politics

Ramana Maharshi on great ‘public workers’ helping the world

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Talk 272.

Devotee: There are widespread disasters spreading havoc in the world e.g., famine and pestilence. What is the cause of this state of affairs?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: You were not aware of the world and its sufferings in your sleep; you are conscious of them in your wakeful state. Continue in that state in which you were not afflicted by these. That is to say, when you are not aware of the world, its sufferings do not affect you. When you remain as the Self, as in sleep, the world and its sufferings will not affect you. Therefore look within. See the Self! There will be an end of the world and its miseries.

D.: But that is selfishness.

M.: The world is not external. Because you identify yourself wrongly with the body you see the world outside, and its pain becomes apparent to you. But they are not real. Seek the reality and get rid of this unreal feeling.

D.: There are great men, public workers, who cannot solve the problem of the misery of the world.

M.: They are ego-centred and therefore their inability. If they remained in the Self they would be different.

❤️❤️❤️ 🙏🙏🙏 ❤️❤️❤️

Mocking, judging and ridiculing others Vs Compassion and Empathy

~ Tom Das ~ 1 Comment

Mocking, judging, or ridiculing others who have a different view to you – even when there is truth in your perspective – can point to a deeper lack of empathy and genuine understanding within yourself. It can reflect unprocessed emotions such as hurt, anger, frustration, or confusion, and it can also reflect a lack of understanding in what is actually going on in the world around you and in other people’s experiences.

This kind of ridicule also fosters ‘othering’, a subtle form of dehumanising those with different perspectives and different values to your own. Instead of opening space for dialogue or empathy, it widens divides and reinforces distance between people, keeping us more polarised rather than bringing us together. It escalates rather than de-escalates. It spews out more mess, rather than helping to clean up.

Rather than speaking and acting out of frustration and anger (or other negative emotions), it is often more healing and productive to pause, reflect, and process what is happening – both within yourself and also in trying to understand the experiences of others. If you want to help ‘clean up’ rather than ‘create more mess’, it is especially important to understand where other people are coming from in these situations: their experiences, their ideas, their values, their hurts, their frustrations, their grievances, etc, so take your time…

Be Still for a while. Be curious. Notice any resistance and rigidity/fixity in yourself. See if it helps you to replace condemnation and judgement with openness, curiosity, humility and emotional vulnerability. Learn about the other, listen, truly listen (and learn).

If you allow it, this process will eventually take you to LOVE and COMPASSION.

Others may still disagree with you, and you may disagree with them too! And some may ‘other’ you and even be rude towards you, but approaching interactions this way allows you to be clear in yourself. It allows you to go forth with empathy and compassion, peaceful and grounded; it allows you to be able to engage without fueling division and hatred, without adding to the mess in this already (apparently) messy world. It (hopefully) allows you to be able to respond more wisely rather than simply react.

Yes, there is a place for strength! Yes, there is also a place for limits and boundaries! But let us try to do this from a Place of Peace rather than of negativity, othering and frustration.

May peace be with you

❤🙏❤