The sadness in seeing others suffer || Acharya Prashant (2019)
Question: Acharya Ji, when I see others suffer, it makes me feel sad. How to deal with this feeling of sadness?
Acharya Prashant Ji:
If you become sensitive to the suffering of others in the world projected by you, then you become sensitive to your own suffering as well, because the others and you are the man and the images in the mirrored hall.
The attitude that you have towards others is bound to be similar to the attitude that you have towards yourself. If the botherings, if the sufferings of others bother you, then you would become more sensitive to your own suffering as well. And that’s a good news. The one who cannot see others enslaved, is obviously not going to tolerate her own enslavement. That’s good news. There is bound to be an uprising.
That’s the thing with violence, you know.
You hurt others – human beings, nature, environment – you are alright seeing animal slaughtered for food, for consumption, you are bound to be then alright seeing yourself slaughtered as well.
The attitude that you have towards others’ suffering, is bound to be similar to the attitude that you have towards yourself. If you can inflict violence towards others, or tolerate others being violated, then you will also silently tolerate your own slaughter, your own violation. Because you and the images are actually one.
We said that man is very resilient to suffering. Now you know why? We tolerate a lot of suffering because we inflict a lot of suffering. We inflict suffering on others and we are okay seeing them suffer. If you are okay seeing others suffer, you would be okay seeing yourself suffer.
And now you would also know why the Messengers, the Knowers, the Prophets, the Gurus work for others. They work for others because they love themselves. They love themselves therefore they cannot tolerate the suffering of others.
It is actually quite a selfish thing that they do.
Are you getting this?
If you can smilingly tolerate an animal being slaughtered for your diet, then you will equally well tolerate your being psychologically being slaughtered for the sake of your profit-minded organisation.
You are slaughtering the chicken so that you may eat it and fatten yourself, then you will equally tolerate your boss slaughtering you to fatten his profitability. Now you know why we just take all kinds of non-sense lying down. People keep stepping over us, time, situations, institutions keep kicking us around, and we live on as if everything is normal.
Be good to others and you will not allow anybody to be bad to you. And if you allow others to be bad to you, it is firstly because you are bad to others.
Love, therefore you see, is very-very rebellious.
If you love others, you will rebel then not only for the sake of others but also for your own sake. Love, therefore you see, is very-very liberating. If you cannot see the agony of others, how will you see that you are in agony due to the lack of Liberation?
Fall in love with anything or anybody genuinely, and that Love will become the vehicle of Liberation. But it has to be True Love – not love of the kind that exploits.
Questioner: The Earth is full of insensitive people. When I look at them, I feel I can’t do anything. I get angry looking at the insensitivity of people. Whenever I see chickens getting slaughtered in a chicken shop, I feel helpless. I feel that I am not able to do anything for them.
How can I give sensitivity to people?
Acharya Prashant Ji: Just by uttering this statement, you might have saved a couple of hundred chickens. This session is going live to many thousand people. Never underestimate the power of your angst, you have just saved a hundred birds.
Somebody one day was calculating the number of animals that the foundation has indirectly saved until now. It came to many lakhs.
Just let the fire remain there. Keep feeding it. Let it be ablaze. The ways of the universe are mysterious. But one thing is certain – Honest Love is answered.
If you see an animal being slaughtered for somebody’s diet, and something within you cries out, then the animal has been saved – maybe not that particular animal, but several other animals.
Why was the animal killed in the first place? Because somebody wanted it killed. So the ‘want’ led to the killing. If one want can lead to killing, another want can lead to non-killing as well.
Let that other want arise in you.
Just as the want to kill definitely succeeded in killing, similarly the want to save will definitely succeed in saving. How? That you can leave to the mystery of the universe. That you can leave to the mystery of the universe.
Like I said earlier, that you just saved a couple of hundred birds.
But the ‘want’ has to be there.
