Oneness

“If I have judged myself to have risen by the fall of others, then I have fallen too.” – Dr. Sriram Devanathan (Principal of Engineering & Computing at Amrita University, Bengaluru)

This is one of the most simple, yet profound statements that I have processed thus far in my life. Sriram Ji, my mentor, friend, and someone I am blessed to consider my brother said these words a few months ago, and it has sprung up in my head at least once every day ever since.

At first, I equated this to some sort of epicaricacy (pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune). But it doesn’t need to be that; it is not the soap opera kind of schadenfreude we are talking about here. Nor is this the deliberate manipulation that people do to suppress or fail others. This is about the subtle ways through which we make ourselves feel good in comparison to other people. This is not orchestrated; it just automatically and naturally (& constantly) surfaces during so many circumstances in our lives, in varying degrees.

As Sriram ji said, even the realization of knowledge of something that I have and some others may not have is a subconscious attempt to raise myself, and that is the play of the ego. He said the minute we judge others and take delight in being better than them, then we have fallen.

It is very interesting to keep this thought alive in our minds and try to catch ourselves feeling “risen” at the “fall” of others, and there may be so many such moments: when we teach, when we correct, when we make choices, when we learn something new, when we achieve something, when we break a habit, when we judge, when we better ourselves, when we work out our body &/or mind, when we make arguments, when we love, etc. The list is endless, but it is the constant awareness of these thoughts that is the key. This in itself is a step in the right direction.

-Vineetha Govindasamy, CEO, Aurobindo Vidhyalaya.