To Feel Lucky Observe the Misfortunes Around

 

Mahatma Gandhi says poverty is the worst form of violence.

James Baldwin: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

Look around and you will see fire-pitted souls hammered on the anvil of poverty. See the sparks flying and draw your lessons. It fills you up with gratitude. You don’t feel like the pitiable most sufferer carrying the burden of this whole universe on your head.

Take some time out and observe those who daily put their physical selves in the furnace to earn survival morsels—laborers, peasants, daily wage earners, artisans, roadside vendors, hawkers, etc. Their whole body sheds sweaty tears day in and day out. So the salty sea of miseries pours out through the thick walls of their rough skin. It rarely finds an outlet through eyes! Why? Because these are glassy hard balls—the fiery pits where dreams, tears, hopes and dignity get burnt incessantly!

Plain hunger, of body and mind, in the long term, eats away emotions, which heart has retained so far as a shadowy solace to bear up with life defined by deprivations of all types imaginable. With emotions vaporizing off, leaving the pond dry, even the muddied past, having some motley stale water in heart’s pond, sounds a plain hypocrisy and then even the last traces of moisture hidden in bottom sands melts away like mud-banks get washed away under the fury of a spiteful flooded river. Robbed of the littlest treasures in their heart, they then face the naked truth. They are still the same person in public, but they are even robbed of that justification, that inner solace, which always came handy to support their fragile conscience. They are then plundered of even the rewards their conscience may provide. And then they survive almost mechanically. Well, that’s poverty!

Hunger always staring in the face, most of the common realities of life appear unachievable, wildest dreams. Every walk turns a struggle to survive. Every smile just a shadow of pain. Life simply comes to mean a wish to earn an extra penny in whatever you do, think, say or plan. That sums up the life. There is no respite. Hunger becomes your shadow, always with you, your inseparable companion. After a time you become used to it, and later get addicted to it. The starving shadow becomes the self. You love it more than even the real self. The personality becomes a hard-knotted dead wood. A dark hole that sucks its own light. A vacuum that sucks in air. A life that eats itself to appear more like death. An emptiness that chucks away any space needed for a normal self.

Yea, poverty turns one almost sub-human, a different species altogether among the homo-sapiens. Is one life-time sufficient to escape its clutches? You become a brute like the bull snorting, pulling the cart, staring at the road, tearing the hooves, taking one painful, tired step after the other. You cannot look up and see this wide, spacious world brimming with countless beauties. You lose the faculty of your finer senses because they are of no use. Your vision is limited to the grains in the sands around your feet that you have to pick up and eat to survive another day. There was no past, just like there is no present, and exactly like there will be no future. Well, where to go and what to do?

To make it worse, it makes one feel terribly lonely, which is the ultimate poverty. Your compassionate self gets buried under the day-to-day survival war. You then survive on the periphery without hope, without redemption. You lose respect for your own self. It’s the biggest loss. You just end up counting your days like a miserable, indifferent street dog. Numerous petty humiliations dictate the course of your life.

The mere fact that you are reading these lines is a proof that you are far better placed than the people you just read about. Kiss your luck. It makes you wealthy. Don't compare your riches to the billionaires, compare it to these dusted destinies. You will feel gratitude. And gratitude is a fine fertilizer for getting a feeling of love for your situation and placement in life.

The sea of misery over there should at least make you aware of your luck and empathize with the fate of the lesser lucked ones. This awareness itself makes you let go off so many illusions, without any reasoning.

Osho says, suppose you have been holding a snake, taking it to be a rope. And the moment you find out, become aware, that it's a snake, your instincts will simply find you dropping it suddenly. That's what happens to most of the disillusions of life. You hold them as long as you are unaware. The moment awareness strikes, you just drop them all of a sudden. A tiny lamp and the darkness gone.

So don't feign ignorance to hide apathy. At least see the sea of misery. It will make you feel how lucky you are. It will fill up your soul with gratitude for your situations, your relationships, for your luck by default for being born in better situations then countless unfortunates. The lamp of this awareness dispels the dark and throws light on your loving persona. Have your sighs and tears for the lesser lucked ones. If not a social revolutionary, you will at least become a loving, kind and considerate person.