‘लोगों को ‘परखना’ नहीं, ‘समझना’ चाहिये…’

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Swami ji said…

” ‘Sudama’, (सुदामा), was Shri Krishna’s best friend on Earth. However, according to the descriptions in the holy texts, ‘Sudama’ comes across as quite an ordinary person; like most of us. He is often portrayed as someone who was scared, lacked conviction and confidence in himself, and needed Shri Krishna’s help from time to time. Most of us, today, would not hold such a person in high esteem, as, we give greater importance to confidence, sharpness, quick thinking – qualities, quite opposite from the impression that we get of Sudama, through the various stories that depict him.”

” ‘But then why did God befriend him? Why did God wash Sudama’s feet with his own tears?’God did so, because, He, surely saw something ‘more’ in Sudama, than ordinary mortals like us could ever see. Shri Krishna, of course, did not form an ‘impression’ of Sudama in their first meeting. Even when ‘Sudama’ did not share his food with Shri Krishna, in the forest , Shri Krishna did not assess or judge him and say that he was greedy or bad. He accepted Sudama’s apology and never thought about it again. Clearly, Shri Krishna understood that Sudama – like any other human being – would err. The fact that Shri Krishna befriended ‘Sudama’ indicates that ‘He’ saw ‘simplicity’ and ‘purity’ in ‘Sudama’ – which was not visible to others ; and, wrongly misinterpreted as ‘meekness’ instead.”

” We too make this mistake very often. Without really ‘knowing’ a person; without trying to understand what could make others around us behave and react in a particular way; what makes them the way they are ; we , instead, tend to judge them and categorise them as good or bad; lazy or active , and , more often than not, our first impression of others, is proved to be wrong, when we get to know, and, understand them better.”

“Sometimes, on seeing a person behave harshly or angrily in a certain situation, we immediately believe that such a person must be a foul natured individual , and, unfortunately our ego , too , instigates us to wish ill upon them. In some other situations, we assume and brand a person as being arrogant or haughty, if , we are ignored or sidelined by him in a social setting. Our mind frames up ‘characters’ of people we do not know well enough , and, then, leads us to behave in an obnoxiously opinionated manner with them, based on some ‘untrue facts’.”

” In the age of social media where we all project ‘impressions’ of ourselves to one another, through photos and videos, we are all the more guilty of mis-labeling others without even knowing them. This behaviour only accentuates distrust, loneliness and misunderstanding in society.”

” The story of Lord Vishnu’s ‘Vamana’ avatar signifies, how we can lose everything that we possess, by simply judging others by their appearance.
The Asur King, Bali, was unable to see anything beyond the diminutive form of Lord Vishnu’s, ‘Vamana’ avatar. Bali was convinced that ‘Vamana’, being small in size, would barely be able to cover any land in the ‘three’ paces that were to be taken by Him. Had he perhaps looked deeper, more closely; investigated into ‘who’, the ‘Vamana’ standing before him really was, he would not have considered him to be ‘small’ and insignificant. And, while it was Lord Vishnu’s foot, that physically pushed Bali into the ground, it was Bali’s ‘false impressions’ and ‘wrong judgement’ that had truly sent him back to ‘paatal lok’.

” Thus, we, too, must be wary of making such erroneous assumptions about others, by judging them all the time. It is quite possible that he who is sent by God to be our friend, is mistakenly shunned away by us as an enemy due to our poor judgment and lack of understanding him. Remember, when we develop the habit of ‘understanding’ people rather than ‘judging’ them, only then will we experience – peace and love, in all our relationships.”