Today, I attended a lunch organised by a senior. It was so good to be a witness to the love and compassion showered by Sir and Ma'am. His love and compassion were reflected in every gesture. Sir would take the plate of snacks in his hands and serve each one of us with love. He will offer the plates for lunch to everybody with his hands. He would specifically direct each one of us not to bring even flowers, and then write beautiful lines about each one of us and gift us perfectly framed. Each action is so full of love. Love makes everything so beautiful.
I wonder why the whole of the world is not like that. We go to the schools and meet children and discuss with them, and it appears that the children are so burdened with the expectations of their parents. It appears as if they have taken a loan from their parents, and they are desperate to pay the original with interest. Their shoulders are burdened with the expectations of their parents. We see the same burden in the relationships between husband and wife, and many other relationships where everybody is desperate to prove how much they have done in the relationship and how the other person does not care. Love indeed makes everything beautiful, and it is also equally true that greed makes everything ugly.
Having seen the beauty of love, how do we choose greed? On the one hand, we see people like Oskar Schindler, who gave away every single penny to save the lives of many Jews from the Nazi concentration camps. On the other hand, we see people like Hitler who killed millions for his greed. Having seen the beauty of love and the ugliness of greed, I don't know why we choose to be greedy. Is it a result of obsessive-compulsive disorder? Maybe parents are unable to demonstrate the beauty of love to their children because they themselves have not experienced it. Or they have experienced and ignored because they were so focused on their greed.
There are enough examples of love in this world. We all have listened to the stories of Meera, Tulsidas, Christ, Buddha, and Kabir. Each one is filled with love. We see enough examples of love around us. A brief reflection on our past lives would soon reveal that the most wonderful moments of our lives were those when we experienced true love in one form or another. When we used to roam around the city, with empty pockets, in the loving company of a friend and would feel like on the seventh heaven. When we used to sit silently at night with our parents just to discuss the conflicts and challenges we were facing, and after the discussions, we would feel absolutely light. When we open our hearts out with a loving friend to share the deepest of our troubles and feel as if tons of weight have been removed from our shoulders. I am 100% sure that all of us would have had almost all these experiences. What surprises me is that despite having had all these experiences of true love, why do we choose greed. I have a question for all the parents. Where does our parenting go wrong? Why do children choose greed over love, despite having experienced beautiful moments full of love? We all need to introspect as parents. Unless the children understand the value of love in their lives, their greed will turn them into a barren land that can't be satiated by any amount of water. On the other hand, if they understand the meaning and value of love in their life, their life can give birth to infinite possibilities, like a fertile land giving birth to thousands of plants and trees.
Comments
The contrast you draw between lived moments of lightness and later burdens of obligation makes the metaphor of fertile versus barren land feel grounded rather than symbolic, especially in how expectations can crowd out presence and care.
Do you think the shift toward greed happens mainly when love becomes conditional, or when people stop seeing love as something that can sustain them long-term?
I think people just lose connection with love. Just like we lose awareness of healthy food when we eat constantly junk. Junk gives instant gratification. We choose instant gratification over fulfilment. Fulfilment is not cheap. Taste of good music takes time to develop. Taste of good books takes time to develop. We are in a hurry. We are instinctive and that’s why choose poor substitute of love being greed.