Teachings on Sarcasm - Desires - True Identity by Swami Visharadananda
Sarcasm is another very serious form of verbal violence that needs to be checked. To speak sarcastically means to have a hidden idea to hurt the other person through one’s seemingly simple words. To ridicule others or laugh at them when they are in trouble is also a verbal violence.
Sarcasm is another very serious form of verbal violence that needs to be checked. To speak sarcastically means to have a hidden idea to hurt the other person through one’s seemingly simple words. To ridicule others or laugh at them when they are in trouble is also a verbal violence.
Says one Sanskrit proverb: If out of carelessness, someone slips on the way, evil-minded people laugh at him. The noble minded, however, try to console and help him out.
What is there to laugh about a person who slips and falls? He is already hurt, and instead of giving him a helping hand, if one laughs at him, one does violence to him. Laughing in itself is a good thing, but when one laughs at others’ misfortune it is indeed cruel.
The entire Mahabharata war took place because Draupadi laughed at Duryodhana at the wrong time and that pierced his heart like a spear. Then he said, ‘I will take revenge forit.’ What all she had to face as a consequence of her laughter!
Thought: Why do we have desires? – Swami Visharadananda
Why do we have desires? Because we tend to identify ourselves with our body-mind ego.
We forget our divine nature, our atman-nature which is ever fulfilled and free from all worldly needs.
We forget that whatever we want, we already have that.
Do we want to be a significant person? The fact is that we are already the most significant being in the world. This whole world exists because of this inner core of our being. Drawing strength from it, the sun and the moon exist. But we do not see the significant nature of our Self because we have identified ourselves with our body-mind adjuncts (upadhi).
It is this wrong self-identity which is the cause of our problems and sufferings.
Swami Visharadananda
(Source: Excerpt from an article titled Spiritual Values of Gita published in the January 2009 edition of The Vedanta Kesari)
How to discover one’s true identity? – Swami Visharadananda
How does one discover one’s true identity? Through the purification of our mind.
The Atman is ever pure; it needs no purification. It is only the mind that has to be purified and not Atman.
When we say we are impure, it is not about the Atman but the mind which has to be made pure.
Impurity of mind originates in misunderstanding our real nature. This misunderstanding has to be corrected.
It is not that we have to become Atman; we are already that. What we need is to remove the false covering on our true being.
Swami Visharadananda
(Source: Human Values by Swami Visharadananda. Page 102)