Sensitive and sentimental by swami sukhabodhananda

1. Sensitive and sentimental by swami sukhabodhananda

2. It was a rainy day, people rushed into the bus. An old lady also managed to enter into the bus. Throughout the journey, she cursed people for pushing her while entering the bus. She loudly grumbled that people don’t have manners. She was screaming that people have no respect for the old. She went on giving reasons and cursed people around. At the end of the journey, she was getting down, still grumbling. The bus driver told her, “Madam you have left something behind.” “What is it” She screamed? “A bad impression,” said the bus driver.

3. Why do we leave poor impressions around? Is it that one is not sensitive? If one looks into this deeply one will find, most of us are not sensitive to life and are sentimental to life. There is a distinction between sensitive and sentimental. Sentimental is your reaction to life, in other words your position to what you want or don’t want. Your position to what you like or dislike is more valuable than “what is”. Whereas sensitive is one’s ability to experience what is. 

4. Your position is not so important, but your ability to experience what is. The quality of life will drastically change when one is sensitive. You see a flower, be sensitive to experience what is, then you will be highly absorbed to see what is rather than take a position that I want this in such and such a way. Life becomes exceedingly relaxing if one is sensitive. And in that space, it is immensely fulfilling. In our “positionality” is our struggle. For we want our “position” to win, and hence in conflict with the other.

5. But how do we apply this in our daily life? Life is the greatest victory. The sheer fact we are born in spite of so many factors is a victory. The mere fact we are living, in spite of so many factors, is a victory. Refusing to see our victory is part of not being sensitive. Validate that, be grateful to that, rejoice that and from that learn to win.

6. n winning, what is needed is not our position but our commitment. Please see this distinction? We have lost this power to see. Instead, we are more interested in forming concepts. Concepts are a verbal framework, but seeing is an actuality. In actually seeing is insight born. When I say do not have a “position”, what I mean is your stuck-ness to a point of view. Don’t limit yourself to a point of view. Understand that commitment is a ground of being where creativity emerges.

7. In a creative process, there is no “stuck-ness” but a wellspring of powerful action. When you say I want this, and that becomes your position, then when better options come forth, you refuse it because you have invested so much on your position and anything other than that is you have lost. But commitment is decidedly different. Look deeply into this. The power to look, the power to observe, and the power to investigate give insight. What is needed is insight rather than a concept.