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�I do not believe...that an individual may gain spiritually while those who
surround him suffer. I believe in advaita,* I believe in the essential unity of
man and for that matter, of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one
man gains spiritually, the whole world gains with him and if one man falls
the whole world falls to that extent.� --MK Gandhi
This statement is about Affect. We are usually conditioned to perceive
ourselves as essentially disconnected, when, in fact, the reverse is true. We are
physically and spiritually linked to every corner of the universe, and our thoughts
and actions affect every being in the universe. If we hold faith in scarcity,
violence, separation and death, we devalue not only our own experience of living
but everyone�s. We must take up the important practice of developing
awareness of our essential connectivity through meditation and action. We can
retrain our minds through meditation and action to consider and act out of this
new understanding of our shared place in reality; in the end, leading us to
happier, more harmonious, living.
We do not undertake such transformation of mind because we are afraid.
The basic tenet that what one does affects all is not meant to lead us in the
direction of self-preservation. We do not act to help others renounce such
thinking because of how their thoughts and actions may adversely affect us.
Rather, we are willing to do this work ourselves, and to help others do it, because
we want ourselves and others to be happy, to live fully and enjoy living. The
experience and perpetuation of scarcity, violence, separation and
death-centered-living necessarily implies suffering. To relieve such suffering
wherever we find it, then, becomes the sacred work of Love, the instrument of
Joy, the demonstration of Truth.
When we act from this center of Love, Joy and Truth, we become the
presence of the Alternative. Freely sharing our new understanding without
impressing it on others, we offer the representative model which others may
follow--will follow, when our peace and happiness are evident. We will simply
offer a template, universally compatible, that offers a cessation of suffering.
Gandhi reminds us, though, that one may not advance toward peace
while allowing another to falter. He calls us to be helpers. Let�s listen.
*advaita is one of the two principal branches of Vedanta, which is one of the classical systems of
Indian philosophy. It holds that Brahman, the Self, is ultimate reality, and that the world has come
into being from Brahman and is wholly dependent on it.
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