Altruism
Altruism what a sweet sound it produces! Everyone is trying to show this inner beauty of soul. If we have it that's good or we can just fake it, because it is in vogue, so show it we must.
There are ways to let it grow inside us slowly , just like any other art we wants to master. It is good if have some compassion, if we love not all living things but atleast human beings. We become so wrapped up in our own problems we can't think about anyone else. We first, I first, Mine first, that's how we live our lives.
Suppose we have all the compassion then ? Nothing! It might help a Monk, a Hermit , it never helps us. I have personaly experienced this. Pain of others even an animals hits me so hard it left me sometimes gasping for breath, and in tears always. What does it matter to someone who is in acute pain if i shed one tear or thousand unless i do something to help him? And what can a lower middle class person, a woman at that, a house wife, on top of it, and in her fifties at the top of all the things can do ?
One time i remembered two labourers were talking outside my house that they didn't get anything to eat and they didn't know i was listening , they were just talking , and since i came to know i put something together and gave them. At that time i was in my forties and can anyone see the irony, they didn't see my act as an act of humanity they thought it was not a decent enough behaviour for a woman !
And the conditions of old cows, bulls on the roads, who can define their plight ? How selfish we humans can become ? We don't need a male child of cow or buffalo anymore , and we can't kill them either, so when they take birth we leave two days old calf on road. And if you put even sweet dish in its mouth it doesn't know how to chew, it stands there all lost, pining for its mother. But what does it matter to us ? Then slowly it starts living but where is the food to fill all the hungry bellies of these unwanted males ?( is it a twisted sense of Mother Nature's humour , we saw here , where a male isn't needed however mighty in physical power it might be ?) whole day they stand on road with empty bellies looking for one morsel of food , if it is winter , if it is raining they stand there day and night under the open sky, if it is summers they are there without food and without water. Is it a life we give them ? Isn't a one time death better then this endless suffering ? But no we worship cow so we will not let them die but we are inhumans enough to let them live like this. And whenever i saw a small baby cow looking forlorn i cry, whenever i saw a strong big bodied bull with broken foot/leg i cry. I bring two three roties, i bring every vegetable peel from my kitchen to them, but what a drop can do where ocean is needed ? But what else can i do ?
And the plight of stray dogs, it is the worst . They can't be killed that is a law in my country but cannot let them live either. There is no food, no place to live and the saddest part of their story is a one year old female dog whom we can't call a puppy but she isn't an adult either has to go under the worst ever phase of its life for every year for 5,10,15 days and night until it gets pragnant. And this cycle goes on and on until she dies. Whatever we might put on our ears their cries for help can not let us sleep at night. But what can we do ?
What has gone wrong with my country i can't fathom. Where Krishna The God Himself loved the cows. Where the Budha lived. How we become so pathetic ? The country with its philosophy of vasudev kutumbkam gone so crazy about material things ?
Where the river , plants , earth , animals everything we felt is suffused with the energy of God, how we only now centered around me and mine and let the all other go to seventh hell.
So this empathy, this altruism, this copassion they all look good when someone has to post a status on social site or when a minister has to make a speech, or to a Monk it will befitting but for me it create chaos in my life, pain in my heart and sometimes almost make my life unbearable.
There are ways to let it grow inside us slowly , just like any other art we wants to master. It is good if have some compassion, if we love not all living things but atleast human beings. We become so wrapped up in our own problems we can't think about anyone else. We first, I first, Mine first, that's how we live our lives.
Suppose we have all the compassion then ? Nothing! It might help a Monk, a Hermit , it never helps us. I have personaly experienced this. Pain of others even an animals hits me so hard it left me sometimes gasping for breath, and in tears always. What does it matter to someone who is in acute pain if i shed one tear or thousand unless i do something to help him? And what can a lower middle class person, a woman at that, a house wife, on top of it, and in her fifties at the top of all the things can do ?
One time i remembered two labourers were talking outside my house that they didn't get anything to eat and they didn't know i was listening , they were just talking , and since i came to know i put something together and gave them. At that time i was in my forties and can anyone see the irony, they didn't see my act as an act of humanity they thought it was not a decent enough behaviour for a woman !
And the conditions of old cows, bulls on the roads, who can define their plight ? How selfish we humans can become ? We don't need a male child of cow or buffalo anymore , and we can't kill them either, so when they take birth we leave two days old calf on road. And if you put even sweet dish in its mouth it doesn't know how to chew, it stands there all lost, pining for its mother. But what does it matter to us ? Then slowly it starts living but where is the food to fill all the hungry bellies of these unwanted males ?( is it a twisted sense of Mother Nature's humour , we saw here , where a male isn't needed however mighty in physical power it might be ?) whole day they stand on road with empty bellies looking for one morsel of food , if it is winter , if it is raining they stand there day and night under the open sky, if it is summers they are there without food and without water. Is it a life we give them ? Isn't a one time death better then this endless suffering ? But no we worship cow so we will not let them die but we are inhumans enough to let them live like this. And whenever i saw a small baby cow looking forlorn i cry, whenever i saw a strong big bodied bull with broken foot/leg i cry. I bring two three roties, i bring every vegetable peel from my kitchen to them, but what a drop can do where ocean is needed ? But what else can i do ?
And the plight of stray dogs, it is the worst . They can't be killed that is a law in my country but cannot let them live either. There is no food, no place to live and the saddest part of their story is a one year old female dog whom we can't call a puppy but she isn't an adult either has to go under the worst ever phase of its life for every year for 5,10,15 days and night until it gets pragnant. And this cycle goes on and on until she dies. Whatever we might put on our ears their cries for help can not let us sleep at night. But what can we do ?
What has gone wrong with my country i can't fathom. Where Krishna The God Himself loved the cows. Where the Budha lived. How we become so pathetic ? The country with its philosophy of vasudev kutumbkam gone so crazy about material things ?
Where the river , plants , earth , animals everything we felt is suffused with the energy of God, how we only now centered around me and mine and let the all other go to seventh hell.
So this empathy, this altruism, this copassion they all look good when someone has to post a status on social site or when a minister has to make a speech, or to a Monk it will befitting but for me it create chaos in my life, pain in my heart and sometimes almost make my life unbearable.
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