THE AHIMSA WAY - Embracing love

படித்ததும் மனத்தினை மிகவும் பாதித்தது!

அதை அப்படியே தமிழாக்கம் செய்ய மனம் துடித்தாலும், செய்தபோது சில பல எண்ணங்கள் வேண்டாம் செய்யாதே கேடாக்கிவிடுவாய் என்று உள்மனம் உணர்த்த தொடங்கிய கட்டத்திலேயே கட் செய்துவிட்டேன்

இங்க பேஸ்ட் செய்துவிட்டேன் படித்துப்பாருங்கள்!

சுனாமியில் பாதிக்கப்பட்ட ஒரு சிறுமியின் வாழ்க்கையும் கூட வருகிறது!

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THE AHIMSA WAY Embracing love

Going beyond non-violence, ahimsa also involves connecting things and people with compassion and hope.

So far we have been looking at the concepts of ahimsa and himsa, in the context of our daily relationships. We need to remember that ahimsa values go further than just non-violence. We also need to think of ahimsa and practise it as an all embracing love, in which other qualities are also crystallised…compassion, justice, activism, hope, love for people and all of creation, and a vision that includes and connects everything and everyone with love and compassion.

Such an ahimsa mind does not come automatically or even easily to most of us, as we live at a time when only “I” and “Me” matter. “What’s in it for me?” “If I don’t benefit,” then, with a shrug of the shoulder, so much is thrown away — relationships, friends and jobs. We become selfish, insensitive, himsa people. We live too at a time when people around us don’t affirm ahimsa behaviour or values. Says one reader, “We are looked at as fools and laughed at and taken advantage of.” So is this all-embracing love only an ideal? Where today do we find examples of such ahimsa love that we can believe in and emulate?

When tragedy struck

I was at a camp in Sirgazhi, Tamil Nadu, where some of those affected by the tsunami are housed. There I met nine-year-old Murugeshwari. On the morning of December 26, 2004, she was on her way to buy tomatoes for her sister. Her mother was outside, cleaning fish. Sudddenly Murugeshwari heard a strange sound. She turned and saw the sea rushing towards her. Her first thought was to run and warn her sister and mother, but before that thought could turn into any kind of action she saw the sea swallow them both.

Today Murugeshwari is at a tsunami camp. Her bright eyes fill with tears as she tells me her story. She wipes them away with the hem of her skirt. Some children playing nearby see her wiping her eyes and come running over. They quickly surround her and two of them put their arms around her. “We are her friends, whenever she cries, we try and make her happy,” they said.

“How do you make her happy?” I asked them. “Some of us go and sleep with her in the night, so that she does not miss her mother and sister too much,” said one.

Another said, “We always hold her tight when we sleep.”

“I thought a present would make her happy. I asked my mother for some money to buy her a present. I bought her these,” said another girl pointing to a row of brilliant, green, glass bangles around Murugeshwari’s wrists. Yet another little girl said, “I gave her this,” pointing to a beautiful, black, red and gold bead necklace Murugeshwari was wearing.

“Where did you buy it?” I asked her.

“I didn’t buy it,” she said, “The sea swallowed my mother and my sisters also, so I don’t have anyone to ask money from. It was mine; it was round my neck when the tsunami came. I gave it to her,” she said.

The ahimsa love came so naturally to these children who had lost all that was important to them — their families, homes, and little possessions. While I was with them, I noticed that they were constantly looking out for those who needed some form of care — taking the older people to the bathroom, fetching water for women who were not their mothers, drying someone’s clothes in the sun, or just carrying someone’s baby on their hips as if it was their own brother or sister.

Contrasting behaviour

Contrast this with a story sent in by a reader. Two young women in an academic institution were applying for research grants. Although both were applying for different grants, there seemed to be some rivalry between them. Their boss told them to help each other with the grant applications and check on the last dates to make sure that they submitted them well on time. One of the girls was very competitive and did not want her colleague to get her grant, so she quietly sabotaged her application. We see this kind of himsa behaviour all around us — mean, selfish, hurtful, destructive.

Why does ahimsa behaviour not come easily to us who have so much? Is it because in our materialistic society we respect things more than people? Is our own personal selfishness, greed for material luxury, and desire to be the sole keepers of anything good, hindering us from being sensitive and caring? How do we turn our himsa behaviour around so that it becomes nurturing and powerful?

Forget the ego

At the tsunami camp, I learnt that ahimsa love had to be self- sacrificial to be real and truly meaningful. We need to put away the “I” of the ego, and look beyond at someone else’s well being. Two women were due for a promotion and were short- listed for it. One lady knew that she was qualified, had the right experience and had put in the required number of years in service. She knew too that if chosen, she would perform well. But after a while, she went to her boss and asked that the post be given to the other person. The reason? Her colleague had recently been through a series of personal tragedies and was desperately looking for something that would bring meaning to her life. The woman felt that the promotion would help her friend find stability and fulfilment at a time when so much in her life was painful.

Ahimsa people are powerful; It is in their hearts and minds to change himsa situations, and they do, not because they gain anything out of it, but because they believe in something much larger than themselves.


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