The sadness in seeing others suffer

If you become sensitive to the suffering of others in the world projected by you, then you become sensitive to your own suffering as well because the others and you are, the man and the images in the mirrored hall.

That’s the thing with violence, you know. You hurt others — human beings, nature, environment. You are alright seeing animal slaughtered for food, for consumption. You are bound to be then alright seeing yourself slaughtered as well.

The attitude that you have towards others’ suffering, is bound to be similar to the attitude that you have towards yourself. If you can inflict violence towards others, or tolerate others being violated, then you will also silently tolerate your own slaughter, your own violation. Because you and the images are actually one.

We said that man is very resilient to suffering. Now you know why. We tolerate a lot of suffering because we inflict a lot of suffering. We inflict suffering on others and we are okay seeing them suffer. If you are okay seeing others suffer, you would be okay seeing yourself suffer.

And now you would also know why the Messengers, the Knowers, the Prophets, the Gurus work for others. They work for others because they love themselves. They love themselves therefore they cannot tolerate the suffering of others. It is actually quite a selfish thing that they do.

If you can smilingly tolerate an animal being slaughtered for your diet, then you will equally well tolerate you being psychologically being slaughtered for the sake of your profit-minded organisation.

You are slaughtering the chicken so that you may eat it and fatten yourself. Then you will equally tolerate your boss slaughtering you to fatten his profitability. Now you know why we just take all kinds of non-sense lying down. People keep stepping over us. Time, situations, institutions keep kicking us around, and we live on as if everything is normal.

Love, therefore you see, is very-very rebellious.

If you love others you will rebel then not only for the sake of others but also for your own sake. Love, therefore you see, is very-very liberating. If you cannot see the agony of others, how will you see that you are in agony due to the lack of liberation.

Acharya Prashant regularly writes at literature.acharyaprashant.org and to closely connect with his teachings watch his YouTube videos at Official YouTube Channel or fill this form.