On Aggression and Compassion

You wish you were just a simplistic fellow, doing and discharging your duties and fulfilling your desires solely on the basis of the wishes of your selfish heart, without giving a damn about anybody else's concerns and considerations. You would sleep better and have more money in the bank. But somehow you keep hearing the persistent calls of your conscience and gravitate towards reading about philosophy and religion and serious fiction late at night and early in the morning till recently you began getting the vibrations of the presence of grace and of the higher truths of understanding and compassion to the point you realized the limitations of aggression and the clamorings of the ego. The idea of violence and vengeance no longer holds much attraction. You begin crawling and creeping and getting on the path of peace and liberation. As a consequence, you see the pettiness of the notion of getting even. You begin to recognize the efforts of those who have to resort to sophistry, low blows, lies, and denial when they are in the midst of an argument or the cheap, despicable, contemptible shots of their friends and allies who rush to their aid, succor, and rescue when they are floundering around and are on the verge of losing an argument, as merely pitiful, desperate actions of little, petty, small men and women and you must not get angry or self-righteous. Instead, you must be glad you are not like them. Stay on the higher ground. Those who preach and shout loudly the slogan that winning is not everything are the ones who fear losing the most. Humans tend to appear more virtuous than they actually are. Noble-minded men are usual the quiet ones who state their case calmly and with dignity. Remember, the words we use very often tell the world what and who we are and whether we are close to enlightenment or not. Some men were born as children and slowly and finally became adults. Most men stay as children till the day they die. By self-righteously denouncing others as immature, very often those denouncers are immature themselves. Mature men use words with care and understanding and compassion; they don't use words to denigrate and denounce others. They state their case and views quietly and they move on. They don't care if they win an argument or have changed the mind and the heart of their opponents. They are not in this world to change people. Change must come from within, from recognizing that a virtuous life is a life devoted to truth and compassion.
Amen!

Wissai
August 28, 2010.