You find peace inside you. Peace is what you are when you are no longer separate.
How does that even help alleviate the suffering around me? That sounds selfish.
There are two paths people tend to take when faced with this ocean of suffering. Some close their hearts and grow numb, becoming indifferent- not because they are cruel, but because it feels unbearable. Others react with anger and fight to change things. The path of indifference and the path of anger both add more suffering to the world.
When you close your heart, you become more isolated, more separate. In the very attempt to shield yourself, you grow increasingly alienated, more focused on yourself-on your fears and pleasures. You may surround yourself with people, yet deep down, you feel utterly alone.
Anger too is divisive. It is always directed towards others- the injustice, the wrongdoers. Once again, you reinforce your sense of separation by becoming righteous. And in doing so, you suffer, because suffering is only possible when one feels separate, not whole.
The solution is the path of consciousness and awareness. You begin to see that any action that arises from separation only adds more suffering to the world. So you attend to your own ignorance and to the suffering that flows from it.
This is why healing is never only personal. When you slow down, feel what was never felt, and choose presence instead of reactivity, you interrupt a long chain of suffering. You are not fixing the world, but you are no longer transmitting what hurts. What you integrate within yourself, no longer needs to express itself as anger, numbness, or harm towards others.
Then any action that flows from a healed heart, heals the world. But even if I do that, every action I take is insignificant. I alone, cannot bring any real change. When faced with this ocean of suffering, the worst mistake is to do nothing, simply because we can only do a little. What you may do may seem small or insignificant, yet it is the most significant thing in the world. This is the paradox of action.
At the most basic level, everything is connected. Chemically, every atom in your body has existed long before you- formed in stars, carried through water, soil, plants and others lives. You are not a separate entity temporarily interacting with the world; you are the world, temporarily arranged in you.
Because everything is interconnected, no act of kindness is ever small. Helping a disabled person cross the street, carrying someone’s groceries, answering with patience, instead of irritation, offering food to the hungry, each of these gestures matters. You become a vehicle that removes suffering, rather than adding to it. Every act of sincere care is like dropping a pebble into water; the ripples move outward, quietly and endlessly; touching far more than we will ever see.
As consciousness deepens, you see that the one who suffers isn’t really ‘them’-it’s you. The boundaries blur. You realise it’s all me. From a higher perspective, you see the world as perfect. It is the unfolding of diving law, the evolution of souls through countless experiences, including suffering and death. Despite all that, the awaked heart cries for the world, but without despair. It acts, but without hatred, but without the illusion of being a helper.
As Krishnamurti said, “You are the world, and the world is you”. Attend to your own suffering, your own sense of separation; heal and transcend your generational trauma- and then, whatever you do, no matter how small, becomes a light in the world that is profoundly dark.
(Freedom from the madness)
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