Handling life with sensitivity

SADHGURU SAYS SOCIETY MUST CHANGE ITS OUTLOOK ON ISSUES

TODAY, a handicapped person is not referred to as handicapped anymore. We are beginning to call them special children or special people. So he is special which is why you have to attend to him a little more than you attend to others, and it is an opportunity for you to practice your humanity, to understand that life needs to be handled with more sensitivity.

That sensitivity has to come into society rather than looking for some mystical or divine solution where everybody can have legs. Diseases, injuries, birth defects, all these are the natural realities of life. Yes, we would like to see that everybody has legs, but if it so happens that somebody does not, it need not become a great misery for him. People can support him to see that his life is not that difficult. So rather than a personal problem, it is more of a social problem which has to be addressed.

Different people have different capabilities. Not all of us can run 100 meters in 9 seconds. So are we physically handicapped? Compared to that man we are, isn’t it? So, a handicap is a very relative thing. Everybody has come in a different way. We cannot level people. Physical and mental activity is always on different scales for people. But the one thing that society can do is to, as far as possible, create an equal opportunity.

You cannot make people equal. That would be cruel. If one person does not have a leg, cut everybody’s leg – that will be equality? Equality is a foolish idea. But equal opportunity is something that has to happen in every society. Whether somebody has a leg or an eye or does not have one, still he also has an opportunity to make his living the way he can make it. It is something that a society has to do.

There was a time when so many people had polio. Now governments, institutions and people who are aware of public health are taking great efforts to see that every child gets a polio vaccine. This itself is an effort to eliminate the problem but suppose somebody does get polio or something else, still to give him the necessary opportunity in society to fulfill his life the way he can, is something that has to happen.

Whether it is about getting into a public transport or a public place, we have not taken any measures to see that a person who has a little disability can still manage in this society. It is almost like everything we have created is a hurdle for him. So society has to think and create a certain amount of facility to whatever extent is possible within the economic limits to see that a handicapped person is not totally disabled by society.

Now even if that aspect of society changes, I want you to understand that even people who are not physically handicapped are laughed at because of certain inabilities. Not all of us can do everything the same way. Suppose you can sing very well but if you ask me to sing, I’ll do it horribly and you might laugh at me. If peo­ple are making fun of somebody else’s disability – this is the mental derangement of the society.

Society is mentally handicapped. Even if you are born with a funny nose, people will make fun of you. There will always be somebody who thinks they are better than you at something. You should see how to make the best of who you are rather than seeing what somebody else is thinking and laughing about. You do something else with yourself to become a much bigger source of joy for yourself than you are right now.

So how you want to be within yourself, how to keep your body, mind and emotion, no matter what people are doing, there is a whole dimension about that – a whole science. That is what we refer to as “yoga.” It is a technology so that your interiority is maintained and “You” are not an issue anymore; the issues are all outside.

Outside issues can be handled only to the best of our ability considering the realities in which we exist; this is so for anybody. But if you are an issue by yourself, you will not even do what you are capable of doing on the outside. If any human being does not do what he is not capable of, it is fine, but if he does not do what he can do, his life is a tragedy. That should not happen.

• Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and best-selling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, one of the highest annual civilian awards, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service.