To be free from thoughts that distract from Yoga r thoughts of an opposite kind must be cultivated.
—PATANJALI, YOGA SUTRAS, 2:35
If you aspire for peace and happiness my child, reject the objects of senses and negative thoughts as poison and seek forgiveness, straighforwardness, kindness, cheerfulness and truth, as these positive thoughts are the nectar of life.
—ASHTAVAKRA GITA
//IV T rs. Raghuvir is on the line," the nurse told me I \ / I as I was just finishing my round of the in- V -Intensive coronary care unit. "She says Mr. Raghuvir has suddenly collapsed and she wants you to go to her place immediately." I picked up the phone, but it got disconnected.
I had known Raghuvir for many years. He was a successful businessman, a garment exporter, very social and popular among his friends. A few months earlier he had come in for a routine checkup, and all the tests were normal. He was in his late fifties, not a smoker, had no diabetes, and his blood pressure was normal. What could have happened to him now?
I was not happy about the way Mrs. Raghuvir had spoken to
the nurse on the telephone, and I rushed to Raghuvir's house after instructing the intensive care ambulance to follow me. When I reached the house I found Mrs. Raghuvir sitting on the floor crying. A few persons from the house next door were sitting in the room. Unfortunately, it was my job to confirm that Raghuvir was dead.
After a short while I got to know the story. At 8 that morning, Raghuvir, who had been a keen golfer, returned home after a game of golf. He was sipping some tea when an urchin threw some pebbles against the glass panes of his living room window. Annoyed, he opened the window and shouted at the boy, who appeared to be about twelve years old. The mischievous fellow ran away and Raghuvir returned to his easy chair.
A few minutes later the boy was back, again throwing little bits of stone at the window panes. Raghuvir got up, rushed out of the house, and shouted at him. He ran after the boy and could not catch him, but soon after he reached his chair, the urchin was back on his job, this time throwing bits and pieces of garbage at the window with a big grin on his face. Apparently the urchin realized that Raghuvir was getting irritated, and he seemed to enjoy it.
Raghuvir rushed out of the house in a rage. He ran after the boy, chasing him six or seven hundred yards up the road, and ultimately caught hold of him. He was very angry and abusive, shouting at the boy and beating him hard. People collected around him and wanted to know what had happened. They thought the urchin must be a thief. Some of the crowd pleaded with Raghuvir not to take the law in his hands and urged him to call the police.
While these arguments were going on, the urchin managed to escape the scene. Raghuvir, along with two or three neighbors, returned to the house. He was still enraged and could not forgive the fellow. As he finished relating the whole story once again to his neighbors, still shouting at the top of
his voice and sweating profusely, he leaned back in his chair and died.
/ have no time to quarrel no time for regrets , and no man can force me to stoop low enough to hate him.
—LAWRENCE JAMES
The whole episode was rather surprising to me. Raghuvir always appeared to be as cool as a cucumber to his friends, at the office, or at social gatherings. Later, I learned that he had strong pent- up emotions; he was wearing a mask most of the time and looked calm, but on occasion he exploded and ventilated his anger. When he did that, he became so upset that he did not know what he was doing. He was very annoyed with his only son, who was in business with him, because he had married a girl he did not approve of. He never talked to her, with the result that the son and daughter-in-law were living separately.
Raghuvir had been declared fit only a few months earlier, after standard medical tests, including a stress test. Yet he had died of a sudden heart attack and cardiac arrest. How could this happen to an apparently healthy man?
It can and it does. Raghuvir was under great stress, although he never showed it. He also never shared his feelings, even with his wife.
"My Life is at the Mercy of Any Rogue Who Annoys Me"
The hassles of life, and negative emotions that arise in response to them, have a cumulative effect on our whole system. They create a certain amount of narrowing of the coronary arteries, though not enough to prevent adequate blood and oxygen from passing through and supplying the heart muscles, even during the increased exertion required by the stress test.
But if you undergo an unaccustomed level of exertion, such as running at a high speed after a young boy, and at the same
time you are in a rage, the whole nervous system becomes alarmed. Chemicals, such as adrenaline, are released in large amounts in the body. Your pulse rate goes up and blood pressure rises. This can cause asynchronous, ineffective contractions of the heart muscles (a condition known as ventricular fibrillation), which in turn can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden death.
