Equality beyond equality
So thank you for coming and for sharing your thoughts and I'll speak briefly on the topic of equality beyond equality equality beyond equality and I'll speak this in terms of an acronym ICE so Henry David Thoreau said that one hacking at the root of evil is more effective than a thousand hackings at the shoots of evil break the branches of a tree all of them will grow again if the tree is unwanted to uproot it so similarly we see so much hate in the world today whether it be in the name of race or nationality or caste or religion or whatever other reason and what is the cause of this so generally why do we hate someone there can be many specific causes you did like this, you did like that you did like that but common to all this is that we see that person as different from us so the three points are going to speak identity, commonality and equality ICE so if you want to see equality we can see we can have equality among others only when we see the commonality of them with us and to see the commonality between people we need to go to the fundamental identity without that we may want to have a sense of equality but it will not last at one level there is a increasing movement towards egalitarianism in the world today where we want to have equality among the genders equality among the races, equality among countries and equal rights enshrined in the constitution of America so at one level deep within us we feel that everybody should be considered equal nobody should be discriminated against at the same time there is a part within all of us also which tends to see differences this person is like this, this person is like that that person is like that so if we look with a hard eyed realism we will see that there are differences among us now there is this feeling that there should be equality but there is also this person has different interest from me, this person has different interest from me and that creates separatism so in both cases when we are trying to see equality or when we are seeing dissimilarity, what is it that is we are actually seeing, on what basis are we either seeing equality or dissimilarity so usually we look at each other and we look at the nationality, at the gender various designations all of which relate to their physical shell the Bhagavad Gita is an ancient book of yoga spoken thousands of years ago and there the fundamental insight that is told is that beyond the physical shell that we all have there is a spiritual core that is essentially similar in all living things and the physical shell that we have the body that is compared to a dress now here sometimes we have Halloween competitions at that time different people may dress in different ways and some dresses may be humorous, some dresses may be scary some dresses may be like aliens and when you have all these different dresses now a part of the fun is enjoying what kind of dress who is wearing but another part of the fun is also trying to identify who is it that is wearing this dress so we look at the dress and we appreciate whatever the dress is but we also look beyond the dress to see who is the real person who is the person who is wearing this dress so similarly if we want to have this feeling of equality to have a solid foundation then at the physical level we will see dissimilarity and this dissimilarity will lead the feeling that my interests are different from their interests and they will threaten my interests so when whenever anybody actually speaks something which is hateful to others that is usually because they have some insecurity within and they are feeding on the insecurity in others so all of us there is an insecurity of fear what will happen to us in the future what if we are threatened what if our interests are jeopardized and that fear needs to be addressed but instead of being addressed if that fear is exploited then there are people who can evoke hatred and when the survival instinct of some people gets activated then at that time people can go to extremes to do what they think is necessary they may do atrocious things but they think that's what I need to do because my very existence is at stake so when I talk about seeing the spiritual self within if you want equality we need to see the commonality and the commonality we can see when we see that actually everyone at their core is spiritual their heart longs for peace, longs for joy, longs for love they may express it in many different ways but this capacity to see the commonality is something without which we cannot sustain equality and to see the commonality we have to go down to the level of the identity so now when we talk about our being at our core being spiritual spiritual is not just a feeling oh I went there I felt very spiritual, it is a feeling but it is also a level of reality it is a level of reality that we all can experience by following the appropriate process when I talk about the spiritual vision what exactly does it lead to so as I said if in a Halloween costume somebody is looking like an enemy somebody is looking like a gangster who is about to attack we think I have to defend and sometimes something played as a game might become in dead earnest and as say somebody is a cop and somebody is a gangster and they are fighting and suddenly they see beyond the costume, hey you are my friend hey what is this then both of them why are we fighting so actually now what if that one of them recognizes the other person but the other does not so the two of them are fighting and the other person is attacking and the first person, hey you are my friend but the other person has not got that so the other person will still continue to be on the aggressive now the person was recognized oh this is my friend now that person has to do what is required to defend oneself from the attack this person's motive changes completely there is no intention to counter attack or to hurt the intention is to try to communicate to clarify, to connect so that that person also recognizes so for all of us we need to get this inside ourselves so sometimes we feel that the world is so big there are so many bad forces in the world and we are just tiny little beings one small individual in one place how much of a difference can we make yes we are small but we are not