The Test

The Test of Humanity

How do we define Humanity?

The condition of being human, human being as a whole or having sympathy and kindness towards others. Do we fulfill these conditions for living in a society of human beings?

A universal question -- Do we serve the meaning and purpose of our existence?  Arises in the mind of every individual. As Tennessee Williams writes ----"Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question."

What meaning can we give to life, what purpose can we serve, other than the service of humanity? Man lives for man and not for the other objects on the earth. He lives to be with the self and for the self, and for his fellow beings who are like him. It is a widely used cliché that, man is a social animal, but it is undoubtedly the truth. He needs to deal with people of different types in his day to day life. He needs to learn to co-operate with others to maintain peace in the society. He also needs to find a place for himself in society and be aware about his position, his obligations towards society.

"Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful, he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work."--- Plotinus.

Like the creator of the statue, we need to work on building ourselves, to bring out that inner beauty on our face, the beauty of the soul and character. As gold can be tested by rubbing, pricking, heating, melting and beating, similarly human beings can be known by their knowledge, nature, qualities and work.

A person whose presence encourages comfortable atmosphere for all is a great person. It symbolizes his open heartedness. A person whose presence creates tension, discomfort, who induces fear amongst people, who suppresses other's individuality for his self ego, who spoils the occasion due to personal differences and hatred, such persons though they think themselves to be great, their characters reflect defective upraising. They shun progress and live a stereotype, channelized life. They consider others to be useless and are never clean hearted. They always hate others for no proper reason, find faults and never give respect to anyone. Thus, they never gain respect from others. To be called great and being great in reality has a vast difference.

Thoughts, words and behaviour give greatness to man. When good thoughts are absorbed and adopted in practical life, they change the character and enhance the greatness in a person. Where there is love there is humility. One would not behave arrogantly with his loved ones. Humility is a rare virtue, so one should try to cultivate it. It means living with the sense of being a part of the creation. This realization brings humbleness when we get rid of ego, pride and vanity disappear, and we can no longer hurt others. When we develop humility we no longer suffer from pride of wealth, position, knowledge or power.

Every individual wishes to achieve greatness, which can distinguish them from the ordinary. Everyone wants to be somebody, everyone wants to shine. And then every action is performed with the aim of becoming the greatest. This brings competition, rivalry, jealousy, envy and at times intense feeling of hatred because he thinks that the others are preventing him from realizing greatness that he deserves. And thus, he leaves behind his true greatness, he originally had.

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." --- writes Henry Thoreau.  It is true to the core that if we wish to bring in humility we will have to think and work towards it. The thought of humility should be engraved in the mind to an extent that we can follow it seriously. This is the time when a reform in attitude towards life is required. One should learn to differentiate between image and reality. Most of our activities are centered around reflection and not reality. Whatever we see in a mirror, is a reflection, an image of our self not reality. Treating the reflection as real is the root cause of distress and agonies in life.

Once a bird entered a room which had a mirror. It sat before the mirror and started pecking at its own image in the mirror thinking it to be another bird. It felt distressed and anxious. By pecking over the image it was trying to hurt the other bird with its full strength. But it did not understand that it was hitting its own image. It is an illusion and in the process it hurts it own beak. Like the bird hurting itself, every individual hurts the self fighting with the reflection. He tries to portray a false image in society and to do that he hurts his original self. It has been since time immemorial that man has not known or understood who his real opponent is. It is the people out there or is it his own self that he is fighting against. This understanding can dawn only when he understands his own conduct and behaviour.

The greatness he achieves in his life turns him to an extravagant and arrogant, boastful and egoistic person, who forgets that true greatness lies in his modesty and humility. Humility is rare, because to have it you want or need nothing and if you do have it, you get everything. Humility is freedom from the anxiety of having the satisfaction of being honoured by others. Pride, the opposite of humility makes us crave for honour from others as a source of happiness. Pride breaks relationships whereas love builds bridges of relationships.

Not only society, but even in a family, there should not be a dictator's rule. Because it is always the home and the family from where every individual's character is moulded. Maintaining each individual's self respect and taking tasks from them is the true art of life.  Abraham Lincoln once said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity. But if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Because True power, which is said to be the ultimate aphrodisiac, lends the illusion of a high that gives people a sense that they can indulge in any wanton act - without complete impunity. A bossing nature, power and obstinate attitude does not allow the progress of others may it be wife, children, family or your colleagues. The dominance of one person can harm the others in several ways.

By absorbing the true principles of humanity man can understand his religion, absorbing good qualities keeps him away from evils, hearing gives him knowledge and learning the logics and philosophies of life leads him toward knowing the self which in turn helps in achieving peace for the self and for others. True knowledge illuminates life. It shows the brighter side of life and takes away ignorance. It teaches humility, love and brotherhood. As the value of a person increases with his knowledge, similarly life improves with his nature. His character can only make him great. And character is not a single quality. It is a collection of virtues imbibed in a person from his childhood, through adolescence and adult stages of life. Attachments between parents and children, family ties, serve the purposes of survival. This strength and security are related to the parent-child interactions, to the interactions in a family. Characters are built through values and religion. Humility, charity and truth are the pillars of a strong character.

Characterless people are like berries, smooth and soft externally but hard internally. Whereas people with great characters are like coconuts, hard externally but smooth, clean and pure internally. Characterless knowledge is like a flower without smell. Such people prove to be harmful to society.  Addiction is considered to be a bad habit, but addiction to gain good knowledge is advantageous. Man should use his power, strength and intellect to control himself, to curb his mind from straying. It is true that man can make everything possible if he desires to do so. But there are very few people who really want to do anything. The world is full of boastful people who can talk great things but can do nothing. Knowledge is of three types, the best, the mediocre, and the worst. Which type of knowledge do we want to gain and absorb depends only on our self, no other person can dictate it to us. Because it is this knowledge, the type of knowledge we choose, that will shine in our life. That will give radiance to life. It is not important where a person lives but it is very important how he lives, a bad environment can also produce a true personality and a good environment can also produce an evil person. As Jawaharlal Nehru puts it, ---"It is now clear that science is incapable of ordering life, A life is ordered by values. "

The founder of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada says, - "One's greatness has to be estimated by the ability to tolerate provoking situations." Are these great personalities products of some other world or do they belong to the same society, same world we live in? They are the individuals who have absorbed and adopted qualities and virtues in life. It is not for their success or fame that they give such statements. It is their characters, their thoughts that come out as words. That they wish to share with one and all.

The test, the appraisal of humanity is not to be gauged in a day, it is a lifetime process. It is the test that we give throughout life.. In each and every word we speak and every action we perform. It is not that th self can measure humanity. It is the quality that can be noticed by others through the person's attitude, thoughts and behaviour. It is this very quality of humility, of humanity that the world at large needs the most. Amidst the terror and sorrow people face in every country, in every society, in every home.