What then caused Raghuvir's death? Was it the urchin, the little bits of sand and paper on the window panes, the mischievous smile on the urchin's face? No, it was choosing the wrong reaction. If Raghuvir had ignored him the first time, the boy probably would not have returned. Or he could have spoken to the boy without flying into a rage.
You should never react to a stressful situation, you should only respond. Reactions tend to be what you regret later on. Never shout or answer in a hurry when you are having an argument in a stressful situation. Look before you leap. You are the slave of spoken words, the master of words still unspoken.
An immediate, overpowering negative reaction, an expression of rajas, was responsible for the violent behavior that cost Raghuvir his life. More sattva would have balanced his personality; tranquility of mind would have come to his rescue. Meditation is a highly sattvic activity; it can tilt the balance in favor of sattva, which pacifies rajas.
Suppose you pass a drunk and he showers you with abuse. If you can pass smilingly by, or ignore him, you'll have no physical or mental consequences. If you choose to fight back, verbally or otherwise, the sequence of events might be the same as in the case of Raghuvir. We get any number of heart attack patients who are rushed to the hospital from a company office or a factory following a fit of anger.
Just the other day, late in the evening, Ram Lai, fifty-four, was brought to the hospital with broken teeth, a bleeding nose, and a broken right forearm. X-rays of the nose and arm showed fractures. Ram Lai was known to have high blood pressure, and at this moment it was very high and the ECG showed a mild heart attack. His distressed wife was crying aloud. We had to
report the matter to the police, as the injuries were a result of a fight Ram Lai had with Mr. Rajesh, his immediate neighbor.
It seems that an argument between Rajesh and Ram Lai began when Rajesh parked his car next to Ram Lai's house instead of next to his own. The argument was followed by shouting and verbal abuse, and then a fight ensued.
Ram Lai lost his temper, sustained injuries, had a mild heart attack, and could have had a fatal brain hemorrhage due to his dangerously elevated blood pressure, all because of a silly thing like somebody parking a car next to his house!
If you ask someone to remain continuously angry for a whole day without a break, it would be impossible for him to do so. But if you ask someone to remain quiet and peaceful for a full day, most people will be able to do it, because it is our true human nature.
Angry thoughts and emotions can play havoc in the human brain and throughout the body. Anger is thwarted desire, an impurity of the mind that serves no purpose and leads to the flooding of “jittery” molecules into the body of an angry man. These circulate and react with every cell, instructing the body to constrict the arteries, increase the pulse rate, raise blood pressure. The heart misses beats, and fatty plaque builds up in the arteries of the heart and brain.
Repeated episodes of anger have a cumulative effect and ultimately, unless you get control of this unnatural behavior, the resulting undesirable chemical secretions accumulate and wear down your immunity and your organs. It can lead to severe problems, such as heart attacks and paralysis.
The ancient sages have classified the negative emotion of anger (along with jealousy and guilt) as a slow poison that eats the individual over a period of time. Finally a fit of anger can be the straw that breaks the camel's back, leading to a heart catastrophe.
The renowned eighteenth-century Scottish physician, John Hunter, had a very bad temper. He knew the ill effects of anger and was heard to say one day, “My life is at the mercy of any
rogue who chooses to annoy me." A few days later, during a stormy hospital board meeting, Hunter suddenly suffered a massive heart attack and died. The coronary arteries of his heart, investigated during an autopsy, were described as considerably narrowed, hardened, and ossified in places, the cumulative effect of previous fits of anger.
Research conducted by Dr. Gail Ironson at Stanford University School of Medicine and published in the American Journal of Cardiology revealed that when people with heart disease merely remember an incident that made them angry, the ejection fraction (pumping efficiency) of their heart was reduced by 5 to 7 percent of their already reduced capacity. This significantly lowered the blood supply to their heart and arteries. The patients tested said that they were only half as mad while recalling the episode as they were when it actually happened, suggesting that the pumping efficiency would be even more greatly reduced during an actual angry encounter.
The angry situations these patients were recalling were usually unresolved grievances, or injustices they felt had been done to them. One was still angry over an incident that happened years ago, when someone backed into his car, leading to a frustrating odyssey through insurance company red tape and various auto body shops, ending up with a high cost to repair his car. Afterward he got so upset every time he drove his car that he sold it!
