1. Comparison - Lesson 2

Why do we feel so intensely threatened by another's beauty or wealth or talent? This is nothing but simple social conditioning. Brought up in a competitive world, we tend to imagine that the more someone else has of something, the less there is for us!

One of the natural tendencies for you is comparing yourself with others. And, whether you compare yourself with the people whom you think higher than you or whom you think lower than you, you are going to fall into the space of powerlessness. If you compare yourself with the people whom you think higher than you, you will fall into the powerless space of guilt, giving up on you, the idea you are not worthy enough; you will fall into all these powerless spaces.

If you compare yourself with the people whom you think higher than you, you will fall into the powerless space of guilt, giving up on you, the idea you are not worthy enough; you will fall into all these powerless spaces.

If you compare yourself with people whom you think who are lower than you, again you will fall into the superiority complex, arrogance, which is also powerlessness.

Comparison can be of two kinds: constructive comparison and destructive comparison.

Constructive comparison is essential and desirable. In a practical sense, it gives you a yardstick against which to measure yourself. It provides the spur, the stimulus to improve. Without comparing, how can you have a realistic appreciation of yourself?

Destructive comparison results from the inability to accept reality. In this big wide world, someone is sure to be better than you at whatever you do. 99.99% chances are that you're not the world's best mathematician, the fastest runner or the most talented painter. Does that mean that you enjoy these things any less? To focus only on what you're lacking simply means that you're on your way to a massive inferiority complex. And who needs it?

Look around you. Do you know anyone else who is exactly the same as you? Don't you see how special you are? If you are comparing yourself to others and feeling miserable, it simply means that you aren't appreciating yourself enough! You are so out of touch with your inner being that you have forgotten how extraordinary you really are. Once you realise this, the need to compare dies naturally. Even if you wanted to compare, each person is so different - where is a common point of reference? So drop the attitude of comparison. Remember, you are truly unique - just like everyone else!

"Completion with yourself raises you to the level of Enlightenment and liberates you from the cognition of comparing yourself with others and keeping yourself in a very low level."

One of the natural tendencies for you is comparing yourself with others. And, whether you compare yourself with the people whom you think higher than you or whom you think lower than you, you are going to fall into the space of powerlessness. Whether you think there are some people who are higher than you and you compare with them, or lower than you and compare with them, both ways you will fall into powerlessness.

If you compare yourself with the people whom you think higher than you, you will fall into the powerless space of guilt, giving up on you, the idea you are not worthy enough; you will fall into all these powerless spaces.

If you compare yourself with people whom you think who are lower than you, again you will fall into the superiority complex, arrogance, which is also a powerlessness.

Whether you compare yourself with people whom you think are higher than you or you think are lower than you, you are in the space of powerlessness and you are destroying yourself. And you are going to destroy yourself unless you raise yourself, unless you complete with yourself.

The first thing will hit you is, the moment you compare yourself with the people higher than you, you will become powerless. You will shiver, you will shake. You will shiver; you will lose confidence over your powerful space. You will think the powerfulness happened in you only as an accident but your nature is powerlessness. You will come to the wrong conclusions about you which is the biggest curse. It is life imprisonment.

Whoever you may be, if you have a wrong idea about you, you are in life imprisonment.

Carrying the ideas lower than you, about you is the life imprisonment in which you suffer for comparing yourself with people whom you think are higher than you., every time you compare yourself with people whom you think are higher than you, you are taking away the life energy happening in you, you are blocking your Kundalini energy, you are blocking your life force, you are destroying your bio-energy because it is going to reinforce the faith in you that you are powerless, you are useless, you are lifeless.

The moment you think somebody is bigger than you and he knows it, you are going to be exploited by him. The person who is really, really bigger than you will always be helping you to make you become like him. But whom you think is bigger than you will only be exploiting you. Who is really bigger than you will be explaining to you. Whom you think is bigger than you will be exploiting you. Who is really bigger than you will be explaining to you.

Whether you compare yourself with the people whom you think are bigger than you or lower than you, comparison is going to put you in powerlessness.

When you think somebody is higher than you and you compare yourself with them, the different kinds of tortures you will give it to you, you will bring upon you,

All your good, bad, everything is perceived by you; if that you is corrupted, your whole life is Hell. Then whatever direction you are functioning is wrong. You need to sit and look why you are doing what you are doing before you are completely collapsed, you need to look in , why you are doing what you are doing.

The civilizations which drives you by creating a peer pressure where you are forced to compare yourself with people higher than you, will be filled with psychological disorders. All the so-called grown up countries are Filled with psychological disorders.

If you are constantly comparing yourself with whom you think as higher than you, even if you reach that place, you will be reaching that place by fear.

Arrogance is the most powerful, cunning method which shows all the inauthenticity, irresponsibility you have on others. And you go on comparing yourself with others and destroy yourself! Unless you get out of it, only when you enrich yourself with responsibility, you can become authentic again.

Comparing yourself with the people whom you think are lower than you. this is worse than the earlier pattern. This leads to arrogance, ego, inauthenticity.

