September 23, 2011

Community harmony: the essence of development

Community harmony is the essence of development really. And the result of harmony is happiness and contentment. But what keeps us away from this harmony is that very human aspect of desire, which fuels greed. This desire is manifest in us as the greed for power, fame, money and control; and ultimately the finality of possession – we just don’t seem to feel satisfied unless we “own” whatever we desire. Unfortunately, that is the essence of desire; we can’t seem to enjoy something just by beholding without owning. Because we see our material world’s “resources” as scarce, we scramble for whatever we can get of this seemingly short supply. But in doing so, we alienate each other by being competitive rather than cooperative. The resulting feelings of not getting what we want emerge as anger, hatred, jealousy, and resentment. These burn up our insides and continue to keep the fire of discontentment and longing burning inside us as long as we don’t achieve what we desire or observe others succeeding. How can we find peace and harmony when a fire of resentment is burning within us? We need to squelch this for love and sharing to permeate, which is the actual yearning of our inner selves. Where is the solution to reducing desire? This seems anathema in an age when materialism is our goal. But there is no way around this to peace unless we can learn to change our daily habit of fueling our selfishness to a task of serving others. Just experience the joy of unconditional giving! Try it actively, and experience a pleasurable shift in our consciousness.

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