Until I am equipped with necessary know-how, I cannot assist others.
Self-enablement is a must before we can assist others.
Can we truly flourish as a group or only as individuals?
Can a person, rather a happy person continue to be happy if surrounded by unhappy groups?
Or vice versa. What can I say?
What can I say?
Should I give this in answer black and white or with one sentence
that there is always individual flourishing that leads to partial or full group flourishing.
It is the individual peace that can possibly have impact on Universal Peace.
I often get bombarded with questions like when you meditate, is it not selfish to have your own spiritual gain?
My response is always that until I am equipped with necessary know-how, I cannot assist others.
Self-enablement is a must before we can assist others, isn’t it?
When we talk about human flourishing, from what level are we talking?
What sort of flourishing, is it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual flourishing?
When you are satisfied at a physical level,
will your emotional needs be satisfied as well?
If you are mentally distressed,
how will that work out in the field of spirituality, for example?
That does not mean that spiritual fulfilment requires any sort of stress. No I don’t mean to say that.
When one field of our need, for example emotional fulfilment, is satisfied, how will that work out to be in the field of spirituality
or in the field of what we call righteousness or in the field what we call financial needs?
They are all different segments.
Life can be run in a balanced way when all these four fundamental needs are fulfilled at an individual level.
If you are seeking wisdom for example, or intellectual fulfilment then those needs which took care of you at the previous levels,
will never quench your intellectual fervour.
Likewise, what about your emotional fulfilment?
For those who have all these and yet remain unfulfilled, unexpressed, unfulfilled hunger of your spirit, your Soul.
Despite having everything, yet often we feel a vacuum kind of, missing out on something.
I think human flourishing is possible when all these dimensions are taken care of.
This brings us to the idea of sense of connectedness, interconnectedness.
Think for a moment about a volcano erupting violently on some distant planet that is two light years away,
but is so beautiful beyond imagination, a beautiful planet where it has destroyed millions of inhabitants
versus now think of a situation where hundred thousand individuals died due to some calamity in Ethiopia, which will affect you more?
How many amongst us will cry if even one person from our family gets affected by a disease or dies due to a disease,
we remain afflicted for all life for such a loss. Why such a disparity in our feelings?
Precisely due to lack of perception of interconnectedness or sense of belonging.
Our vision covers from the closest to the farthest depending upon how great is our sense of interconnectedness.
Moreover, when we bring into this equation, the factor called ‘time’, a tragedy that fell upon almost thirty years back
or three million years back, will it hurt you compared to if it happens today?
Sense of belonging, I have often witnessed that mothers when they hear the sound of a baby crying,
they say, “oh that is not my baby” and they take a back seat saying thus,
they simply sit down into their normal routine not bothering about that some baby is still crying.
We are all individuals, sometimes when we love someone so much that both personalities actually identify in each other.
The pain of other and surely, joys of another will deeply affect each other.
We may be different from one another but for sure, we are greatly connected with each other, isn’t it?
This connection to some is palpable and to most it remains a mystery.
Some feel this connection with the other at an intellectual level or at an emotional level or at a spiritual level.
Connection is the reality and there is no illusion about it, just as consciousness is to what extent one is able to become aware
measures the level of evolution of consciousness.
It is how we can appreciate this connection with authentic realisation through experience,
only that can build the deeper bonds.
Now building the deeper bonds with the Universe, to me, it is Yoga; understanding this interconnectedness is Yoga.
Then everything will feel as one sentient entity, the idea of abusing even a stone will not surface in such a heart.
To me this is true human flourishing.