Frustration of disharmony

Any person trying to bring harmony may be the most frustrated person today. People are so self-obsessed that it is almost impossible to convince them to work together toward the larger cause of the organization or community or nation. There are two types of people:

1. The people struggling with survival. These people have no time, energy, or education to look forward to higher goals like harmony;
2. The greedy people, who have enough for their survival and have made it a mission of their life to accumulate wealth and power. 

I am still not sure of the psychological reasons for the obsession of the second type of people with wealth and power. I have seen many of them closely. My best guess is that it is the result of a complete lack of understanding of life. During childhood, we all are motivated by our parents to work hard to get the best marks in class and crack competitive exams. This mode continues at least from the 9th standard till getting the job. This decade forms the character of a human being. This madness does not stop with getting the job. Since the mind has been conditioned to set a target and pursue that vigorously, after getting the job, these achievers look for the targets desperately. Some see the immediate target of accumulation of wealth and start running from pillar to post to get the assignments wherein they can earn a lot of money. 

Some see more value in power. They try to form a network with the most powerful individuals and organizations. Some set the target on power and start making efforts to get the most powerful positions, where they can misuse the power to rule over the world. In fact, power in its purest form is only responsibility. The more influential position you acquire and more responsible you feel. The notion of power makes sense only for those who want to misuse the same. This greed for wealth or power is never satiable. The more wealth and power these people get and the more hungry they become. 

The problem with any person trying to bring harmony is that the people of the first type are not able to look beyond their survival needs. It's probably too much of an expectation from them to work towards harmony and systems. They are just struggling with the bread-and-butter issues. Most of the key positions are occupied by the people of the second type. Apparently, they are well off but they are more hungry than the poor. They are so self-obsessed that they can inflict big damage to the systems and harmony for their petty interests.

 

In fact, I have noticed a very strange and shocking type of self-obsession. Many of these people try to gain power by trying to be indispensable for the organizations by creating dependencies on them. While designing the systems, they do not pass on the know-how to the organizations so that the organization remains dependent on them forever in the future. They try to keep the information and knowledge limited to themselves to prove themselves superior in every meeting. This appears to me the worst form of selfishness and greed and damages the organization the most.

Now a question arises as to how a person working towards harmony and setting up systems can maintain equanimity in these circumstances. Probably there is a very simple and straightforward answer. Such a person needs to examine whether setting up systems or bringing about harmony is his life goal like the goal of coming first in the competitive examinations. If that is the case, there is not much difference in spiritual terms between such people and the second category of people discussed in the first para. Such people are equally greedy and restless about their targets being setting up the systems, just like the others who are mad after the accumulation of wealth or power.

However, the motivation to set up the systems and establish harmony may have an altogether different source. Some such people may establish a deep connection with the divine. Once they experience the bliss of the divine, they may develop compassion with others, who are restless due to their greed. There may come a growing realization about ignorance being the root cause of this restlessness and greed. With this realization may come a motivation out of compassion to show light to others as well so as to enable them to live a life full of awareness. With this motivation, one may work on setting up systems to demonstrate a world of harmony as a role model to greedy ignorant people so that they are able to see the other side of the coin and work on their ignorance. If that is the motivation, there would not be frustration. In that case, the source of motivation is divine which is full of bliss. When the source of motivation is infinite bliss, there is no space for frustration. Hanuman is not frustrated with the attitude of Ravana. He just laughs at his ignorance. However, to be Hanuman, the inner connection has also to be as strong as the connection of Hanumana with Rama.

I understand it's not that easy and that is the real fun. The spiritual path is never easy. It is full of more internal challenges than the external ones. However, those who move along the path also experience the rewards. The inner joy and contentment motivate them to move along the path despite all the difficulties.