A man has too many likes and dislikes. He loves something’s so dearly and hates others with vengeance. He never seems to get to equanimity of mind. Always swinging from hates to likes.
Sometimes, he hates to see his nemesis in the Facebook and wishes there was a hate button there. He would love to put hates on the picture or post of his most hated person but alas, you cannot do that in public. Succumbing to hypocrisy, he smiles when that person appears in front of him, doing small talk and once the back is turned, indulging in the greatest slanging match of all. Bitching and foul mouthing every little thing that he hates about that one.
Praises are also the biggest swingers of moods. Imagine the same person with his beloved. After seeing her dressed in beautifully enticing clothes, he has never stopped eulogizing her from the moment he set eyes on her. His praises reach the zenith of glories, far beyond even the most fervent prayers to god.
Why do we all do this yoyo swinging?
Our love for our own little self starts at the beginning of our life. We love hearing praises from our parents and others. These are complete falsehoods, yet we so much love hearing people say how beautiful we are. Every child is hideous and ugly to look at but we never seem to look at it that way. Have you ever seen a baby parrot or tadpoles? From which angle do they look beautiful? Similarly, we have heard people call us beautiful, even when we were born ugly! Then any noise from our side was like music to the parents ears, every step like a drunkard was an achievement, every little prize in school was momentous and so on. We get habituated to listening to eulogies and praises and never get tired feeling great. But as we move on in the outer world. We measure everything with our little yardstick set by our biased mind.
Any little criticism of our body or produce, creates ill will about the one who criticizes. We need appreciation about the scrawls on paper, essays we write, paintings we do, job we complete, foods we cook, way of dressing, new shoes, making out, or whatever we believe we are good at. But if someone were to criticize that, he is a goner. You start hating that person from the bottom of your heart. You hate criticism. You love praises, even if they are fake.
Now when someone says they have learnt equanimity of mind, can that person take any crap with the same zeal and enthusiasm as praises?
Equanimity means no swinging from one end to another. We can never have that state since we are so human. But there is a wonderful technique here.
Whenever any man praises you, think in your mind as a criticism or blame or censure. Whenever a man censures or criticizes you consider it is a praise. When we do that we will bring the swinging back to the centre of the line. We can feel miserable when we are praised and feel mightily pleased when censured. This way we can gain a little equanimity. Slowly and steadily we will bring ourselves back to normalcy.
So let’s not get elated when someone praises us. These are hypocrites who live to pander you. Stop getting puffed up.
Someone criticizing us may be truly our friend. Who knows if we were to listen to it we can change our life altogether.
So don’t get carried away by false praises or unwanted criticism. Stop listening to your stupid mind all the time. Have equanimity and you will be forever in bliss.
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