All World
Gayatri Pariwar

    The aspiring minds may want to know how to create tender emotions in life, how to feel emotional contentment?  The answer is very simple.  The flow of tender emotions increases by expression, but dries up by suppression.



Meaning: As the carpenter mends the sitting arena of the chariot, so do I refine my intellect with my (pure) heart.  Have I, indeed, consumed soma?

Tender emotions are the pivot of jivana sadhana.  All the virtues in life flow from and revolve around them.  It is emotions that give the sense of contentment in life.  Whatever new heights of development and progress are scaled in disregard of emotions will leave a nagging feeling of emptiness and vacuity.  All the acquisitions of wealth, power, respect and honour fail to give inner satisfaction; the interior always feels thirsty for something else.  The lack of emotional warmth makes one feel penurious in the midst of opulence.  This is intensely felt by those who have seen their sentiments being crushed to pieces, whose trusts have been betrayed in life, who have longed for some warmth and got none, and who have suffered in silence the agony of repeated emotional blows.  Their vacant eyes and throbbing hearts are pointers to the fact that emotional pains dissolve like a slow poison in life.  From this poisonous admixture spring innumerable mental disorders.  The origin of all psychological ailments lies in hidden, crushed, betrayed and tormented emotions.

On the other hand, if there is a proper sprouting of emotions in life and they are nurtured with care and love, miraculous changes are inevitable.  Such persons become masters of innumerable virtues and the fragrance of their personalities permeates the whole surrounding.  Not only they themselves feel contented but even those in their contact and vicinity find their lives becoming meaningful and joyous.  This is so because it is the golden truth of life that where the magnetic force of emotional sensitivity is very intense, there is a continual and proportionate generation of virtues.  Contrariwise, wherever insensitivity grows, there is a matching upsurge of vices and evil tendencies all around.

The aspiring minds may want to know how to create tender emotions in life, how to feel emotional contentment?  The answer is very simple.  The flow of tender emotions increases by expression, but dries up by suppressing.  It is a type of wealth which the more you spread around, the richer you become, but a niggardly attitude leaves you a destitute.  Hence the seekers of emotional fulfillment are advised that rather than trying to get the warmth of someone else's emotions, they give out their own warm emotions to the needy and the sufferers.  The result of this pious and selfless action will be, in all circumstances, highly satisfying.

The words of a holy seer in the spiritual life of India, Swami Ramtirtha, are very enlightening in this context.  Those days he was in America.  His personality, a confluence of tapa, wisdom and love, had acquired a divine magnetism.  Countless number of people rushed to him in distress and returned with a smile.  One day a woman came to him, she was a picture of gloom and despondence.  Someone had sent her to Swami Ramtirtha.  Come she had somehow, but was unable to speak anything.  Deep depression had made her tongue-tied.  For a long moment she remained sitting statue-like, saying nothing.  Swami Ramtirtha, too, said nothing to her, only kept gazing at her with compassion in his eyes.  This silent shower of compassion and empathy melted the ice of accumulated pain, and it began to pour out of her eyes.  She kept weeping and weeping and Ramtirtha kept looking at her with affection.  The panacea of love and understanding gradually enabled her to regain her voice.  With tears in her eyes and throat, she narrated her story.  Its gist was that after sacrificing everything – money, body, mind, life, she had been betrayed and had got only dejection in return.

After patiently listening to her, Ramtirtha spoke somberly: "Sister, everyone in this world behaves according to the level of his capability.  One's physical, mental, intellectual and emotional capacities bound and circumscribe him and limit his conduct to the available measure.  Those whose emotions are soiled in selfishness and venality are only worthy of forgiveness.  They should be forgiven with a loving heart.  Very helpless are these poor souls".  "Is it impossible, in that case, to get true love in life"? The woman asked. "No, it is not so, "Swami Ramtirtha replied, "true love comes, but only to those who know how to love truly".  "My love was also true", the visitor remonstrated. "No sister, your love had expectation.  Also, there was a poisonous element of lust dissolved in it, whereas true love appears only in the form of selfless service, compassion and reverential faith.”

The woman realized the essence of Ramtirtha's words.  She now knew that love is only given; it does not demand anything.  Love is the name of unconditional giving.  It is the name of emotions that are free of lust, longing and egoity.   Having assimilated this wisdom, she joined a hospital as a nurse.  Her emotions found an outlet in selfless service.  When, after a long time, she met Swami Ramtirtha again, she was a transformed person.  Her personality radiated a unique glow, the glow of contentment.  At the same time, she was getting the goodwill of many without asking.  The taste of pure love had blessed and satiated her.  Really, only they who simply give, and not demand, know the essence of tender emotions.  Under the soothing comfort of this effusion grow various qualities of the personality, among which is included enhancement of intellectual capability too.