Burst Forty One (For Youth):
Touch and Touch Not
All of us feel many times that this world is a very bad place. It is very difficult to manage it. Quarrels and scandals are everywhere. Disease and death are common. Jealousy and deceit have found their homes in people’s hearts. Our own mind also is bad very often. Vulgar and wrong thoughts rise with great force even as we watch helplessly.
At the same time, we have to live in this very world, which is supposed to help us learn and grow. How?
Touch this world and yet touch it not, say the wise. “When one of your hands is at work, hold God with the second. Upon completion of the work, hold God with both your hands,” said Sri Ramakrishna. So one way to “touch and yet not touch” this world is to keep in mind the higher truth (called God by many sages). A second way is to understand and remind ourselves constantly that this world, which looks solid, is actually hollow. All its glitter and glamour has no pith.
If you are a lover of flowers, see their colors, smell them and enjoy. Do not take them in your hands and squeeze. They give a pungent smell if you crush them like that. Take a second example. The water in a forest pond is clean and clear. Take some and drink it without disturbing the depths. If you stir the deeper areas, much dirt will surface. This world is like that. Keep right distances and do your duty with some detachment. If you get too much involved, taking too much on your plate, you are inviting trouble.
Live lightly. Tread gently on this earth. Balance your efforts at success with an inner simplicity and humility. Do aspire to reach peaks of excellence, but remember again and again that you are just one among the billions of human beings caught in the struggle of existence.
There is a field beyond success and failure, right doing and wrongdoing. God awaits you there. Do not stick to hard judgments and conclusions. Go with the flow, accepting events as ordained by the Almighty.
Work in the field of the three gunas (attributes) – sattva, rajas and tamas. Remember that the truth is above these three.
(Inspiration drawn from the Kannada work Kagga – Verses 625 and 626)
Swami Chidananda
October 6, 2005