Speech on topic "Virtues of Peace: Maitri, Karuna, Mudita & Upeksha" Swami Narsimhananda|UCIYW 2022

Transcript

and ramakrishna Mission founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1897 and is presently the secretary of the ramakrishna mission Sebastian Kozhikode Kerala he runs a higher secondary school a kindergarten and a Polyclinic he is a former editor of the prabhuta bharata an English monthly maternal of the humanities and social sciences started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896. he has edited a volume of Swami vivekananda's teachings titled Vivekananda reader he specializes in Indian studies Indian philosophy sociology of religion philosophy of religion and religious studies he is a member of the international interdisciplinary and inter-religious research group on conscious studies UNESCO chair in bioethics and human rights quantificial athenium Regina apostolorum Roma Italy he is editor and executive council member of H net Humanities and social sciences online he is also a member of the editorial board of American Academy of religions online publication reading religion he has Publications in Hindi English Sanskrit Malayalam Bengali and Tamil yes why Namaste a very good evening to all of you the topic today is taken from the 33rd Sutra of the first chapter of the patanjali yoga sutras and this Sutra gives a road map to living a peaceful life foreign a person should develop a kind of attitude which would help a person to be not in difference with other people in distinction with other people but to be in identity with other people to be able to be feeling the same what the other people feel we have mental disturbances when we are unable to meet with the other people on their level when we are unable to Bear what other people say to us or how they behave and in this Sutra Maharishi patanjali says my three so a person who is in sukha or happiness one should develop a feeling of friendliness we should have feeling of friendliness the idea being normally it is possible that if someone is happy and if at that moment we are not happy then we might be jealous of the other person we might be envious of the other person we might also be annoyed that while I am unhappy that other person is happy so maharshi patanjali says that it is better to develop a feeling of friendship friendliness my three so that we don't feel that this person's happiness is something strange we also feel happy and Swami Vivekananda understands this Sutra In a Different Light he says that we should have what in Sanskrit is called Saha we should have feelings as the other people have we should feel with the other and that if that is what we do then when others are happy we will be happy when others are suffering then when they have dukkha then we will have karuna karuna not just sympathy but the correct translation of the word karuna would be empathy we would feel the misery so it will be sahana buddhi we will feel what the other person feels so we would not be insensitive most of the problems faced by people in today's society is because people are insensitive to the different temperaments and different needs and different sensibilities which different people belonging to different linguistic cultures nationalities different ethnic boundaries different financial status all these differences have different kind of people and also different kind of sensibilities once we try to or when we can appreciate these differences then it becomes easier for us to coexist or live or flourish with the other person empathy of the sub empathetic of the suffering which the other person has and mudita a person should be happy or should be drawn towards people who are virtuous people who are virtuous so people who have the qualities which we need to imbibe in ourselves we need to be having their company we should have a pleasant attitude towards these people and so that will lead us to their company having good company we would also eventually inculcate those virtues and so we will also get rid of bad qualities bad habits and bad kind of wrong negative attitudes so that is where karuna comes in and the final and very important message of this Sutra is upeksha often we are faced with people whom we know are positively harmful they are negative people and they spread this negative negativity around them how to deal with this this type of people that is a big question we have and it's a big problem and this negativity could also come in our mind we could be facing some problems we could be facing some failures and these negative thoughts could come into our mind so how do we face them and then again we have this solution means indifference indifference means do not give attention to that indifference be indifferent to it to what uponia people who are positively bad Wicked people Vice people so we need to be indifferent to them all bad qualities we need to be indifferent to them all bad negative situations situations which take us away from Peace of Mind situations which make our minds turbulent we should be indifferent to them so we should not be embroiled in the situation we should not get involved in the situation we should be away from them we should be indifferent to them we should insulate ourselves protect ourselves from such negative scenario negative influences and that is upeksha this indifference is very important it is like insulation of an electric wire interestingly in our brain also there is a sheath a covering for every nerve so that no short circuit takes place similarly if we could have a system of indifference a system which supports our emotional self supports our feelings supports our psychological self it does not allow us us to be hurt just like a warrior will have some guard over the chest Etc in modern times just like a person who may be in the armed forces or some other forces of security might wear a bulletproof jacket similarly we should have this indifference or to put it in a colloquial expression having a thick skin it helps because we are insulated by the small tidbits of injury hurt which we get and we are bound to get them because the world is ruthless and it will give us hurts but if we insulate ourselves and how do we insulate ourselves we have the other three qualities that is maitri karuna and mudita so my three friendly Friendship with people who have a pleasurable disposition who are enjoying things and then karuna empathy feeling with people who are suffering who are in misery and mudita feeling happy in the company of people who possess virtues who are virtuous for good people basically these ideas these kind of bhavana this has to be inculcated so when we inculcate over a period of time when we make this our second nature then we always have chitta prasadanam our chitta our mind gets peaceful because there is nothing to create turmoil in our mind there is nothing to disturb our mind because we are at peace so the the bad qualities like Envy heard anger and then greed lust egotism all these qualities will go away when we try to connect with the other person when we try to connect with the other person so here the key element is connecting with the other person not finding any scope for disturbing our mind because of the other person and that is why this Sutra has been variously termed as the path to a peaceful life holy mother SRI sarada Devi the consort of sriram Krishna sriram Krishna of course we know who was the guru of Swami Vivekananda holy mother SRI sarada Devi she said that in this world no one is your stranger so if you need peace do not find fault with others find instead your own faults and no one is a stranger in this world everyone is your own so that is the way to find peace if you want to find peace in fact holy mother Devi was just putting it in a different language the same message which patanjali had given thousands of years ago a million years ago so if you want to find peace it is better to become one with the other the person whom we try to find differences with the idea of peace or the experience of Peace comes only when we Unite with the other person when we become one with the other person and that's why infants and children they are able to be more peaceful than adults because they have not yet discovered or understood causes for finding difference with the other person when a person gets educated or so-called education a person is trained and given different tools to find differences with the other and so the person's misery increases so the goal is to be one with the other to have the feeling of sahana bhuti and that would be a great message to imbibe on this occasion when we are celebrating the yoga week under the under the edges of United Consciousness International and I am grateful that United Consciousness International has invited me for this event and I believe that more and more people would imbibe the holistic wisdom of yoga not just the physical aspect but also the psychological and the intellectual and also uppermost the spiritual aspect of yoga the spiritual aspect being to go beyond all kinds of suffering by controlling thoughts in the mind that is the goal of yoga as Maharishi patanjali says so all the British or the uh disturbances thoughts in the mind have to be restrained nirodaham and once that happens completely one attains to the state of yoga which is a state which we need to attain which we need to have to live in this world I am reminded of Swami ranganathananda ji's statement that just like our body physical body has what is called homeostasis in warm-blooded people human beings are warm-blooded animals so when we have cold outside when the weather is cold we Shiva producing warmth similarly when the weather is hot we sweat producing cold so we maintain a minimum set of optimum temperature and other conditions in our body and that is called homeostasis so our mind should also have similar homeostasis and I hope this United Consciousness International's effort at celebrating yoga week would enable many of us to attain that state thank you namaste thank you very much you respected swamiji and uh the attitude you talked about of matri karuna mudita and the picture as you mentioned that it brings and the result of this is I'm sure the message will reach to the audience and they will inculcate this attitude in themselves to create a better world thank you very much thank you thank you on behalf of United Consciousness I thank Swami narsimhananda for coming onto the platform of United Consciousness thank you so much