One Universal Truth

If there is one universal truth about the nature of humankind, it is this : Humankind despises.

Have you noticed how this works?  Suppose you have been brought up on a strong belief that 'drinking liquor is bad', have you noticed how you despise drinkers? You tend to despise even those social drinkers on whom liquor obviously has no apparent bad effects. I used to drink liquor as a social practice - I was never fond of it, but drank occasionally to keep company with other drinkers. When I was advised by my Guru to avoid drinking and gave it up for a considerable period of time, I found my mind playing tricks. I spotted within me a tendency to despise people who drank! Just so that I don't end up judging boozers badly, I now occasionally quaff liquor - firstly to convince myself that I too am a drinker, and then as a side-effect, to help people realise that just because one is on a path of spirituality, it doesn't mean that these things are proscribed per se, but are rather advised to be avoided due to the effects liquor can have on your mind and thence upon your nervous system.

I have noticed that whenever I've drunk any liquor my mind tends to speed up. And when my mind speeds up, it tends to revolve round and round and round over unpleasant experiences, or even over ideas that tend to excite me. My mind tends to get fixated like that famous Beatles song 'I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in'. I find I am more peaceful before I have a drink, and invariably after a drink (perhaps the next day) I'm decidedly at a lower state. My Guru's advise made me observe such a state of affairs in me, and thence when I found it very convenient to stay away from liquor, and further, I had stayed away to convince myself that I was a teetotaller, I noticed the rather unhealthy tendency that I began to despise people who were still given to drinking.

As a step in self-awareness, I now drink occasionally when I have to correct my own impression about myself, and then sometimes to correct others' impression about me. Likewise I have observed the effects of meat upon my mental state, yet occasionally ingest it only to rectify other people's ideas.

Have you ever caught yourself despising others because they are 1. Lazy 2. Workaholics 3. Sloppy 3. Too fastidious 4. Inconsiderate 5. Too formal and too considerate to be natural  4. Miserly 5. Spendthrifts 6. Too spontaneous 7. Too thought out in their actions to make them appear synthetic and plastic etc. etc. Do you see how one set of adjectives contradict the succeeding set and either way you despise!

I had made the near fatal mistake of despising myself based on other people's opinions about me, until I realised that the whole of humanity is playing this unwholesome game. And I thank my benefactors who pointed how my view of myself was too lopsided. I didn't need to despise myself so much, or rather perhaps as you'd prefer to have it, you are perhaps more despicable than me. Or are you?!

                                         xxx