The more I read around the more I come across this concept in multiple self awareness concepts and ideas. I’ve talked about it before in Things do not change, you do but it is still bugging me.
If you’ve landed on this page cold then important to understand this is not about being passive. You can still pursue things with passion but stop attaching happiness to the outcome of these pursuits.
Right, so I have become much better at not letting things or others upset me when it comes to the small stuff. Even before I started this journey I had made some progress on this.
However I still have a big hang up when it comes to justice. I don’t have a belief in an afterlife where all the ‘good’ people get to go to a nice place and all the ‘bad’ people are toasted for eternity. I don’t believe in karma although I like the concept and belief and wish it was true.
I am lucky enough to live in a society that gives justice some value (as opposed to a highly corrupt country). Such man made systems have their flaws but I take some comfort from knowing the police and courts are there and will make an effort to right obvious wrongs.
But when I move to a global scale or look out into nature justice is much harder to see. Here is a story told by De Mello (although he may have taken it from somewhere else) which has really been bugging me.
A little boy is walking along the bank of a river. He sees a crocodile who is trapped in a net. The crocodile says, “Would you have pity on me and release me? I may look ugly, but it isn’t my fault, you know. I was made this way. But whatever my external appearance, I have a mother’s heart. I came this morning in search of food for my young ones and got caught in this trap!”
So the boy says, “Ah, if I were to help you out of that trap, you’d grab me and kill me.”
The crocodile asks, “Do you think I would do that to my benefactor and liberator?”
So the boy is persuaded to take the net off and the crocodile grabs him.
As he is being forced between the jaws of the crocodile, he says, “So this is what I get for my good actions.” And the crocodile says, “Well, don’t take it personally, son, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life.”
The boy disputes this, so the crocodile says, “Do you want to ask someone if it isn’t so?”
The boy sees a bird sitting on a branch and says, “Bird, is what the crocodile says right?” The bird says, “The crocodile is right. Look at me. I was coming home one day with food for my fledglings. Imagine my horror to see a snake crawling up the tree, making straight for my nest. I was totally helpless. It kept devouring my young ones, one after the other. I kept screaming and shouting, but it was useless. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is.”
“See,” says the crocodile. But the boy says, “Let me ask someone else.” So the crocodile says, “Well, all right, go ahead.”
There was an old donkey passing by on the bank of the river. “Donkey,” says the boy, “this is what the crocodile says. Is the crocodile right?”
The donkey says, “The crocodile is quite right. Look at me. I’ve worked and slaved for my master all my life and he barely gave me enough to eat. Now that I’m old and useless, he has turned me loose, and here I am wandering in the jungle, waiting for some wild beast to pounce on me and put an end to my life. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is.”
“See,” says the crocodile. “Let’s go!”
The boy says, “Give me one more chance, one last chance. Let me ask one other being. Remember how good I was to you?” So the crocodile says, “All right, your last chance.”
The boy sees a rabbit passing by, and he says, “Rabbit, is the crocodile right?”
The rabbit sits on his haunches and says to the crocodile, “Did you say that to that boy? The crocodile says, “Yes, I did.” “Wait a minute,” says the rabbit. “We’ve got to discuss this.” “Yes,” says the crocodile. But the rabbit says, “How can we discuss it when you’ve got that boy in your mouth? Release him; he’s got to take part in the discussion, too.” The crocodile says, “You’re a clever one, you are. The moment I release him, he’ll run away.” The rabbit says, “I thought you had more sense than that. If he attempted to run away, one slash of your tail would kill him.”
“Fair enough,” says the crocodile, and he released the boy. The moment the boy is released, the rabbit says, “Run!” And the boy runs and escapes. Then the rabbit says to the boy, “Don’t you enjoy crocodile flesh? Wouldn’t the people in your village like a good meal? You didn’t really release that crocodile; most of his body is still caught in that net. Why don’t you go to the village and bring everybody and have a banquet.”
That’s exactly what the boy does. He goes to the village and calls all the men folk. They come with their axes and staves and spears and kill the crocodile. The boy’s dog comes, too, and when the dog sees the rabbit, he gives chase, catches hold of the rabbit, and throttles him. The boy comes on the scene too late, and as he watches the rabbit die, he says, “The crocodile was right, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life.”
And if you would like it here is the link to the original source.
Now if you can read that story and not be depressed and not make excuses like “Ah but the rabbit will be reincarnated so no problem” or “Ah but the rabbit is going to a really great afterlife” then I think you are doing well. I’m struggling with it.
Nature is one of the most brutal, heartless and violent systems ever put into place. If God did appear one day to finally settle the argument about whether or not He existed, and expected praise for his creation I would say to him “What kind of sick person are you to think this up, I thought I needed help but you take the biscuit”.
I also get riled by the injustices on a global scale. Russia’s invasion of Crimea had me seething. I’m educated enough to know the people of Crimea have just had one corrupt system replaced by another but the whole “getting away with it” ness of it all has me desperately yearning for some kind of justice.
Occasionally the world does step up to the plate as it did in World War II but generally these injustices happen and are never corrected.
As societies we have actively encouraged them. We found it OK to get a dictatorship like China to make all our stuff for us because they could do it on the cheap. We were up for it even after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.
What kind of message does this send to the very roots of our own society. Injustice can happen and rewards can then follow.
De Mello says:
There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the world! You’ll never explain it. You can try gamely with your formulas, religious and otherwise, but you’ll never explain it. Because life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you’ve got to wake up and then you’ll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem.
Interpreting this with his discussions that this does not mean you should be passive really goes back to the old adage “pick your battles” coupled with “but don’t attach your happiness to their outcome”.
So my challenge is to accept that although nature is beautiful and wonderful it is also brutal and violent. I’m pretty confident I won’t be changing that.
With global injustices I can do my bit, accept that I do the best that I can, explore how I might be able to do things better or more effectively but crucially not let the make me unhappy.
These are easier words to right than to practice … but a goal worth working towards.