1. Comparison - Lesson 3

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.

Nature has its own unique way of growth for each of us. It does not matter whether you are a rose or a Lilly or a wild flower. The important thing is that the wild flower should realize its ultimate potential as a wild flower just as the rose should understand its inherent potential.

Whether it is beauty or intelligence, you are unique. We always want to be someone else, we compare with others and want to become like them. Explain what some of the aspects are, which we compare with others. When we see what somebody else has and start to compare, we borrow the desire of wanting things like them. This is called borrowed desires, which is born out of comparison.

This borrowed desire is an example of a want, not a need. When you start spending your energy to realize borrowed desires, you feel that you don't have enough energy to fulfill all your desires. You have enough energy to fulfill all of your needs but not your wants.

To make them understand how we always wish to be somebody else and how to overcome it.

• What is a need?
• What is a want?
• Name some of your needs?
• Name some of your wants?
• What is borrowed desire?

Nature has its own unique way of growth for each of us.

Be happy with what we have and who we are.

• Plain sheet or any picture sheet
• Poster colors

Ask the children to apply paint on their hands and print them on the paper. Encourage them to observe the paint and check whether the five fingers they printed are same size or not.

Connect to the fact our five fingers are not same size, each one is of a different size, each one has unique functions so when we cannot compare between our own fingers it is not correct to compare ourselves with others

Part 2: Comparison

This shows that each person is unique and special, and there is no other person the same as you

• Paper
• Paint or ink
• Pencil
• Sponge

• 1. Gather the class and discuss the topic briefly.
• 2. Talk about how everyone has different physical features and the special qualities in them.
• 3. Have everyone look at their fingers, closely at their thumb and the designs on it. There is no one else in the whole world that has the same pattern of thumb print. Have them compare their thumbs and see how different they each are.
• 4. Give each person a piece of paper with their name written on it.
• 5. Using the paint or ink, you can place the thumb in a shallow plate or press the thumb on a sponge with paint or ink on it.
• 6. Then press the thumb on to a plain piece of paper and see the shape of your thumb and the pattern clearly.

use a paper and pencil and have each trace their hand and color it in, or draw the patterns.

Everyone is special and different in their own ways. If we are happy with whom we are, we will not compare.