insignificant everyone of us is in our own way significant suppose we are living in a place and suddenly the power goes off it happened I believe, the hurricane hit here some time ago so we are at one moment in light and suddenly everything is dark now when everything is dark at one moment when the darkness comes we may exasperated, we may curse we may rant, we may moan but although none of us have the power immediately to get the power back but we all can turn on our own lights we can turn on our lamp, we can turn on our flashlight in our phone, we can turn on a small candle and that does not replace the darkness but that creates light around us and the light around us can inspire somebody else, I also have a phone let me turn it on and if 100 people turn on their lights there is a significant light and not only the significant light, it's actually a beautiful sight it's a beautiful sight, in India today we celebrate the festival of Diwali Diwali is a festival it's called the festival of lights and in the nights people outside their houses they put small, small, small lamps there are hundreds of lamps along the roads in the roofs of the houses and although it's dark, those lights stand out and those lights they light the way similarly all of us we have the opportunity to light our own small lights we can light our own hearts our own heads with spiritual wisdom and I said, I talked about I-C-E, so the more we understand our identity to be spiritual the more we can become a part of the solution Gandhi said that be the change that you want to see in the world and we heard about how Nelson Mandela exemplified that in extremely difficult situations for him when he was in the prison his light was practically lighting only the prison that small cell but from there by some higher arrangement the light spread and he got the power to light a whole country and indeed the whole world with his example so there is this sense of smallness or helplessness when we see the darkness all around us but each of us can light our own small candle our own flashlight and that begins with cultivating spiritual knowledge within ourselves Einstein has famously said that problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them so when there is hate when A is hating B and B is hating A at that time the solution is yes if there is aggression if there is violence there has to be defensive protective measures that's required at a practical level but beyond the practical level we need an elevation of consciousness and that elevation of consciousness is what everyone of us can do so I conclude with one metaphor that when the body is growing naturally there is growth but it is harmonious growth the hands the legs, the head, the belly all the parts grow naturally when there is cancer then also there is growth but that growth is a disharmonious growth and that growth is not only disharmonious it is destructive growth so one small set of cells in the body starts growing, growing, growing, growing so much that they destroy the remaining body so when we are identifying ourselves with our physical shells when we are what can be called as material consciousness and I see my interests as separate from your interests, I see my your growth as threatening my growth and this, so when we are in material consciousness there is the scarcity mentality the scarcity mentality is the idea that there is only so much pie and if you get more I get less and therefore when I want to get it I have to make sure that you don't get it so we live in a world of competition but competition doesn't have to be destructive I can rise and you can also rise and if we have a spiritual understanding of life we understand that all of us have our roles to play over here all of us have our contributions to make and if we have a materialistic conception I am here and I have to grab as much as I can, enjoy as much as I can possess and parade as much as I can, then that conception fuels a growth that is cancerous so the growth coming from a materialistic conception is based on for me to enjoy I have to take something from you, you cannot get it so this conception is what leads to insecurity that's what leads to violence and it doesn't have to be a cancerous growth so when we work at the level of identity understanding that there is a higher order to the world when we eat food it is not that the body's parts are competing and the food goes to the stomach there is a system by which the food goes to all the parts of the body it is not that the left hand has to take the food which is going to the right hand or the head has to take the food that is going to the legs energy is distributed so there is a higher plan in the world and this we can perceive when we have a spiritual understanding so with a spiritual understanding we don't operate from the paradigm of scarcity mentality we operate from the paradigm of the abundance mentality there is enough for everyone it does not mean that everyone of us will get everything that we desire but there is enough for our growth there is enough for our satisfaction and there is enough for us for everyone of us to contribute in our own way so when we understand that there is a higher order to life there is a higher plan then we focus on doing our part as we keep doing our part there is we are souls, the soul is basically a spark of consciousness and there is infinite consciousness and there is a loving relationship between the two and that loving relationship becomes a vortex of awe for all other loving relationships that is the pivot around which all relationships function so Srila Prabhupada is the person who established the movement of which Krishna house here is a bard and he famously wrote a letter to the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and he said India was at that time considered to be a poor country and he said poverty is poverty of knowledge knowledge of who we are, what we are meant to do and he said that there is no use of crying for world peace unless there is awakening of divine consciousness in the individual we cannot have world peace if everybody is having the scarcity mentality the UNESCO charter says that just as war begins in the minds of people peace too has to begin in the minds of people and how will peace begin it's