These very patients whose cardiac efficiency dropped while even recalling anger showed practically no decrease in their heart's pumping ability during other psychological stressors, such as doing difficult arithmetic problems, giving a speech, or defending themselves against a charge of shoplifting. When they rode a stationary bicycle, their pumping efficiency actually increased by 2 percent. The study has shown that negative emotions such as anger are unequivocally bad for heart patients. Actual episodes of anger would be worse, in initiating and exacerbating coronary heart disease and precipitating heart attacks.
It is no use fuming or becoming furious. Don't lose your temper all the time. Preserve it, and then if once in a while, on a
rare occasion, you do become angry, people will value it. Of course, not to get angry, not to react, requires more inner strength and balance. If you are quiet, your silence will unnerve the person who is annoying you. You react with anger if somebody criticizes you, but when somebody praises you, you never say, “What right do you have to praise me?" Why should you retort if someone criticizes you?
According to the ancient wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita, one who does not get agitated by the world when conditions are “good" or “bad" can manage all situations of stress and remain happy under all circumstances. This balanced, imperturbable state is worth striving for.
Rid Yourself of All Negative Thoughts and Emotions
Anger is bad for us, but so are many other negative thoughts and feelings. The Gita calls anger, greed, and lust the “triple gates of hell.” Jealousy, hatred, fear, selfishness, self-condemnation, guilt, possessiveness, depression, anxiety, all are negative emotions which cloud our minds and hearts and lead to illness. These negative agitations of mind disturb our sense of discrimination, and they block our energy, our zest for knowledge, our happiness, love, health, and well-being.
A clean body, clean clothes, and a clean dwelling place make life more pleasant, Swami Dayananda points out. Inner purity, to which less attention is paid, means cleanliness of the mind. The smudges of envy and jealousy, spots of anger, streaks of ego and dust of guilt all spread around inside the mind and make it unclean.
If you want to get rid of negative thoughts and emotional reactions, patience, perseverance, and constant effort are required. The key to success is to notice any negative thought that arises in your mind and substitute it straightaway with a positive thought. This is like removing a small pebble from under your foot as soon as it irritates you. You don't wait for many pebbles to collect before you clear the irritating pebble away. So also you
should not wait until your mind is full of negative thoughts and agitations that torment you. As soon as you notice some negativity rising, catch it before it develops into something bigger.
A whirlpool of thoughts roils the lake of the mind, constantly taking new forms. Most of the time, we have no control over what thoughts fill our awareness; the waves just keep rolling in. If you happen to think of an apple, the image of an apple will form in the mind stuff. Then if you think of grapes, the image of the apple will subside and grapes will appear. In this way, countless thoughts are arising and subsiding in the mind every day. But since it is our own mind, we can decide what we want to think; the thought waves can be consciously transformed and modified.
Take hold of your mind and become your own master! Any disturbing thought or agitation must be thrown away before it develops and leads you to an action you might regret later on. When you find yourself dwelling on something negative, simply substitute a positive thought or image for the negative thought.
A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and nothing can stop him.
—ALEXANDER SOLZBHENITSYN
The best way is to start a parallel line of positive thoughts. If you try just to push negative thoughts away, you will rarely succeed. They will come back over and over again like monkeys. Any attempt to rigidly control negative thought waves, without raising positive waves such as love and compassion to oppose them, will not work. Any cold, stern effort to be “good” and not have negative thoughts is not practical. You just have to stand apart and watch your thoughts come and go, and raise positive thoughts of love, compassion, and detachment. This line of action was recommended long ago by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras: “To be free from thoughts that distract from yoga, thoughts of an opposite kind must be cultivated."
For example, if you feel someone has wronged you and you
feel angry about it, rather than plotting revenge and tearing yourself up the way poor Raghuvir did, if you replace or substitute anger with forgiveness, peace will prevail in the mind. Each cell in the body will participate in that peace.
I met Mr. Harnam Das the other day. He is a retired senior civil servant, a very disiplined individual. He seemed very upset and started telling me about his nephew, Chandra, who was very close to him. Chandra had left his car behind when he went to the USA for a year, and Harnam Das had kindly looked after it.
I S ot the ca r serviced regularly," he said, "and now he tells me that there is noise at the rear and the wiper isn't working. I gave him the address of the repair shop and the papers for the work done, but he s somehow blaming me. He's called me three times and disturbed me about it. He has no manners. I'm not going to forgive him when he comes to apologize."
