Realities of Life
By Karmayogi
Life Response is a concept created
based on the Realities of Life. Man grows wise learning of those realities.
Their laws are inexorable. No one can overcome them. The Gods can modify their
malignancy, but cannot cancel them. The theory of karma is based on it. Life is
not final. Mind is greater than life. So, they said even karma can be overcome
by mental illumination.
The progress of the West is mainly due to their reliance on Mind, disregarding
the subtle realities of life. When Man subjects himself to life, he becomes
superstitious. Relying on the Mind, superstition recedes and rationality precedes.
Spirit is greater than Mind. The evolving Spirit – the Psychic Being – is still
greater. The Rishi is not bound by karma, as he often reaches the Spirit in his
dhyana. The evolving Spirit can not only cancel karma, but when it comes to
stay transforms misfortune into good fortune, disease into health, stupidity
into intelligence, even genius.
Realities of life are of two kinds. One is positive and the other negative. In
the book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo lists thirty negative traits to be rejected.
For each negative characteristic there is a corresponding positive
characteristic. Each one of them is exclusive in its significance. Of the
positive traits one thing stands out. It is generosity. The Mother defines
meanness as the attitude of asking another to do what we cannot. We can
construct a definition of generosity based on it. To give another man, without
his asking, what he cannot accomplish by his best efforts can be defined as
generosity. Even that generosity when it is tinged with ego is impermissible or
at least will be a lever for him to hurt you. The opposite of generosity is
meanness.
We can also say that jealousy is another opposite. An analysis of life may lead
many to the conclusion that jealousy is the only reality of life. A proverb
says one can escape a stone that hits, but not the LOOK of jealousy. I have
noticed with curiosity and with much amusement a man who owned four cars being
jealous of a neighbour who received a visitor in a car. For a long time, it
intrigued me until I witnessed an event where the efforts of a
multi-millionaire to prevent another person successfully seeking an alliance of
a millionaire. What seems to be true is that, more than one's own
progress, to prevent the least little progress of anyone around is of
psychological importance. From then onwards I see that as the one ultimate
reality of Life.