Be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads
-osho Rajneesh-
Man is a complicated creature with great capacity for both good and bad. At his best he has great concern for the sufferings of his fellow man and may do much good, at his worst he can be an animal.
-osho Rajneesh-
Man is a complicated creature with great capacity for both good and bad. At his best he has great concern for the sufferings of his fellow man and may do much good, at his worst he can be an animal.
It
must be said that there is goodness mixed with the badness in life and
that the Human being is a great mixture of both goodness and
badness.
If there are a great many people who are selfish and are guided only by
self-interest there are also great many who are concerned about
others and their welfare, Things are not all bad , and much can be in the
mind of the beholder. People often see others and life as they
themselves are, its like a mirror ,it reflects what
you see ,you make faces it does the same
. .
I
heard this story long time ago about a a person coming to a new village,
relocating, went to the zen master resident of that
Village and asked : Are the people nice in this Village?
The master asked back: How were the people in the town where
you come from? “They were nasty ,greedy, were cheaters and and scoundrels,”
said the newcomer.Those are exactly the type of people we have in this village,
said the master.Another newcomer to the village visited the master and asked
the same question, to which the master asked: How were the people in the town
where you come from? “They were sweet and lived in harmony, they cared for one
another and for the land, they respected each other and they were seekers of
spirit,” he replied. Those are exactly the type of people we have in this
village, said the master.
We can relate with similar story from
Mahabharata where Drona once asked the upright Yudhishtira to go around
the city of Hastinapur and find for him one bad man. He then asked
Duryodhan to go round the city of Hastinapur and find one good man. Both
returned alone. Yudhishtira said that everyone in Hastinapur is good; there is
no bad man. Duryodhan said the very opposite: everyone in the city is a
scoundrel and a cheat; there is no good man. And Drona said, "You have
told me nothing about Hastinapur but a lot about yourself."
When someone says This
person is Bad ,this person is Good they actually
mean as per their Measuring scale he tops the list
of Bad people or Good people and
it is purely subjective in nature .Yes ,understanding
of the world depends on the measuring scale we subscribe to. Yudhishtira’s
measuring scale failed to identify a bad man in Hastinapur . Duryodhan’s
measuring scale failed to identify a good man in Hastinapur. Their opinions
about Hastinapur said nothing about Hastinapur but about the measuring scales
they subscribed to.
Fortunately or
unfortunately there is no universal measuring scale to measure goodness
or badness in a person as it is purely subjective and comparative
.What I mean by comparative is We always try to compare
one person with other person whom we feel as Good or
Bad and our measuring scale measures some what
similar like measuring other usual things in life– this is longer
than that, this is heavier than that, this is hotter than that and in the
same breadth we compare this Person is better
than X , With comparison comes evaluation and judgment, Some things
become more desired & more more valuable. When things or person start
becoming more desired and more valuable, then he is
Good and quite opposite when it is undesirable
and no longer valuable to us . Many a time we are clouded
with preconceived notion & are prejudiced
about the person before we actually meet them . .
I am also not advocating
you to be like Yudisitra to see
only goodness nor like duryodana to see only badness
but at least I feel it is better to have open mind
,not to be prejudiced and have preconceived notion before we
actually meet person we intended
“It’s not what you don’t know about a person that holds
you back. It’s what you do know that you think is true that is ultimately the
most crippling factor. All those things that you think are true about people
before meeting are really figments of your LITTLE imagination which
usually is not true