Harnam Das is adamant about it. He is not going to forgive his nephew; instead, he will continue to harbor malice and burn inside. But what is the use of that?
In our day-to-day life, when someone does something wrong to us or hurts our feelings by saying something nasty, usually an angry and unforgiving attitude fills our heart. Even when we don t want to cry "Blood for blood!" or do something to get even, we are often unable to forgive and forget. Frequently it is someone who is or has been close to us, and, like Harnam Das, we make up our mind in advance that we are not going to forgive even if he or she comes to us to apologize. But this attitude starts eating our insides and all the joy of life starts vanishing, replaced by a crushing heaviness in our heart born out of bitterness for the person who hurt us.
In such instances, it is important to remember that everything that happens to us, we created. It is our karma, the fruit of our past actions, returning to us. If someone happens to be the one who delivers the karma to us, that is not his or her fault. We can judge the person's action any way we want—rude, unmannerly, even mean or cruel—but in fact they are not like that with everyone, or even with us all the time. We are just receiving,
218 YOUR LIFE IS IN YOUR HANDS
right now, something we have earned; better to accept it
gracefully and forgive the messenger.
Once you do finally forgive, a burden is lifted, feelings of light-heartedness dawn, and life has meaning once again. Forgiveness releases the grip of fear and anger and we start afresh in life. Forgiveness should be without reserve; forget all your previous resentment.
Look at jasmine flowers; you trample over them and crush them, and they forgive you with fragrance. One should do the
The Jealous and the Greedy Neighbors
There once were two neighbors, a greedy man and a jealous man. As the greedy man acquired more and more riches, the jealous man became increasingly jealous. One day he noticed that he had not seen his neighbor, the greedy man, for several days; the man seemed to have disappeared. On investigation he found that the greedy man was meditating in the Shiva temple. The jealous man also went there and started meditating on Lord Shiva.
Both went into samadhi. As their intense meditation continued day after day, Lord Shiva became very impressed by their devotion to him. He appeared in person and addressing the jealous man he said, "I will grant any boon to you that you may desire to have. It can be any treasure, even a kingdom. Whatever you want will be yours.”
The jealous man was thrilled and was thinking about what to ask for when Lord Shiva added, "There is only one condition. Whatever you ask for I will give you, but I will grant twice that to your neighbor.”
The jealous man's spirits fell to the ground. How could he tolerate that his greedy neighbor should receive double the wealth or blessings? He thought hard for a solution.
Lord Shiva was growing impatient, and when he threatened to leave without granting any boon at all, the jealous man suddenly said, "O Lord, you are very generous and kind. All I want and wish is that I should become blind in one eye. Kindly sire, grant me my promised wish.”
same and forgive with love in your heart and blessings for the person you are forgiving.
Jealousy is another undesirable mental state that is all too common. It may start with feeling that, either literally or figuratively, the grass on your neighbor's lawn is greener than the grass on your lawn. Then you may start comparing yourself with your neighbor, forgetting that each individual is unique.
The pain, sadness, or longing that comes from comparing yourself with someone you see as superior or in a superior position, jealousy is a reaction to a lack you feel exists in you in comparison with the other person. It is usually some aspect of his skill, status, or possessions which makes you jealous, but the real source of the jealousy is a deep dissatisfaction with yourself, a sense of inferiority.
To overcome jealousy, as with all negative emotions, it is necessary to agree first that it is indeed negative: something that you don t want, that is not only eating you up emotionally, but is also creating unhealthy molecules in your body and lowering your immunity against disease.
Specifically, jealousy can be overcome in three ways:
* First, when jealous thoughts and feelings start to come up inside, substitute positive thoughts of appreciation for the other fellow, repeatedly and patiently replacing your obsessive jealous thoughts with appreciative, admiring thoughts about the other person and his accomplishments.
* Secondly, bolster your own self-esteem. Research suggests that this is an excellent method to save yourself from jealousy and envy. Turn your thoughts to your own good qualities and achievements, sources of pride and satisfaction.
* Finally, put your shoulder to the wheel and work harder at improving the quality of your life and work. The ancient scriptures tell us to rejoice in the other fellow's success, but that doesn't prevent us from improving our own quality of life.
