A few days back, I returned home from a long day at the office. On normal days, I would freshen up, have dinner and crash off to sleep. But that day I opted to catch up on some news. I switched on the TV and all I saw was violence, first on one news channel, then on another, and when I switched to yet another channel violence of a different kind was being reported.
Dejected and upset, I turned to my friend and asked her, “When will we learn to live in harmony with each other?” Almost instantly, a voice came from within, “When each individual changes from within.”
Now a question arose: how is that possible?
Again, my heart responded, “When we cultivate peace within ourselves and reflect it outside.”
When I pondered more on that answer, I understood that anything we see around us is only a manifestation of what is within us. We project our inner feelings, emotions and beliefs onto the world at large, and expect the world to change, when the solution, the source, is within us.
Now, how do we cultivate the balance and the peace within ourselves that we crave for externally? In my humble understanding, I feel that we don’t have to cultivate it, but instead we need to remove and uncover the umpteen coverings that have engulfed ourselves.
We need to un-become that which we have become,
as a result of desires, ego, fear etc.
When we remove all the complexities and impurities within us,
what remains?
Simplicity and purity.
We need to un-become that which we have become, as a result of desires, ego, fear etc. When we remove all the complexities and impurities within us, what remains? Simplicity and purity.
Now, if we hold on to this pure and untainted treasure and make it grow, we reach a state where only this purity exists. This becomes our nature and it oozes out of us. Then our external world changes: there is no rush, no fight for a cause, nothing is done which is heavy or complicated. It is not that the world has changed, but we have changed from within.
So anything external is but a manifestation of what is within us. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” It all starts with us – you and me.
Article by DURGA V NAGARAJAN
