From Envy to Elevation

From Envy to Elevation

Envy is something that possesses the power to gnaw away at a person's mind completely.

If we truly know ourselves, if we understand the boundaries of our own abilities, there would be no reason to envy others.

In a heart filled with genuine, honest, and righteous self-confidence, there is no room for envy.

Envy is nothing but the outward expression of our failure to value ourselves.

Envy is mostly born out of comparison.

We need not compare ourselves with anyone.

For each of us walks a uniquely individual journey.

Another person's pace is not the measuring rod for us.

Their success is not our failure.

The moment we realise that our life blossoms in our own time and through our own effort, envy will uproot itself naturally.

Winning an argument with someone merely to display our debating skills  believing that to be more important than preserving our relationship with them  reveals not only the immaturity of our intellect but also exposes the fact that our mind is a dwelling place for envy.

Where do our problems begin?

From those around us?

From nature?

Or from some unknown place?

None of the above.

Our problems arise from within us.

It is our thought spirals and the emotional expressions that emerge through them that evolve into problems.

Rust begins from within the iron itself, yet that very rust devours and destroys the iron, does it not?

In the same way, the problems that emerge from within us become the very cause of our ailments.

Our mind is like a garden.

Its future lies entirely in what seeds we have chosen to sow.

If we leave the weeds of envy, anger, and fault-finding unattended, they will smother our positive thoughts.

But if we plant good seeds gratitude, compassion, joy, and self-confidence  the mind will blossom and fill our lives with fragrance.

But is it a simple matter to control our thoughts and the actions that arise from them?

No the mind's thoughts cannot be stopped.

However, it is certainly possible through practice to transform them into thoughts that are noble and just.

Wishing to elevate ourselves in life is never a wrong desire.

It is precisely the desire to rise in life that makes a person recognise the necessity of hard work.

But what is indispensable is ensuring that our rise does not rest upon the downfall of another.

To lift ourselves up and, through that elevation, extend a hand to those who are struggling that is the fundamental quality of human compassion.

Elevation is not a solitary journey.

It is a responsibility.

As we rise, we must carry upward the shadows of those who stand in trust and hope beneath us.

Lifting another does not diminish us.

On the contrary, it reveals the greatness within our own heart.

True elevation is measured only in those moments when, through us, a light is kindled in the life of another.

The power to ennoble your thoughts, elevate yourselves, and guide this world along the right path that power exists within each and every one of you.

Behind every event that unfolds in life, there are hidden reasons.

People change so that we may free ourselves from the attachments we hold towards them.

Sometimes the things we do go wrong  so that when they go right, we may receive them with true joy.

Life is always teaching us lessons 

Sometimes gently, sometimes harshly.

But every experience draws us closer to our truest self.

If we learn not to blame the places where we fell, but instead to celebrate the places where we rose, life becomes far easier.

My Dear Young Generation!

In the service we render with a heart for the common good, and in the joy we feel at the rise of others in both of these dwells the divine.

You can do it.

Yours in affection,

Sakthi Sakthithasan