Ultimately, the solution to negative thoughts is gained through discovering our real Self in meditation. Most people identify themselves with the body/mind and its agitations. The
real you is behind the mind. If you identify with the mind and body, with all the emotions and agitations in the mind and the pains and shortcomings of the body, you will experience numerous kinds of miseries and suffering. Only when the mind s agitations subside can you attain real peace and happiness. Just as you can see the bottom of a lake clearly only when the ripples and the waves subside, so also you can attain peace and equilibrium of mind only when mental agitations settle down and your awareness opens to the Self, the inner divine Reality.
If someone has restless, scattered, passionate thoughts, his mind is never able to really concentrate or really become peaceful and contented. One who has pure thoughts, whose mind is still and contented, speaks powerfully and produces deep impressions in the minds of listeners. He influences multitudes through his pure thoughts.
We will talk about this repeatedly throughout the book, as it is a true master key to health, longevity, and happiness.
Cultivate your mental garden
A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of weed seeds will fall into it and will continue to produce their kind.. . Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind and take root there produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.
—JAMES ALLEN, in As A Man Thinketh
You Can Affect Your Mind and Mood Through Action
One effective way to prevent negative thoughts and feelings from taking over your mind and body is to raise a line of positive thoughts to replace them. The following is another practical strategy.
Mind, body, and spirit operate as a unit. Your body is the result and the end product, the physical expression of your ideas and attitudes in life. This inner, more subtle realm is more powerful (as the subtle atomic level is more powerful than the more manifest, solid material level), so it tends to determine the functioning of your body and the balance of health and disease in your life. If you are happy, the flow of happy and positive neuropeptides increases your immunity and feelings of well-being.
But this works in reverse as well. By taking control of our physical functioning, we can very well affect our feelings and thoughts. For example, you may have noticed that a person who slouches often has low self-esteem or feels depressed. If you find yourself slouching or slumping, notice how much better you immediately feel simply by sitting or standing straight up!
This is knowledge that we can use in daily life. By conscious intention, we can perform physical actions that correspond to certain attitudes, such as sitting up straight to produce more energy and alertness. In this way we can build or create a desired attitude or mood through bodily actions.
By acting bravely in a difficult situation we can actually begin to feel more courageous.
By smiling even when we feel downhearted, by laughing artificially when we feel anxious or worried, we activate centers in our brain which produce happy feelings. This strategy can help us to overcome depression and anxiety. Laughing can also give us more energy. It can change the chemistry of our body and help create happiness and health.
Every day I wash my body, put on clean clothes, dust my writing table. So long as my body lives, I do all that. So should my mind be cleansed of all negativity. There is no greater wealth than to possess a mind free from anger, fear, jealously, greed, and other negative thoughts and feelings.
Heaven arms with compassion those whom it would not see destroyed.
—TAOIST SCRIPTURES
Born at the banquet of the gods, Love has of necessity been eternally in existence, for it springs from the intention of the soul towards its best, towards the Good. As long as the soul has been, Love has been.
—PLOTINUS
M other Teresa was a legend in her own time. The fraillooking Mother was a living symbol, an embodiment of love and compassion, whose love overflowed to all who were in most need of tender care and affection. The fundamental objective of her work and her mission in life was to make men and women, and especially children, who were poor, destitute, and unwanted, the homeless, the sick, and the starving feel the dignity of being loved.
The Mother firmly believed that "faith in action is love, and love in action is charity." By charity she did not mean any form of pity for the downtrodden; it is not even sympathy. Rather, it
is empathy, which means identification with or the vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or condition of another person. She actually felt what the neglected, the destitute, and the sick felt; from that, her love flowed to them, and the action and service to them followed. That is what made her a living saint. Who else has looked after starving children by the roadside and the dying in the gutter? Her all-pervasive compassion went beyond our ordinary understanding.
Mother Teresa's Motto
The inscription on Mother Teresa's visiting card summed up her philosophy:
The fruit of silence is prayer The fruit of prayer is faith The fruit of faith is love The fruit of love is service The fruit of service is peace
Out of the deep silence of meditation or prayer are born faith, love, and compassionate action, which give you peace. Peace and happiness are the aim of life on this earth.
