Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
May 17, 2013
India
May 17, 2013
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Mother Earth provides
us plenty. But this beautiful life is also full of hardships. Life is
not easy; pain and suffering are part of our lives. In each of our
stories, there is adversity - which, at times, is terrible. However, we
can try to lead a spirited life – especially in the way we face the
hardships. Facing hardships and adversity is purely an individual
experience – like enlightenment. Aekla Cholo Re, a Bengali patriotic
song written by Rabindra Nath Tagore, exhorts the listener to lead
his/her journey alone – if need be.
When
we come into this world we are single. We come without any baggage and
belongings. Gradually, we start weaving a cobweb of attachments and
intricate relationships. Finally the time comes to leave this world -
and yet again we are left without relationships. In the march of time,
kingdoms perish, empires fall. The rich and famous, holding high power
and influence, also become dust. For some time the illusion and
delusion of social relations makes us feel safe and secure. But the
security of relationships is just a barter arrangement, created on
the basis of a mutual interdependence of contemporary counterparts. Who
is a friend and who a relative? Who does actually want us? Perhaps we are always alone psychologically.
In the cosmic arrangement everything is interlinked, and serves a purpose.
There is no such thing as a small act and a big act - even our smallest
act is a whole act. Each act contributes to the bigger purpose of a
whole. Though we are the masters of ourselves, yet we have to learn how to tune ourselves to the requirements of existence as a whole.
We tune our personality, our existence, to the totality of existence.
What we call happiness, satisfaction or joy is an adjustment of
ourselves to a condition that is prevailing outside. We will not have
satisfaction unless we are so adjusted; and only then can our family
also be well-adjusted. A few individuals staying together become a family; all families living together become humanity - a consciousness.
This is not religion, this is not spirituality, this is not any kind of
esoteric doctrine, but a scientific fact of the law of nature - that
everything is cohesive and together; so that each one is everything and everything is each one. That is what is known as universal consciousness.
The whole play is of consciousness; we cannot exist outside
consciousness. What we are is what our mind thinks, and it is
consciousness that operates the whole system. We may exist for a very
short span, but our consciousness continues to exist. If each
individual, a particle of this consciousness, is filled with inner
peace, we will have a completely peaceful atmosphere around. Peace is an
outcome of the adjustment of the individual to the inextricably
connected cosmic whole. Unless we are friendly with the whole cosmos, we
cannot have peace of mind.
When,
as an individual, our sense of self lessens, we become less selfish,
and less self-centered. We begin to feel the suffering of others.
Boundaries disappear, and we tend to the needs of others as if they were
our own. Gradually, the delicate art of caring and loving - without
possessing - surfaces, and becomes apparent. There comes a growing sense
of oneness, of communion with all. What should the seeker of
enlightenment do? I often tell parents of the specially challenged
children that they have perhaps been given an opportunity to not only
help their own children, but also many others in pain and misery. It
is when the pain is unbearable, the turmoil most piercing, and the
hardship insurmountable, that enlightenment breaks through. It takes a
long time to redeem one’s soul. Each individual tries to learn from
his or her own experiences, which come by facing one’s own suffering,
and learning the profound lessons that suffering has to teach. The
lessons are about letting go; not holding on to desire, but letting it
go. Whenever we hold a sense of self, the suffering increases. When we
let it go, the self vanishes, and suffering dissolves into lightness,
ease and peace. In our new knowledge we then experience the most profound joy. In our loneliness we find ourselves in communion with all beings - everywhere.
Cosmic
consciousness splits itself into individuals, like a ray of light
becoming multiple when it passes through a prism. One cosmic
consciousness is divided into multiple forms of the universe, and each
individual consciousness thinks of itself as an individual. It is a
simultaneous awareness of all the parts. This is why some
philosophers say that the world is the body of God. The cosmic
consciousness, which is also called the consciousness of God, feels the
universe as its own body, and the individuals as parts of that one body.
Dr. Rajesh Bhola
is President of Spastic Society of Gurgaon and is working for the cause
of children with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and
multiple disabilities for more than 20 years.
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