You will never do anything, but you think you are qualified for everything! You will never take responsibility, but you think you can boss around everyone. this mental setup puts you in Indraloka where constant insecurity resides.

OTHER SIDE OF COMPARISON

If you are caught in the pattern of comparing yourself with the people whom you think are lower than you, you will develop so much of arrogance, pride, inauthenticity; you will never take the responsibility; you will never live the life of enriching yourself and others

In powerfulness, you will never feel you are doing too much, you will never have the stress, because you don't conduct the Tug of War before making any decision.

When you carry arrogance, even to make a simple decision you will do so much of Tug of War inside, you will really feel you are doing too much and you will complicate things..

If you are in the space of Completion, all the work you touch will be successful, it will flourish, it will bring so much of powerfulness in you.

Success-Powerfulness will always shower success, understand, never bring failure. It is a law of life!

Whatever may be the reason for your powerlessness, once the powerlessness enters in you, it eats away even one or two remaining good things in your life. Even the few moments of powerfulness which you experienced will be forgotten by you; you will think it is only a illusion or delusion or accident happened in your life. If you think the beautiful moments of your life happened in you as an accident, there is nobody unfortunate than you.

Even if you try to show yourself as powerful, when you are feeling inside powerless, the pull and push internally creates tremendous stress.

Comparing yourself with people whom you think higher than you puts you into the eternal depression. We can call this hell as "Kumbhipaakam". Garuda Purana describes various hells. Putting yourself in the space of powerlessness is equivalent to putting yourself in hell with a lot of effort.

Neither comparing yourself with the people who you think are higher than you nor comparing yourself with people who you think are lower than you is going to keep you powerful or help you in your life.

Remain powerful by remembering comparing with others is a sickness which happens due to powerlessness.

Whether you compare yourself with people whom you think are higher than you or you think are lower than you, you are in the space of powerlessness and you are destroying yourself. And you are going to destroy yourself unless you raise yourself, unless you complete with yourself.

When we see others we see the best things about them and want to be like them. The very nature of the mind is to be unsatisfied, not to be happy, and not to be in the present moment. The mind can exist only in the past or future. It cannot exist in the present because you cannot have thoughts in the present moment. Ask the children to name their special features, the features they love a lot. The other extreme of comparison is we feel very proud that we are the best and start discouraging others.

Everyone is unique and special; no one is inferior to anybody in any way. Discuss the major areas where we normally comparewealth, name and fame, power and prestige, knowledge and health.

We can group these under four major categories. Money, knowledge and beauty; which includes health and status. Comparison is pure illusion.

Contentment will flower when you understand the negative existence of comparison and jealousy. Borrowed desires happen very subtly in our mind; that is why although they happen continuously, we continue to state that we are not bothered by others

To make them understand borrowed desires, what are the needs and what are the wants of an individual.

• Name some of your special features?

• Which feature of yours do you like a lot?

• What happens when you compare with others?

• How do your friends feel when you discourage them?

• How will you feel when you encourage your friend to achieve something?

• What happens when you always say I am the best and I know everything?

• How do our friends feel when we are too proud?

• Can we have a huge friend circle if we are very egoistic?

• What is the best way to live happily?

• Picture of Vishuddhi chakra :

• Paper

• Pencil or sketch pen.

Talk to the children about the Vishuddhi chakra and show the picture of the Vishuddhi chakra to the children. Encourage the children to see the picture of Vishuddhi chakra and draw the chakra.

Part 2: Comparison - Lesson 2_English_part_2.md

The Vishuddhi chakra is located in the throat area. In Sanskrit, Vishuddhi means 'beyond purity and impurity'. This chakra is locked by comparison and jealousy and it can be made to flower, when we exhibit our individuality without worrying about others, and express fully our capacity, uniqueness and creativity. This Vishuddhi chakra is all about winning yourself.

Each of us is perfect- why compare? This activity illustrates and reminds us of the qualities we possess and make us thankful for what we are.

• Paper
• Pencil

Making a list of qualities that make us special.

Discuss the activity and what they have learned about the topic of comparison, Talk about how each of us is different and unique. Give some examples such as Susan is very sweet and thoughtful, she is very sharing and loves her friends. Have them think about their own special qualities, and give them each a paper and pencil and make them write their list of qualities.

With paper and a pencil, they can all draw a picture and instead of comparing their pictures, they can each admire and compliment each other on the beauty of the different pictures

If we had no one to compare with, we would not compare! Comparing leads to jealousy and hurt feelings, so we should be content and happy with who we are.

Ask them to narrate where they picked up the various ice cream sticks from.

Ask each child to discuss their habits and give each child a turn to explain where exactly they picked it up

One child might say 'I like green colors, because from my young age I have seen my mother's fondness for green colors. I do not like cockroaches because my brother always hates cockroaches and so on. Ask each child to pick up an ice cream stick and write on it, where they picked up each of their habits from.

All our desires and habits are actually not our original desires. We have mainly picked them up from parents, relatives and friends.