As we move along the path of spirituality, we connect to our soul. However, the people we are related to in this worldly life may still be living life anchored in the external world. That brings two types of reactions from such relatives. Either they start ignoring the ones moving along the spiritual path, considering them to be useless because such people do not subscribe to their philosophy of life, and in fact, at times challenge them and such a challenge creates discomfort and unease. In order to avoid that discomfort, a better option is to avoid such people. Such a response generally does not create problems for both. The ones moving along the spiritual path are happy internally and the ones anchored in the external world make efforts to fulfill their greed and ambitions.
However, the world is not that simple. Had the world been that simple, Rama would have finished his exile peacefully and gone back to Ayodhya with Lakshmana and Sita without any battle with Ravana. The problem is greedy Ravana does not leave Sita living her life quietly in a forest. Greedy Duryodhana is not ready to give just 5 villages to Pandavas so that Pandavas can also survive peacefully. Prejudiced Bali is not ready to accept the genuine conclusion drawn by his brother that because he did not come out for such a long time, he would have died and the prejudiced mind sees conspiracy in everything.
The problem is that the person anchored in the external world is so fixated on his greed or ambition that he just becomes blind. His perspective becomes so narrow that he is not able to see the reality. Rama who himself is the lord prayed by Ravana becomes an enemy. That is what external anchoring does to us. Since we get disconnected from the true self, we become restless to regain our inner state of contentment. We try hard through external means and the more we try, the more incomplete we feel. We become desperate and like a mad elephant, we become destructive. We may have compassion with the mad elephant, but we know at the same time that the mad elephant may kill many innocents out of his anger.
This madness generally takes two different forms. If the person anchored in the external world is weak, this madness gets reflected in the cycle of unreasonable demands, crying, fears, anxieties, and at times depression. If he is strong, such madness is reflected in the form of fits of anger, aggression, debates, violent arguments, verbal abuse, and at times physical aggression.
I feel that it is a real test of Sadhana to handle such madness with compassion. I do feel that compassion is an inner state and has nothing to do with the actions. Rama killed Ravana because killing Ravana was necessary for the people living in Lanka and for the entire world. Ravana, due to his greed and ambitions, was making their lives quite difficult. However, even while killing Ravana, that compassion was always there in Rama. That is why, when Ravana was taking the last few breaths, after being hit in the naval, Rama asked Lakshmana to go and take life lessons from him. That is compassion. We may have compassion with the mad elephant as well. However, that does not mean that we will not take care of madness. We may use force to control the mad elephant and the elephant is definitely not going to like that. In extreme cases, situations may demand even the killing of the mad elephant as happened in the case of Ravana, yet the only measure of spiritual growth remains whether there is compassion at the core of such actions or not.
Compassion is not limited rather it is universal. When Rama has compassion with Ravana, he has compassion with the entire universe. He sees the suffering of the people with the deeds of Ravana and understands that unless Ravana changes, he needs to be killed. Out of compassion, he gives multiple opportunities to Ravana to change. He is not afraid of Ravana, else the easiest course of action would have been Hanumana bringing Sita with him. Since Rama has compassion for the universe, he can not leave the people of Lanka suffering like that. Even after finding the whereabouts of Sita, for Rama, revenge is not the primary aim. Had that been the case, he would not have given Ravana an opportunity to send Sita back. Out of compassion, he takes action to attack Lanka.
Compassion disappears when we take sides. When we divide the world into right and wrong. Rama is good and Ravana is wrong. The other person is wrong and we are right. We lose awareness of the core. We get blinded to the fact that all beings share the same consciousness and it is just that somebody has got fixated on something and if that fixation is prohibiting the growth of others, that fixation has to disappear. We need to just try to make the other person realize the consequences of such fixations. However, in the process, if we hold him wrong, we automatically start making ourselves right and our equanimity is gone. We wear the glasses of being right in our eyes and start judging others. Awareness of the real self makes us fearless in handling such situations. We act with compassion rather than with fear or aggression. Equanimity brings intelligence to our responses because the actions are no longer reactions.
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