I AM THE FIRST VICTIM OF MY ANGER... I AM THE FIRST VICTIM OF MY HATRED






















“I am the first victim of my anger…
I am the first victim of my hatred.”

-          S.N. Goenka

I have sent scores of New-year messages… and I have received hundreds of them: “Wish you a Happy, Peaceful, Prosperous and Blessed New-year.”

Deep down in my heart, I am aware, that those are just words… hollow, meaningless words. All of us are ‘pleasers’ and we do what we do just mechanically… just to be ‘like everyone else’…

And, there we are, here in the New Year, now!

Have things changed for us?

How can they? How can outside things change unless things inside us do? 

As the Zen saying goes, “Wherever we go, we carry ourselves!”

If we have carried all the poison – our anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, guilt, worry, arrogance and the rest of mind’s illnesses -  from 2017 into this newly-born 2018, we can’t expect to be any better… Happiness, Peace, Prosperity and Blessed state are all, therefore, far away dreams… rather, illusions!


I am at home today. A bandh has been called out in Maharashtra... And, for what?

Unless we become peaceful individuals, unless we see, value, respect and celebrate the goodness of our fellow beings and their religions, the hope of a peaceful world around us will remain only a pipe dream…

They are burning everything… they are lynching people… there outside! But, before they got on to the streets, they have already burnt themselves inside… and, they have already lynched their souls…

On a deserted day like today, when the streets were burning during the Bombay Riots, in Jan1993, I was moved to pen these lines:

“The force that binds is religion,
The force that loves is religion…
The force that forgives is religion…
The force that divides, hates and destroys
can never, never, never be religion.”


Exactly after twenty-five years, in another Jan, the above lines came back to haunt me… yes,  as , like millions around me, I was left wondering: “Why all this in the name of God, caste and religion?”

So, the first thing that my heart happened to see and absorb, early this morning, was a simple yet profound speech of S.N. Goenka (the man behind the famous ‘Vipasana’ meditation) at the UN World Peace Summit. Nitin Tayade, a friend of mine, had shared it on his Timeline. It contains the essence of peace and religion. 






It’s ironic, here, that we have to find the answers in our turbulent times in Lord Buddha’s wisdom… Buddha would never approve of what is being done in His name… just as Ram, Krishna, Muhammad or Jesus!

I think, sometimes, turmoil, is needed to churn out the essence of peace and good… I call it the ‘Samudra Manthan’. It was needed for Prince Siddhartha to become the Buddha… It was needed for Emperor Asoka, by way of a Kalinga battle-field, to become a Noble Ruler… And, yes, the same turmoil, within us, alone, is the path through which we all can reach the ‘Kingdom of God’…

When the fire within us is doused, the fire outside will be!


GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Malabika Ganguly

Video: VipasanaOrg




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