Perfect painting

The crowd started growing every minute in great anticipation of welcoming one of the best painters in the world. He got out of the car greeting the crowd and quickly walked into the podium. He had a long beard and hair long enough to go below his shoulders. He has colored his hair and brushed it neatly. He brought with him two canvases, multiple painting brushes and number of color paints to be used. He was introduced to the audience and he spoke very briefly to the audience. He got into action so quickly and started painting two pictures simultaneously.

In the first canvas, he painted a beautiful mountain range with water falling down the hill. The landscape was lush green and there were plenty of trees with green leaves. The birds were flying across the landscape. Rabbits and squirrels were chasing each other in the landscape and climbing the trees. The trees were bending to the left of the canvass indicating the breeze gently blowing in one direction. The painter nicely depicted dews in the landscape indicating the moisture in the air. The red Sun was setting in the West while a beautiful rainbow was on the east. The cows were finishing up their meal grazing the landscape and getting ready to return home. The painter’s selection of colors was simply superb reflecting a healthy life. It depicted a serene atmosphere all around giving a great sense of happiness to the audience.

In the second canvas, he painted a totally dried up landscape and trees with no leaves. The animals in the picture were all lean with bones visible showing the starvation. The scorching Sun was right on top of the canvas. The human beings clad with minimum clothing were sitting in front of fire cooking some animals they hunted. The women in the picture were bringing water at a distance. The painter used a lot of black, grey and light yellow to depict the struggle the human beings and animals were experiencing. It was clearly an atmosphere that made the audience feel sad.

The audience clapped appreciating the two diagonally opposite pictures drawn simultaneously by a talented painter. While many focused on asking technical questions about the color combination, visualization techniques and brushes used by him to bring such clarity to the atmospheres in each picture, one of them asked how he visualized two different atmospheres simultaneously. He replied, “It was simple. I just had one visual using my intellect to depict a serene atmosphere. I sought help from my emotional mind to dispute it. I could clearly paint the picture reflecting the drought.”

Isn’t it true that we are all gifted with a mind and intellect like a clear canvas? We are provided with all kinds of brushes and colors to paint a picture to depict a world we would like to see. We have the option to choose the colors and brushes that we like and visualize what we would like to accomplish. The pleasure and pain come alternatively in life and if we choose to get depressed and delve into the pain suffered, the life could become miserable. On the contrary, if we feel elevated on each pleasurable experience, we will be unprepared to face pain. We need to keep a balanced mind, conquer the dictates of our emotional mind and use our intellect to discriminate between real and unreal. It is our emotional mind in order to gain control, takes us in directions that are not conducive. We have to keep it under check using our discriminative faculty. Otherwise, it is perfectly capable of draining us with thoughts that are not good for our character development. It is our discriminative faculty that is capable of guiding us to see the world that truly exists created so aesthetically for the benefit of all living beings.

In summary, it is our mind that paints the picture about this planet. The happiness we derive from this planet is directly proportional to what we learn to experience externally from our five senses. The audience's happiness and sadness came from their visualization of two paintings separately. If the minds of audience believed that it was the drought that eventually changed into lush green landscape, their mind would have been at ease. On the contrary, if they believed the lush green landscape later turned out to be dry, they would feel sad. If we train the mind to be contented and happy and make it experience the planet as a blessed place, this planet becomes a heaven.

 

Dear Syamala,

Thank you for being the first to respond to this post. Balanced mind is the answer for best life. Your response makes perfect sense. But it is my humble opinion that intellect should be involved in everything. Even if one is compassionate in giving to a fellow being, he or she should evaluate whether the person is capable of receiving it gracefully. Before we develop shraddha on something, we need to make sure we evaluate that it is rightful action. If someone is hurting another fellow being, we need to save the person affected by being ruthless (not kind) to one who is doing the act of hurting. Discrimination is the key in every action we do.

But emotions that are internal to us, we need to check. For example, if someone hurts us verbally, when we analyze the act of that person, we may get angry. We need to check that emotion. If some one is very successful and if we feel jealous about that person, we need to check that emotion. If we hate a person for no reason, we need to check that emotion.

Discrimination should be part of every decision we make. In fact positive emotions like crying for someone's pain should come out of discrimination understanding the situation. Sometimes, the affected person may need positive words and in which case we should encourage the person to be courageous. The person who uses discrimination as part of routine life will have no fear in life.

Viswa

 

Dear Sabitha,

Well said. We are a being that is blissful always like a Sun that is bright. To become aware of this is a daunting task. Pair of opposites (pleasure and pain) visit us regularly and the awareness of our true nature should help us to maintain equanimity in both situations. It requires considerable self inquiry to find that fountain that is full of love and bliss. To find that fountain, we have to use the powerful tool called intellect to streamline our emotional mind and five senses. To enter the kingdom of Self, one has to pass through the guards called "Sama and Dama" (the control of mind and senses). Like tuning the radio, we have to tune our mind to be in alignment with the blissful Self.

The artist in this case was talking about the lower mind that is perfectly capable of changing the serene fountain of blissfulness into turbulent water. When it is properly channeled, it can find the fountain of blissfulness and shower love to the fellow beings.

Viswa

 

Dear Mrs. Srinivasan:

You have quoted someone for whom I have great respect. Who can dispute his quote above? The key to access the inner peace is within us. Fortunately, the one that is capable of taking us away from inner peace also has the power to align, if controlled, with the Self that is always peaceful and blissful. I am a big believer that worship of the Lord is intended to develop unconditional love for the fellow beings. The Creator does not expect worship but would expect His creations to lead an ideal and purposeful life with sense of universal responsibility.

While reactions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion stems out of reacting/emotional mind, truth, love, righteousness, peace and non-violence stems from the source and can be conquered only by discriminative mind.

True freedom to the human being is only when one is free from anger, attachment, fear and suspicion and fills one with love, detachment, courage and faith.

Viswa

 

Dear Sriniketan,

Thank you for visiting this post. When we refer to heart in the spiritual context, we are always referring to Self or Supreme Consciousness residing in us. In the org chart Supreme Consciousness is first in the hierarchy followed by the intellect, emotional mind, body and senses. In the spiritual context or even with reference to western theories, emotions are always referred to reacting lower mind not necessarily the pure love emanating from the heart/Supreme Consciousness.

What you are referring to emotions as parallel to intellect is purely the qualities of the Supreme Consciousness. The intellect is our discriminating faculty and the real authority or guiding spirit is our Supreme Consciousness. In the management parlance, the intellect should take orders from the Supreme Consciousness when it is unable to discriminate. Therefore, Supreme Consciousness is not parallel to intellect but foundation of the capabilities of our intellect. In a railroad parlance, if you consider the train as the body, rail track as mind, fish plates as intellect probably the ballasts that keeps all of them together is the Supreme Consciousness.

Viswa