The Paradoxical Nature Of Human Behavior.

 

 



In the month of November,2018 I had an opportunity to travel to Haridwar a spiritual place in Uttarakhand state of India. The tour gave me a paradoxical experience of what I heard before traveling and what I experienced after being at that place. The experience was so paradoxical that, the feeling I gained, of touring the same place with friends in the evening of arrival was different than touring the same place the very next day in the morning alone.

Thus, writing was inspired by the comprehensive feelings and opinion I had while I was spending time alone on the river bank of Ganga in Haridwar, self-introspecting the paradoxical experiences. The idea behind writing this blog is to ask my readers that we all are ambassadors who represent a Family, Religion, Nation, and most importantly “Human” a “social” animal who have been gifted with incomparable brain compared to other animal species, to think before the words they speak and deeds they do.

Love means the art of being with others. Meditation means the art of being with yourself. Both are two aspects of the same coin. A person who does not know how to be with himself cannot truly relate with others; his relationship will be graceless. And vice versa, the person who is not capable of being with others, of relating, will find it very difficult to relate with himself, because the art relating is the same. Both these arts have to be learned together, simultaneously; they are inseparable. Be with people, not unconsciously; but very consciously. Respect, love, worship each person considering each person is a hidden face of God.

Man cannot live alone. He must satisfy certain natural basic needs in order to survive. He has to enter into relationships with his fellowmen for living a life. No man can break the shackles of mutual dependence. So, in run up to be socially active person, he does some publicity stunts which may be hurting another human being. He/she would stand with the majority voice against the minority, even though the credibility of majority’s stand is questionable. But the paradoxical nature of human being is that- He/she likes to be loved and not be hurt the way he/she does to others. He/she will become defensive, that the opposite person is wrong but not him/her. The reality is that we all are being judged minute by minute by the society we live and when time passes by we get back the same words we have spoken and the deeds we have done. Now you may call it karma but in simple logic we need to understand that human behavior is paradoxical in nature.

So be very careful, very attentive. Remember what you are saying, remember what you are doing. Small things destroy relationships and small things make relationships so beautiful. Relationship with others has to become a mirror. What is happening to the other? Are you creating hell for the others? Then withdraw. Change your ways. Let every person feel that meeting with you is a gift; just being with you, something starts flowing, growing.

And when you are alone then sit utterly silent, absolutely in silence and watch yourself. Watch your breathing, watch your thoughts, watch your memories, watch yourself in your totality without interfering. And slowly – watching one’s breathing, one’s thoughts, one’s memories – slowly great awareness explodes. One becomes full of light within. That is the art of meditation.

Remember both, just as the bird has two wings, let love (being with others) and meditation (being with yourself) be your two wings. Create a synchronicity between them, so they are not in any way in conflict with each other but nursing each other, nurturing each other, helping each other. Because we are ambassadors who represent a Family, Religion, Nation, and most importantly “Human” a “social” animal who have been gifted with incomparable brain compared to other animal species, to think before the words they speak and deeds they do.  

 

-Francis Lazar.