when we see that we there is a plan for our life we have a purpose as long as we pursue our purpose there is enough in the world for us so the spiritual understanding of life when we shift our identity to the spiritual understanding then we see the commonality I am a part of the infinite others are also part of the infinite some of them may be acting hatefully and I may need to take appropriate defensive measures but I don't act on a same hateful platform, I work to make my contribution and when we have this understanding that we can have equality beyond equality equality beyond equality means we can look for equality at the physical or the bodily level we say all of us belong to the same one human family yes that is equality but then we will see oh there are human beings different human beings are different this country is attacking that country, my interests are different from their interests so at the physical level we cannot have equality that is sustainable so we want equality at the physical level but to have it at a sustainable way we need to see the equality at the spiritual level so by taking our consciousness to the spiritual level then we can ourselves become a part of the solution we in our social circles may be small circles we can become the agents of change instead of seeing the dissimilarity with others we can see the commonality and thus we can foster equality so everyone of us has the potential to make a positive difference and the more we connect ourselves with our spiritual core, the more we connect ourselves with the whole whose part we are the more we get the power to make more and more significant changes more and more significant contributions I will conclude with an anecdote once a person went to a temple and he told god there are so many problems in this world now why don't you send someone to solve these problems he is ranting suddenly he heard some voice I have sent someone, I have already sent someone who is speaking, he looked around, there is no one around he thought maybe I imagined, he continued his rant, god why don't you send someone to solve the problems I have already sent someone who is speaking this is god speaking became a little humble whom have you sent you so all of us we may be small, we may be big but all of us have the potential to be a part of the solution I will quickly summarize what I spoke I spoke on the theme of equality, commonality and identity so how do we actually foster equality among people at the physical level we may try for it but we will see inevitably dissimilarity and these diverse interests will create conflicts it is based on fear and insecurity there is so much and if others take it I won't get it so the identity level we understand the bhagavad gita says that we are souls, the body that we have is like a dress, so like in a halloween competition different people may be wearing different dresses and we appreciate the dresses they are wearing but we see also who is the person, so if it is a friends party once we identify the friend then whatever the costumes and the role in the hostility that may be there because of the costumes that dissipates so we look beyond the dress to the spiritual self and when we look this way all our actions stem from our conceptions of our self so instead of shooting, countering the actions it is like cutting down the branches of a tree changing the self conception is like attacking the root of evil, that is what leads to sustainable transformation and that connection I gave the example of how at the material level of consciousness there is a scarcity mentality, so the growth is cancerous, I feel my growth requires the destruction of others but when we have a spiritual consciousness there is abundance mentality, we understand that there is a higher plan and there is a place and a purpose and a contribution for every one of us to make so then we can have just as the body there is harmonious growth, similarly with the spiritual conception that I myself am a spark and I am essentially similar to everyone and there is enough for every one of us to contribute, then we can see the commonality and have an equality at a spiritual level, when there is darkness we can't replace the power but we can turn on our own lights similarly every one of us can be agents of change in our own small circles and thereby contribute to making a better world Thank you very much Does anyone have any questions or comments? What's my contribution? Okay So what's your contribution? Each one of us has been given a certain set of talents, certain set of abilities a part of the adventure of life is discovering how we can make our best contribution suppose we are all suppose we have a inheritance that we have got from someone now sometimes the inheritance may be very obvious that okay you have got this house you have got this bank balance but sometimes some inheritance may be hidden you are given a house but in that house there is a treasure that is hidden somewhere in the backyard you have to dig the treasure and find out so all of us we have an inheritance in the sense that when we are born not just our body, we are born with a particular set of talents, particular set of interests, now some of our talents some of our contributions we know what talents I have and what I can do with it some of our talents are like buried treasures we don't know about them so the best way we can contribute is by self understanding first, we understand what are the gifts that I have so if we cultivate spiritual knowledge then not only we understand who we are but we also understand what we have and what we can do in the world so your contribution is something which you have to discover but discover not in the sense of inventing something but finding out what it is that you have been endowed with and how best you can contribute so when we cultivate spiritual knowledge, especially when we practice yoga, now we will be having some at the end, we will be having some yoga meditation, musical meditation so this is the way we light our inner world and then by that we understand our emotions, our interests our talents better and thus we are able to decide best how we can contribute any other questions? so thank you very much for your participation great thank you for speaking to us.