The Silence of Good People
Q: When I see this world of humans, I don't see a world which cares for me or anybody. There is goodness in them but largely they are driven by their weakness, greed and insecurity.
Looking at what people are doing to the Earth and to each other one cannot disagree. I am very willing to believe when you say that everything is made out of love, but sometimes I find it hard to sympathize with this world.
I think it is this disgust that flips the switch one day and makes people decide to become terrorists, or to start killing randomly, or rape someone innocent.
How do I continue to care for this world?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Any question can have only one correct answer. There cannot be two correct answers.
If this is a question, I would like you to keep looking for an answer.
But, instead of seeing this as a question, if you see it as a path, you can tread on it many a times. And every time, you will get a new answer.
Now, do not generalize! Don't think there is no love in people, there are no compassionate people on this planet – this is wrong. We cannot generalize that everyone is selfish. There are so many people who are serving the society selflessly. You cannot brand everyone as corrupt.
I want to tell you about one of our teachers who is an IAS officer in Gujarat.
This gentleman was offered 51 crores by an industrialist. All that he needed to do was put a signature and that is all to allot the land that they were already using.
He could have easily justified it by saying that, 'It is nothing out of the way, it is just a procedure', or he could say, 'I do not want these 51 crores for myself, I can give it to poor people.'
There are so many other justifications that can come into the mind. But this gentleman stood up and said, ‘No, I do not want it.’
In a government job, even if he continues to serve for three lifetimes, he cannot make 51 crores. It is not a small amount. But this man stood up and said, ‘No, I won't take it.' We still have people like that.
Unless and until people come to the spiritual path they will not become sensitive, or have a high degree of sensibility. Both sensitivity and sensibility can flourish only through meditation and knowledge.
That is why it is so important to bring this knowledge to every doorstep, to every school, to every heart. You should keep doing this.
As I said, the world is not bad because there are some bad people, it is the silence of good people.
I also would like to tell you that don't judge others. You never know.
Do you know yourself? Do you know when you are compassionate, or when you are harsh? You don't know!
Sometimes you are harsh with people, and you justify your being harsh. You say, 'They deserved it.' Don't you think so?
And sometimes when you are compassionate then also you justify your compassion, isn't it? So you don't know your own emotions and your own behavior, then why would you judge someone else, and why would you judge everybody?
‘The whole world is full of unkind, corrupt and bad people’, why do you think they are all bad people? No! That is not the case.
You need to relook your own statement.
Do you feel good about yourself? Do you think you are a good person?
You think that you are a good person, but ask all the others who have interacted with you about their opinion of you. It will completely vary from your own idea about yourself. How would you like someone else telling you that you are selfish?
Deep inside you do not think that you are selfish, but if someone else tells you that you are too selfish, or if they see negative tendencies in you, what do you tell them? ‘Hey look, I have good tendencies as well’. Don't you tell them that?
There is no human being who is devoid of good tendencies and a good heart.
Just remember this, there is no human being devoid of goodness. Sometimes it gets buried under stress and ignorance.
Even those people who committed that hideous crime on that woman, now they are saying, 'Please hang me, I made a blunder.'
They got into a cloud; their awareness was not there. They must be suffering now with terrible regret. So much of guilt and suffering.
That is why, when you expand your vision, you can't but have compassion, even for the culprits.
See, you have done some mistakes at times. How would you like it if someone holds on to your mistake all the time. How would you like that situation? Certainly not! You will certainly say, ‘Hey, come on, drop it and move on.' This is what you would say, isn't that so? So we must wake up to this reality!
It is all in your own eyes, how you view the world. If you think that everyone is a fraud then your behavior towards everybody will be rude and unpleasant, and you will be part of that.
This is why there is a saying - As is your vision so is the creation.
As you envisage, so the creation becomes - Yatha Drishti Tatha Shrishti.
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