मैत्रीकरुणामुदितोपेक्षाणां सुखदुःखपुण्यापुण्यविषयाणां भावनातश्चित्तप्रसादनम्॥३३॥
Maitrī-karuṇā-mudita-upekṣāṇāṃ sukha-duḥkha-puṇya-apuṇya-viṣayāṇāṃ bhāvanātaḥ citta-prasādanam. (Patanjali yoga sutras 1:33)
People around us can be a source of help. They can be a source of distress.
Sometimes they effect us by doing something to us. Sometimes, without doing anything directly to us, they can be a source of mental trouble.
You must have experienced this. Recently you have been successful. You go to share the good news to a friend. The friend congratulates you. At the same time he cracks a seeming harmless joke attributing your success not to your own effort. You too have been jealous of others so many times. Recall honestly your own feeling at the success of the people you know.
Jealousy expresses itself in very subtle ways. We would not admit that we are jealous. But the damage is done. Jealousy first of all creates creates mental disturbance in the person who is feelling it. Extreme consequences of jealousy have been highlighted in Hollywood movies like ‘The Prestige’ or Bollywood Movies like ‘Race’.
Jealousy is more prevalent among peer groups. However, sometimes the person we are jealous of may not even know it. She may not sometimes be related with us. Some younger person in a TV show wins an award, and older people talk ill of her. She has not done any harm, yet people feel uncomfortable with her success.
So whether people do something aimed at us or not, their natural existence and actions aimed at their own self development or self harm effects our mind. The knowledge of their activities or in-activities causes mental agitation in us. Is there a way to save ourselves from such mental agitation?
Yes there are ways. Here, Maharishi Patanjali comes to our rescue.
First he divides people into four categories: people who are happy, people who are unhappy, people who are virtuous, and people who are not virtuous. The four attitudes to be adopted respectively are : friendship, compassion, joyfulness, and indifference.
You develop a feeling of oneness with those you have an attitude of genuine friendship. Their feeling can infect you. When they are happy you become happy. Otherwise their happiness can become a source of jealousy for you. To save your mind from negativity and to get infected by their positive feelings, better have the attitude of friendship towards those who are happy.
Unhappiness too can be contagious. Miserable people consciously or unconsciously try to make others feel miserable. To save your mind from being infected by their misery, have compassion for them. Is compassion the same as sympathy or empathy? I think compassion is not only about recognising others’ sufferings, it includes an intention to be of help. At the time of calamities, people who come forward to help those in need are full of energy. Those who sit at home, watching live coverage of the TV news of the disaster, become more and more miserable.
We find fault with people who are doing good work for the society. Sometimes we even fall prey to the political propaganda against him. His detractors come up with hundred other reasons to ignore his good deed and come up with theories as to how ill intentions hide behind his good deeds. But if you want to save your mind from negative agitation, be happy about the good deeds done by him and be indifferent to his wrong deeds.
Being indifferent to the unholy activities of others is a great attitude to save ourselves from mental agitation. But as a social being we can’t be apathetic to anti-social and illegal activities done by others. In such situations, can we take some action to save the society from the harmful effects or make that person desist from such activities, all the while maintaining our own equanimity. Well, that is what Lord Krishna advises in Bhagavad Gita. We will take up this in detail in a later article in this series.
Yoga is not a path to feel miserable day by day. The goal of yoga is to be in as state of equanimity. Some say it is a state of Paramananda – a state of ultimate joy. The path of yoga too should be devoid of mental agony. Patanjali says that if you develop such attitudes, as a result you will be unagitated and your heart will rest in grace.
How to deal with our feelings while dealing with people around us has been addressed in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. It implies that a yogi need not isolate himself from the society. Being very much part of the society, doing all the ordained duties to one’s family and to the society, it is possible to progress in the path of yoga.
This post is a part of Blogchatter A2Z Challenge 2026
This year my theme is – Yoga A2Z
PEBBLES AND WAVES 