Maa Sarda Devi, consort of Paramhansa Ramakrishna, five days before she left for her heavenly abode, called upon a woman devotee and said, “Dear! If you want peace, never look at others faults. Only look at your own faults. Learn to make the world as your own. No one is a stranger here, this whole world is yours. I never looked at anyone’s faults in my whole life.”
By looking at someone’s faults and by thinking negatively about him or her, we form a negative impression in our mind about that person. This allows negativity to enter our minds; and negativity in any form is like darkness. If it exists in our minds, it causes harm. All of us pick faults in others, either out of our liking, or by observing and following others, or simply out of habit. Observing others imperfections, seeking out others’ mistakes and putting others down – these become our habits, and such habits become major hindrances in the development of our personality.
If we have developed the habit of picking out others’ faults, then this is a negative trait of our personality which restricts our development. It leads us astray from our goal because we begin to enjoy looking at faults in the world around us and ignore its goodness. We begin to take pleasure in picking out faults and mistakes of others, and what is initially done by us once in a while, gradually becomes a permanent trait of our personality.
The habit of picking on others is very contagious. As we indulge in this habit, people around us get attracted and influenced and they also join in this activity of discussing others’ faults. How wrong are others and how many faults they have – by observing and pointing these and by thinking negatively about others, we actually waste our time. The time that should be utilized in planning something good for ourselves gets wasted in criticizing others. This causes no good and on the contrary, our capabilities, working styles, decision making and thought processes get negatively influenced. By doing this we close the doors to all the higher levels of achievement that are possible in this life. Lack of positivity and creativity begins to obstruct the path of progress.
The habit of picking on others is also called ‘ninda ras’, which means deriving pleasure in slandering others. People take unnecessary interest in this and possibly do not understand its bad effects. This habit creates such a negative aura around them that no positive thought or emotion gets attracted towards them. If this habit is so harmful then why should we not find ways to get rid of it?
Within homes and families, the habit of picking faults and blaming one another causes continuous arguments, bickering and clashes which lead to loss of peace and happiness in homes. If the habit becomes compulsive, then a person sees and hears only mistakes, faults and blemishes in others. This leads to generation of very negative vibrations, which fill the person with stress, frustration and instability.
At home, if elders discuss faults of others in the presence of children, then children also begin to develop habits like finding blemishes in others, complaining about others and telling lies which are unhealthy habits for their future. Children are very sensitive and observant. They begin to imitate whatever they see and hear. They do not care about what is right and what is wrong. So, parents and elders in the family must bear the responsibility that children do not develop such habits and for this they must take a firm resolve that they will not adopt any wrong habits themselves, and neither will they point out others mistakes, nor take interest in listening about weaknesses of others.
But this is a very difficult task. If we are habitual to picking faults in others for a long time, then we cannot suddenly stop ourselves from doing so. We will involuntarily tend to continue doing that. So, in such situations what we can do is this – whenever we find a fault in someone, we will at the same instant, try to remember at least one good quality of the person. By doing so, we begin to pay attention to other good qualities of the person.
However, a question arises then – if we always look at good qualities and not the blemishes of a person, how will we be able to help him get rid of his faults? For this, we must realize that weaknesses of a personality can be seen without any effort, while good qualities get overshadowed by these weaknesses. This is similar to the situation where in a room if most of the floor is neat and clean and only a small portion is dirty, our attention would first get drawn to the dirty portion. Likewise, faults and weaknesses of a personality always get displayed naturally first. But if we are careful enough to also pay attention to the person’s good qualities, give them the importance and appreciate them, and then point out the blemishes and give suggestions for correction, the person would take the suggestions positively and try to overcome his weaknesses.
Not just in others, we should also develop the habit of looking at our own good qualities, and we must carefully try to get rid of our weaknesses. It is possible that we may have many weaknesses and blemishes, but by only thinking about them we will not be able to rid ourselves of them. There is only one technique that can help us: we must look at only our good qualities and contemplate upon which good deeds we can perform. Then we must set out to make the best use of our capabilities. Whenever any negative thoughts and doubts arise in our minds about our own selves, then we must focus on our own positivity and strength, so that we can dispel doubts and keep progressing unhindered.
In this manner, by awakening positive tendencies it is possible to eradicate negative tendencies. If we get help from others in this process, it is good; if not, then by saying a few words of appreciation to our own selves and by noticing our own good qualities, we can benefit ourselves greatly. This technique is known as autosuggestion and through this we can reorient the direction of our life. Using the same concept on others, we can give a positive direction to others’ lives as well.
Akhand Jyoti Magazine 2013 Nov-Dec
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