Mother Teresa's simplicity, sincerity, and saintliness were overwhelming. Her life was a personal response to the verses in the Bible in which Christ tells his disciples to take care of the poor and disadvantaged: "I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was lonely and you comforted me. For whatsoever you do to the poorest among people, you do it unto me." She served not only the hungry, naked, and lonely: even the dying were brought to her various homes. They were washed, their sores were dressed, and they were clothed. "Even if we cannot save them at this terminal stage," said Mother, “we can certainly help them die with dignity."
Over 50,000 dying poor of different religious backgrounds have breathed their last in peace in the ashrams run by her Missionaries of Charity. Mother recalled being especially
touched by the words of a dying beggar: "I have lived like an animal, but I will die like an angel.” Sister Marina of Asha Daan Ashram in Bombay said, "For Mother, the person in front of her is the most important. It may be the prime minister, or a beggar. She sees God in that person and for that moment he becomes very special." Another nun at the same ashram said, "Mother gives, gives, and gives love to all. And she gives me the inspiration to serve."
There was even a sort of joke about her, which went something like this:
Question: "Why did Saint Peter not allow Mother Teresa into heaven?"
Answer: "Because there are no slums there."
What would this beautiful soul have done without working for the poor in the slums?
Mother Teresa passed away on September 5, 1997. While the state funeral was being held at St. Thomas' Church in Calcutta, with dignitaries and celebrities from all over the world in attendance, the streets of Calcutta and many other cities were thronged by millions with flowers in their hands, tears in their eyes, and love in their hearts, mourning the death of an apostle of love, compassion, and peace.
People gathered in thousands in churches, temples, and mosques all over India, and prayed to God for the ability to contribute to Mother Teresa's missionary work and keep her legacy alive. Mother Teresa was a missionary not so much of charity as of love. Challenged by the love of Christ, she translated this love into a reality. Fler love for God was always in action in the form of service to the needy. Our beloved Mother believed the rich and the poor all belong to God. They deserve equally to be loved and cared for. Mother Teresa was one of the most remarkable personalities of this century, and in death as in life she shows the path of love, sacrifice, and peace that is open to all of us. She lives on and will continue to inspire us to do our bit to bring joy to the lives of those less privileged, the downtrodden and the poor.
Compassion in the World's Religions
Mother Teresa's inspiration was completely from within the Christian tradition. When someone asked her what books had influenced her thinking, she replied, “The only book 1 read is the Bible.” When asked, “Are there any people, such as Gandhi, Nehru, or anyone else, who have inspired you? ” her answer was, Only Jesus Christ. Her work, her homes for the sick and dying and the lepers around the world, is based on reciting the name of Jesus Christ and praying to Him all the time. Yet her mission of mercy never differentiated between creeds. Hindus and Muslims outnumber Christians in her various institutions.
Love and compassion, and the exhortation to care for the poor and hungry, are common to all the world's great religions. The teachings of Jesus, who was a Jew, embody the spiritual instructions of the great Jewish masters throughout history. From one of these, Rabbi Hillel, came the famous words summarizing religion: “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy might: and thy neighbor as thyself." The Jewish people are known throughout the world for their charitable giving to the many hospitals and educational institutions they have built and continue to support.
Compassion is so central to Buddhism that the very founder of that religion, Sakyamuni Buddha, is universally recognized as “The Compassionate Buddha." At the core of Buddhist teachings is the effort to transform oneself into a person who is kind, loving, and compassionate to “all sentient beings," great and small.
Swami Vivekananda expressed the compassion in the Hindu tradition when he told his followers to “go onward forever with compassion for the poor and the needy and the downtrodden, even unto death . . . Have faith in the Lord. Feel for the miserable and look up for help; it shall come. I bequeath to you, young men, this compassion, this struggle for the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed." And he added, “When you pray for the welfare of others, God's grace and power will be operating through you."
The Bhagavat Purana expounds the path of doing service to
the needy, who are the visible forms of God, as a sure and easy means of experiencing God. The real devotee recognizes God in many manifestations, large and small, sentient and insentient, ugly and beautiful. The devotee washes the feet of the Lord by washing the feet of the weary traveler, feeds the Lord when he feeds the hungry, houses the Lord when he gives shelter to the unsheltered.
