I have been listening to Brahma Kumari sister Shivani quite a bit these days. It is morally uplifting and an eye opener regarding many of the issues we face in day to day life...
I have been battling few things in my life such as giving material object to my near and dear ones and getting pleasure out of it. By not giving, would make me unhappy, but at the same time, I don't try to understand if it is absolutely necessary to give them the objects that they may or may not need. Here I said need it not like it - reason: people like a lot of things which they hardly need, so there is a clear difference between the two... Now, why do I want to give something that may not be of much use to them? By going deep inside, I realized that I am giving them for my own pleasure rather than for their pleasure. Does it sound strange? Yes, it is: but the reason is not them, but me. May be I am feeling a sense of satisfaction that I could give them something, may be I am assuming that they will be happy by getting the object and anticipating that, makes me happy, so I tend to do that often. After listening to sister Shivani, I realized that these are nothing but the external stimuli to keep myself happy. So, the underlying cause is me - not anyone else. Actually, in real sense I am not doing anything for anyone, rather trying to provide some kind of stimulus to myself to keep me happy. How true is that... It is almost an eye opener. How often do we do things for fear of loosing somebody's good will or affection? I would say 99% of us do that knowingly or unknowingly. Even I have seen people continuously writing or messaging on social media to keep themselves known or desired. To impose ourselves on somebody else's thoughts. Probably that makes us feel important and we feel good about it. This I thought may be part of being human -but actually not so. Before this media explosion, people still managed a very contended life without needing so much of "happiness stimulus". Now we need it more often than not because we are having a void somewhere, that is severely corroded of self esteem, self satisfaction, well being. We constantly need approval from people near us. We constantly want to be asked for to uplift our ego. That is why we look for happiness stimulus from outside than from within ourselves. I don't have an answer as to how to avoid this, but I am certainly positive that there is a way. May be through meditation or yoga/pranayama.
I have been battling few things in my life such as giving material object to my near and dear ones and getting pleasure out of it. By not giving, would make me unhappy, but at the same time, I don't try to understand if it is absolutely necessary to give them the objects that they may or may not need. Here I said need it not like it - reason: people like a lot of things which they hardly need, so there is a clear difference between the two... Now, why do I want to give something that may not be of much use to them? By going deep inside, I realized that I am giving them for my own pleasure rather than for their pleasure. Does it sound strange? Yes, it is: but the reason is not them, but me. May be I am feeling a sense of satisfaction that I could give them something, may be I am assuming that they will be happy by getting the object and anticipating that, makes me happy, so I tend to do that often. After listening to sister Shivani, I realized that these are nothing but the external stimuli to keep myself happy. So, the underlying cause is me - not anyone else. Actually, in real sense I am not doing anything for anyone, rather trying to provide some kind of stimulus to myself to keep me happy. How true is that... It is almost an eye opener. How often do we do things for fear of loosing somebody's good will or affection? I would say 99% of us do that knowingly or unknowingly. Even I have seen people continuously writing or messaging on social media to keep themselves known or desired. To impose ourselves on somebody else's thoughts. Probably that makes us feel important and we feel good about it. This I thought may be part of being human -but actually not so. Before this media explosion, people still managed a very contended life without needing so much of "happiness stimulus". Now we need it more often than not because we are having a void somewhere, that is severely corroded of self esteem, self satisfaction, well being. We constantly need approval from people near us. We constantly want to be asked for to uplift our ego. That is why we look for happiness stimulus from outside than from within ourselves. I don't have an answer as to how to avoid this, but I am certainly positive that there is a way. May be through meditation or yoga/pranayama.
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