On the Way from Svādhyāya to Ahimsa—Part 1: Who is the stupid here?

[This post is an afterthought of the Svādhyāya exercise in the YTT class.]

Svādhyāya is the forth niyama and means one’s own reading or self-study.

Listening to the participants saying “I’m a good…”, “I’m a bad…”, “I’m good at…”, “I’m bad at…”, or even “I’m good only for…, I’m stupid for anything else.” We are giving ourselves a lot of labels. We are giving other people a lot of labels. Me too…

I sometimes get really upset how stupid people think and act—there is so much stupidity in this world that it’s beyond a joke. I found for myself a formula to overcome the emotions in such situations: Imagine people 2000 years ago. Our school kids know more than any of those people. The moral and societal standards of that time where much more primitive compared to our standards nowadays. And then imagine Jesus, somebody so much more brilliant than anybody of us living in our time. How hard it must have been for him to watch and live with those people! So, breathe in, breathe out… Your fate is not that terrible at all…

Now, imagine the people living 2000 years after us looking back at our times. I’m sure they will think the same: how horribly primitive we are. Even the best of us, the smartest of us, the most brilliant of us are just a shadow of the people to come, their skills, qualities, and moral standards (under the assumption that we don’t destroy the planet before they get the chance to come).

So, the next time you get upset about others or yourself doing stupid things, just breathe in and breathe out. Nobody is stupid here. Really. Nobody is good or bad either. Really. Good and bad are qualities relative to our standards and expectations. Relative to the standards and expectations of our tribe. They are changing with the times—from more primitive to less primitive.

We all are on our own journey from more stupid to less stupid, from less brilliant to more brilliant. Every day one step further from the lower qualities and one step closer to the higher qualities… Breathe in… Breathe out… At the end of the journey is Nirvana…