Secret of Life-6

The following are some of the salient emotions, if
channelised well, will do good:

(a) Love

Love, in today's context, signifies personal
attachment, which is not the correct meaning of the
word love. Love signifies harmony with the whole
world. Love is not selective personal attachment. If
you are in harmony with nature and all its living
beings, then, you will enjoy living in this world.
You will not have worries. You will not suffer. The
world will automatically help you when you need it.

Vedanta does not ask you to discard true love. It
wants you to give up only temporary personal
attachments. Personal attachments give rise to
worries, selfishness, greed and detachment from the
world. Selective love gives rise to a lot of negative
emotions in the mind, which will lead to your physical
downfall.

Take for example, a child. The child loves all,
irrespective of the personal relationship with it.
Because it loves all, it is purity personified. It
loves everybody, and everybody loves the child.
Everybody comes to the rescue of the child, when in
need. Its emotions are all positive. That is why it
grows physically. After becoming an adolescent, he
starts to love selectively. This gives rise to
negative and restricted emotions. That is why he
fails to grow further physically.

Renounce your personal attachment and selfishness.
Love and attachment are diametrically opposite to each
other. Attachment is the perversion of love. If you
attach yourself to a particular object or person, you
automatically detach yourself from the rest of the
world. Attachment results in proportionate detachment
with the rest of the world. The child has no
attachment. Therefore, it loves the entire world. It
doesn't discriminate between people or things of the
world. It doesn't know the limits of the family,
city, country, community, etc. It loves everybody.
Therefore, everybody loves the child. As he grows, he
knows about the delimiting factors such as family,
city, community, etc. And then he tries to fit
himself into that group, and therefore, detaches
himself from the rest.

The family is only the source and the centre of
affection. It should not be its boundary. Learn the
art of love by loving the family, but do not stop
loving others. Let your love permeate to the whole
world. Love every human being, flora, fauna, hill,
mountain, river, stream, bird, animal and tree. Your
joy will know no bounds. The heaven will unfold
before you.

(b) Kindness

Kindness is a feeling of tenderness. It is a feeling
of compassion. It is being sympathetic. It is
manifested in benevolence. It is a feeling unique to
humanity. Man becomes a human being only if he is
kind. That is the unique quality of the human race.
It makes you divine.

Kindness is the essential feature of any religion.
Any religion without kindness is a rose without
fragrance. It cannot last long. It cannot attract
many. It will wither soon.

Kindness should be in the thought, not necessarily in
action. An act may not be kind, it may be brutal, but
what is more important is the kindness in the motive
behind that act. An act can be unkind, only to be
kind. That is how the Mahabharatha took place. The
act was a war, but the intentions behind it were kind.
It was for the welfare of mankind.

(c) Pity

Pity is a feeling, which is an exhibition of weakness.
It is a sympathetic feeling for the sufferings and
misfortunes of others. Vedanta does not encourage you
to exhibit a pitiful attitude towards anybody.
According to Vedanta, pity is a feeling, which does
not mitigate the suffering of others, but on the
contrary encourages such sufferings and misfortunes.
A suffering person requires not help of money or
material. He requires the guidance of you. You can
guide a person, if he is suffering. But should not
help him otherwise. You should not do something to
just please others. Help should be to graduate a
person from his sufferings emotionally.

Suffering for a man, is of his own making. He is the
cause of his sufferings. The law of karma acts on
him. The law of nature acts on him. You should not
cause his suffering. Nor should you increase his
suffering. You should help him understand the truth
and reason behind his suffering, and make him get over
his trauma and suffering.

Pity is an emotion that does more harm than good to
others. We should get over personal feelings and help
others in understanding life better.

(d) Charity

Life is to give, not to take. Don't ask for anything
in life. Try to give everything that you have.
Nothing in this world can give you real happiness.
Therefore, don't go after material things in this
life. They will give you more thirst for them, and
they will never satisfy your thirst for material
things.

You can enjoy happiness in charity. The more you give
to others; they will bless you with well-being and
happiness. What you have is what you give. You can
never achieve anything by acquiring material things.
By becoming rich in life, you die poorer. The poorer
you become in life, you will die rich. What is
required? Rich life or rich death? The concept of
charity is best described by the process of coloring.

There are seven colours in light—violet, indigo, blue,
green, yellow, orange and red. Any object may absorb
and reflect any or some or all of the above colours.
If the object absorbs all the colours, we will see it
in black colour. If it absorbs six other colours, and
reflects blue, then the object looks blue. If it
reflects all the colours and absorbs nothing, then it
gels in pure white. This is the law of nature. An
object gains the colour that it gives away. If you
absorb all, you will be seen in black; if you reflect
some colour, you will be seen in that colour, because,
that is what you don't possess. That is what the
others get out of your action. If you don't absorb
anything and give everything back to the world, you
will be seen in
pure white.