WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT COMPARISON?
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Comparing with others - Comparing with the neighbours, comparing with the nearby person, comparing with colleague, comparing with brothers, comparing between family people. Let us enter whatever the major aspects which creates or destroys our life,
Buddha says to watch the Monkey trainer instructing the monkey. He holds a stick in his hand and shouts ‘Dance Rama! Dance Rama!” and the monkey dances. He then shouts “ Turn cartwheels Rama! Turn cartwheels Rama!” and the monkey turns cartwheels. In this same way, the Maya Shakthi (The power of illusion) uses a stick called ‘Comparison’ to run our lives.
Anyway, let us look at the major areas
of comparison amongst people. All
points of comparison can be brought
under the major heads namely money,
status, beauty and knowledge
what is our status in these category?
✓ Are you a rich man? Are you a poor
man?
✓ Are you a man of name and fame?
✓ Are you beautiful?
We don't have a proper yes or a no answer to these question!
All these things which continuously haunts our life.
You are continuously haunted,
disturbed, squeezed by these subjects.
But you don’t know your status in
these four subjects.
Just open your eyes and see. You are
creating your own suffering, without
having any clear data.you have no
clear data, you have no clear concept,
you don’t have any clarity, but you
continuously suffer. Why?
HOW COMPARISON AFFECTS YOU?
A small story
One man was doing rigorous penance in a jungle for God to appear. God condescended and appeared before him. He told him to ask for what he wanted. The man replied that he was a landlord and had lost all his wealth and that he wished to become wealthy again. God said that the following day, if the man ran from dawn to dusk, all the area covered by him would be his. The Man was happy. The next day the man started running even before dawn. He ran as fast as he could.
Close to noon, hunger beckoned but he didn't pay heed and kept running. Early in the evening, thirst and fatigue gripped him but he was goaded on by the thought of the neighbouring landlord who owned many acres of land. A little before sunset, he felt giddy and weak but managed a few more steps by merely thinking of the neighbouring landlord, but faltered and fell dead. This is how we all live our lives. We run the race without feeling any true satisfaction, without even stopping to think why we are running! Shankaracharya describes this as “thatha kim, thatha kim...” meaning “what next, what next...”
