I watched the movie Sparsh. A wonderful movie with very appreciable acting skills of Nasiruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi. Nasiruddin Shah plays a blind man who is the principal of a blind school, and Shabana Azmi plays the role of a widow. She starts doing the volunteer work at the blind school, and in the process comes close to the principal. The principal develops an inferiority complex and breaks off engagement. The widow also has a complex that how she can justify her second engagement and therefore tries to give their relationship a color of helping the cause and serving society. There is a lot of food for thought in the movie. We can mirror our own justifications and complexes by watching the characters on the screen.
One of the most prominent phenomena responsible for the spoiled relationships is an inferiority complex. An inferiority complex gets formed when we feel inferior to somebody and don't do anything about that. There are two major components of the inferiority complex. First, the importance of the thing we are deficient in, in our lives. Second, our incompetence and inability to do hard work to gain competence. For example, many students are not good at studying. But, for some of the kids, studies are not the center of life, and therefore, they never develop an inferiority complex. Some do the hard work to gain competence, and therefore, there is no inferiority complex among them. For some, studies play a crucial role in life; they are not at par with the toppers, and at the same time, they do not want to do that hard work to compete with them, and therefore, they develop an inferiority complex.
Some people develop an inferiority complex in relationships. A partner is well appreciated by others for being a good husband or wife. They are not so praised. They find it difficult to change their personality, but at the same time, get jealous of the appreciation that their partner gets during social interactions, and develop inferiority complexes. Sometimes it so happens between friends, also. One of the friends does better than the other in the eyes of society and is praised in social interactions. The other friend feels inferior, and since it is not possible to change the career choices, he develops an inferiority complex. Inferiority complexes are quite common among siblings.
Nobody can make us feel inferior unless we ourselves decide so. Nobody could make Kabir feel inferior because he understood the futility of money. Nobody could make Astavakra feel inferior, despite the eight curves in his body, because he realized the temporariness of the body. Nobody could make Buddha inferior because he realized the temporariness of power. Nobody could make Swami Vivekananda inferior while he was addressing the gathering in America because he realized that no culture is superior or inferior. Superiority or inferiority lies in division. If we have divisions in our minds because we claim superiority in one aspect of life, there is every likelihood that we will feel inferior in some other aspect of life.
When Arjuna is trying to prove himself to be the greatest warrior of all time, he develops an inferiority complex of not being a "good man" for the reasons of fighting against his teachers. Hanuman has no complexes because he does not identify with any achievement. He knows that every achievement is momentary and just a play of consciousness, and therefore, he does everything for Rama. Bharata has no complex because he does everything for Rama. Lakshmana has no complex because he too does everything for Rama. The weakest of people, as well as the strongest of people, may have an inferiority complex. All ego-driven relationships are bound to develop complexes. Where there is love, there is no complex. If a person loves self, they would know the true potential of self and therefore would be ready to learn new things and enter into the domain of the unknown. That's why every interaction with a person who knows more would be an opportunity to explore something new, rather than a challenge to the ego of knowing everything. That's why there is no such occasion to have an inferiority complex; rather, there is always learning and growth.
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