Dropping comparisons
November 2015
By Megha Bajaj
Working with children helped Megha Bajaj drop comparisons and inch closer to feeling peaceful and liberated
I work extensively with children. Their world fascinates me. I realise constantly that just as there is much that we can teach them – there are some integral truths of life that they can teach us. Untouched and unADULTerated, they see things as it is – with no judgments or perceptions. They call the sun a sun without knowing it’s a massive ball of gases. The moon is a moon and the necessity to know its fickle nature is not needed. Mother is mother. They do not know that she is also many more things. With each encounter with the little ones, I feel it is I who becomes a tad wiser.
At what point does a child become an adult? When does that shift happen? To me it appears that a child loses a large part of his oneness with all that is, when he starts comparing for the very first time. The minute he starts seeing himself as better or worse, the minute comparisons start taking place, when splits happen, everything begins to change.
How many of us struggle with that one thing? Whether it is feeling superior or feeling inferior you can never be at peace. And if you are not at peace, you are not connected to the Source. Because, to me, the very definition of God is absolute, inexplicable one-ness.
As I thought more – I realised why it is so energising to work with children. Since they feel the one-ness, the complete-ness, they rub that off onto you. And this is the reason, sometimes, you feel so uncomfortable in a group of adults. Most people feel incomplete, feel better or worse, and are in a state of mental comparison that rubs onto you. If it’s a good day – it is a day when your ego was satiated and you felt good about who you are. If it is a bad day – it is a day when you somehow ended up feeling not good enough. In this crazy dance between feeling good, feeling bad, feeling higher than, feeling lower than, we move further and further away from centredness.
I love the story that my guru often repeats. A crow had a piece of meat in his beak and was flying in the sky. All the other crows followed him. They made noise, they tried to attack, they tried to entice him, they crowded him. The crow felt good, the crow felt bad, depending on how other crows around treated him. And then finally, exhausted and suffocated, he realised that it was not him, but the piece of meat the other crows were after. He dropped it and all the other crows swooped down. Suddenly he was all alone – just him and the sky. The crow smiled to himself and said, “In dropping the piece of meat, the entire sky has become mine!”
Whether it is feeling superior or feeling inferior, you can never be at peace. And if you are not at peace, you are not connected to the Source
The piece of meat is nothing but ego and the sky is nothing but liberation. Bit by bit I am attempting to ease my judgmental mind, and my conflicting emotions. I am learning to see things for what they are – without comparisons. A movie, a book, a friend, a relationship, myself, God. As is. With no judgements of being better or worse. And the peace that I have been feeling is unprecedented. Skies, open skies, here I come…
 |
About the author :
Megha is, above all, a seeker. These days she is attempting to find herself in the role of a teacher through the online writing course designed by her. You can know more about her on www.wonderofwords.org