INSIGHTS – Surge 95
September 9, 2013
ARE YOU THE WORLD?
Like in a hologram, the part can contain the whole at times. Is it possible that you are a spiritual hologram, and the world, which appears outside, is contained within you – in a sense? Sages like Shri Ramana Maharshi used to ask visitors, “Does the world appear when you are in deep sleep?” While it is difficult to figure out the full or exact significance of such puzzling questions, there seems to be some dependence that the world has on the self. The world and the self (the limited I) rise together; they subside together (in deep sleep, with no dreams). You take the self as real; the world also seems very real. If you begin to question the self, the world seems to lose its grip on you.
Leave aside the issue of the so-called ‘objective, physical world’. Be concerned with the ‘world that bothers you’. If you are a little advanced in spiritual philosophy, you know that the world bothers you because of your own likes and dislikes. The more judgmental you are, the more is the power of the world to upset you. You judge somebody as good; he makes you happy. You judge a second person as bad; she gets on your nerve. If you look at him and her without forming an opinion; you find there is peace within you.
Have you ever suspected that your own thinking could be empowering the world that you perceive? Have you tried to see people, places and objects with no prejudice whatsoever? What would happen to your world if you begin to see Miss World and an old woman at a widows’ home in Benares or Brindavan equally? What if you see both of them as just human beings, which they are? What will happen to your world if money or power does not mean much to you? You measure scholarly people also in terms of their popularity, the number of books they have written or their oratorical skills. What if you pay attention to their whole being, and try to understand what they essentially are? If they have some gifts, you need not be awe-struck; if they have some shortcomings, you need not feel disillusioned; can you understand them, without being judgmental?
Compassion will perhaps fill you, if you see all with no desire to get anything from anybody. Otherwise you are either elated or depressed. You might envy some and pity others. When you have nothing to take from the other person and nothing to lose either, your vision may get transformed. You will perhaps truly hope that the other person be free, happy and at peace. You do not want to be the giver of peace. You just feel love in your heart. You may move on without saying a word and without doing anything. Your heart, filled with love, does something quietly.
When you feel insecure, the world appears calculative, if not cruel. When you shed all fear, the world becomes lovable. When you change, the world changes. Does it matter if you are not literally the world?
Swami Chidananda
At Chennai.