. The cobra came into the
well and one by one started eating the frogs of the other group. The king
was very happy with this development and felt that his aim of controlling
the well and its resources was achieved. However soon the cobra ate all
the frogs of the other group and turned his attention to the king's group.
The cobra told the frog king that he needs food to survive and so is
helpless. Despite king's pleas and entreaties, the cobra started eating
the king's subjects and family members one by one and ultimately ate the
king himself!
There is a general tendency in people specially those in
power to take the help of negative and evil forces to achieve their goals,
little realizing that these forces are nobody's friends and have their own
agenda. They destroy everything in their wake including their creator and
cannot be controlled once unleashed. It is therefore best to keep away
from them and they should not be played with.
Nature also destroys the negative tendencies but in a very evolutionary
and positive manner. The progress or evolution of species takes place by
branching. Hence whichever branch gets into a dynamic equilibrium with the
surroundings survives, grows and prospers. The other branch, which could
not get into equilibrium with the surrounding forces, simply dies off and
with it that branch of the species. Thus nature evolves by making the
other branch irrelevant. This is a great lesson for all of us. If we want
to show somebody down then the best way to do it is to rise higher than
that person and make him/her irrelevant. In this process the whole system
gets lifted and thus this process is far superior to the one in which the
person is brought down using negative forces whereby the whole system
looses. This has been taught in all the great religions of the world and
is the basis of victory of nonviolence. However to rise up requires great
courage, conviction, faith in oneself and internal security.
Sometimes when the evolutionary process goes out of hand and nature cannot
solve it by branching, then it removes the species violently as happened
in the death of dinosaurs and wiping out of certain species by volcanic
events etc. Generally such cataclysmic events are less frequent and the
natural process is mostly effected by branching.
How can one make negative or evil forces irrelevant? Patanjali in his Yoga
Darshan recommends that one should show indifference to these forces. Thus
by not opposing them but by being indifferent to them and acting
positively we can make the system evolve so that these forces become
irrelevant and die their natural death. Similarly one should not think
negatively about others even if they have harmed us because the very act
of thinking about a negative person brings his/her negativity to our mind.
Thinking deeply is a two way street. We can send thought packets as well
as receive them whenever our minds are anchored to the object of
perception. In fact the very act of perception means that the information
packets from the object of perception will be received. The same applies
to thinking about somebody's mind.
Human beings also have tremendous propensity to humiliate other humans. We
seem to get pleasure in bringing others down and in seeing them in misery.
This is a general human tendency though this world is also full of
examples of great people like Edison, Ford, Faraday etc. who have produced
great inventions to remove the misery of humans and make the life of
mankind better. Similarly the humanitarian work of Gandhi, Christ, Buddha
etc. has also helped mankind. Nevertheless the tendency to create miseries
for others could be traced to the evolutionary process whereby to gain
control over resources it was necessary to remove the competition and
humiliation and pulling down others was a part of this process. However if
we realize that by reducing our needs and becoming spiritual we can become
better human beings then we do not need to control others and create
conditions to fight for the resources. This world can therefore become a
much better place if we make ourselves better so that we rise above others
and pull the whole system up.
– Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi
June 8, 2003
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