Similarly, the Koran shows great concern for the welfare of the weaker, less fortunate members of society. It refers to them as maskin (the poor, the needy, and orphans) and urges all human beings to have compassion for them. The Prophet strongly emphasized the utility of prayer, but insisted that those who pray only to be seen and praised, but who do not have compassion for the poor, are wasting their time.
Islam also rejects charity by those who exploit others. Prophet Mohammed preached that the conscience of man should not rest if he were to eat, drink, or be merry while his relatives and neighbors were unable to earn a living. He urges men to be satisfied with less, to curb their desires and help the needy and the suffering. He even decreed that the master should feed and
The Love of a Spiritual Master
Great spiritual teachers express their love by helping others to grow in consciousness, inspiring them to rise to the full value of human life and live in the light of the Divine. Swami Vivekananda exemplified this in the famous address he delivered to the World Parliament of Religions on September 11,1893 in Chicago. He told his listeners, "God's compassion is unbounded. You are the children of God, holy and perfect beings, the sharers of immortal bliss. You must never say you are weak. Stand up, be bold and strong. Take the whole responsibility on your shoulders and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves.
"Arise, awake, wake yourselves and awaken others. Achieve the consummation of human life before you pass off. Arise, awake, and stop not until the goal is reached.”
clothe the servant as he would care for himself. His message clearly says that man should turn his back on pride and not exalt himself over his fellow human beings.
Charity does not mean giving away old things you don't require. You will not attain piety until you spend and give of that which you love. And whatever you spend Allah is aware thereof.
—KORAN, 3:92
The Biochemistry of Compassion
An important theme of this book is that our inner world of thoughts, beliefs, and feelings generates a flood of biochemicals which strongly influence our health. Negative emotions, and dwelling on dark thoughts, translate into suppressed immunity and may eventually lead to illness. Positive, happy, loving thoughts and feelings have a salutary effect on us.
So it may not strike you as totally amazing to find that even thinking about Mother Teresa can change your body's biochemistry and increase your antibodies against disease. Salivary IgA is an antibody that protects against upper respiratory infections. David McClelland of Harvard University showed a film about Mother Teresa to students and measured the amount of IgA in their saliva before and after they viewed the film.
Some students said they liked the film very much, and in them IgA levels increased. Others didn't like it, some even professing "intense dislike" for Mother Teresa, suggesting that she was a fake and that her work was not good. According to the research, even those students showed immune function improvement. McClelland believes this study shows how unconscious beliefs may affect bodily reactions more than our ordinary "surface" awareness. Perhaps the influence of someone like Mother Teresa reaches a part of the brain of the "disapproving" viewers, and the brain responds to the strength of her tender, loving care.
It is revealing to note that when McClelland tested the study's validity by having the students watch quite a different
type of movie, Attila the Hun, a film with a violent message, salivary IgA levels fell.
Dr. Larry Dossey, commenting on this study in his book Meaning and Medicine, suggests that altruism affects us like a miracle drug that has beneficial effects not only for the person toward whom help is being directed, but for the person doing the helping as well. It can even stimulate healthy responses at a distance, as McClelland's study indicated.
Compassion and Healing
Any doctor knows from experience the tremendous benefit compassion has for his patients. A kind look, a sympathetic glance, or a bit of a smile cheers a sick patient with a withered heart, and goes a long way toward speeding his recovery and healing. If a busy doctor takes the time and care to stand near a very sick patient, hold his hand a moment, or sit on the patient's bed and ask about the welfare of his family, it alters the meaning of the experience of illness for the patient in a positive way.
No patient should ever feel that the doctor is in too much of a huriy to talk to him; he should always feel he is being lovingly cared for. This gives him hope and faith, and fosters assurance in the healing force, both his own built-in healing mechanism and energy, as well as the unseen superpower—you may like to call it God.
In his first book. Creating Health, Deepak Chopra wrote extensively about the meaning and value of compassion. Kindness and compassion, he says, are not accidents of human feelings. "They have grown out of universal tendencies in nature ... All living organisms display behavior patterns that favor the whole over the interests of the individual part." No healing, says Deepak, can occur without compassion.
Norman Cousins wrote of patients and their vast collection of emotional needs: "They want reassurance, they want to be listened to, they want to feel that it makes a difference to the physician whether they live or die. They want to feel they are in
the physician's thoughts.” These needs, Deepak notes, "ask for a flow of feeling from the subtlest level," for "compassion at the source of life," which brings comfort and healing.
Love, Human and Divine
Human love is the highest and finest emotion we can know. It frees us to a great extent from our egotism, in relation to one or more individuals. But human love as most of us know it is at least partly possessive and exclusive, whereas love for the Self or for God is neither possessive nor exclusive. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning urged (see below), we should love one another not for beauty, strength, intelligence, sense of humor, or any other quality, but simply for what a person is. And what people "really are” is the Self, the spirit, the one Reality.
To love the Self, the divine in ourselves, helps us to love It everywhere. Such love goes beyond any manifestation of nature to the Reality within nature. It is too vast to be fully understood or appreciated by ordinary agitated minds, yet most people do have a peep into that vaster reality, for to love someone, even in the usual manner, is to catch a glimpse of something within that person which is tremendous, inspiring, and eternal.
We think, says Swami Prabhavananda, that this "something" is unique. He or she, we feel, is like nobody else. This is because our perception of the Reality is clouded by the external manifestations, the individual qualities of the person we love.
If Thou Must Love Me
If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile—her look—her way Of speaking gently—for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine ..."
For these things in themselves. Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so .. .
But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Nevertheless, that flash of perception is a valid spiritual experience, and it should encourage us to purify our mind and make it fit for the infinitely greater kind of love which awaits us. This higher, divine love is not relative or transient. It is absolutely free from desire, because lover and Beloved have become one. Such a love is an eternal joy for the soul.
Persons who experience this level of love have no place in their hearts for petty jealousies or desires. They share their possessions, both material and spiritual, with others, and they have seva bhava, sakha bhava, and prem bhava, the attitudes of service, friendliness, and love toward their family, society, and all fellow beings.
In such a state, when the mind is infused with love, “happy" molecules flow throughout your brain and body, letting each of your trillions of cells know of your happiness. It has been shown scientifically that in such people immunomodulators increase, raising their immunity against disease. They are joyful, healthy, and more creative in life. And as a Jewish sage once said, "Charity lengthens one's days and years."
Opposite of Love is Not Hate
Love is the opposite of fear. These are the two basic human emotions from which all the other human emotions arise. Fear is created by the illusion of separateness, failure to understand that all of this (phenomenal world) is nothing but That (absolute, divine Reality, the Self). When we identify with the body, rather than with the Self, we see other bodies as separate from ourselves. This separateness makes us fearful; others can hurt us, take what is ours, deprive us of what we want.
From fear arises insecurity, which is the basis of other negative traits, such as greed, hatred, jealousy, anger, lack of contentment. These are all slow poison, the harbingers of
disease and misery. Studies have shown that the incidences of angina, heart attacks, and even sudden death are more common among people who are repeatedly or habitually irritated, hostile, or angry. It is no use going to the temples and offering prayers if you cannot be kind to people or forgive them.
As fear is created through our identification with the body, with the surface expressions of life, love arises from the deepest level of the Self—Consciousness, the Truth, Reality, the Creator Himself. You go beyond the body level and your mind abides in the Self. Love, with all its fragrance, radiates and flows into your being. You then see the truth of what you are: you are not separate from existence, from Being. You are overflowing joy itself, a joy that has nothing to do with external material things. You are in love, which means, you are in bliss; you are bliss itself.
In love one grows and expands; in fear, one shrinks. In love you are open; in fear, you close your doors. Love is trust; fear is doubt. In love you are never lonely, for you are the universe. You can then love all human beings, the trees, the rivers, the forests, the birds and animals, the mountains, the stars, the galaxies, because all of these are the expressions of the same Self, the Self that you are. All are interconnected, not separate from each other or you. Endowed with true Self-knowledge, one sees all things in the Self, which is infinite. As the Isavasy Upanishad proclaims:
The wise man who realizes all beings are not separate
from his own self and his own self in all beings, does
not, by virtue of that perception, hate anyone.
The man who knows he is in all beings and all beings are in him, by virtue of this is able to feel the hurt of others as his own. Deepak Chopra says that born out of love are charity, compassion, devotion, discipline, the ability to forgive and forget, and gratitude. You are generous and fulfilled, and you rejoice in the success of others. As the young sage Ashtavakra told Raj Rishi King Janaka, "If you drink this nectar of life that is love, you will obtain bliss, you will be in peace, and you will be free from all bondage."