There is a lot of sound pollution in the air these days. Sadly it’s pouring out of the mouths of top leadership and into every possible media vein that exists. How did we fall into the trap of thinking we can win by putting others down? By being angry, hateful, and accusatory? That the only reason we should vote for someone is because they are telling us how bad the other person is?
Their words and mood affects us all, and it’s embarrassing and depressing to watch. To clear your head, to find relief and a bit of hope, we suggest a daily bath in inspirational devotional literature – the bhakti sastra.
One translation of the sanskrit word sastra means weapon. Being spiritual is another way to fight, and we would say a better way. The reading and studying of spirituality and philosophy is also called darshan. Srila Prabhupada said, “Philosophy means to see intelligently, darsana. The translation of darsana means philosophy. Darsana means seeing. Philosophy means to see the actual fact.”
This brings to mind another well known quote by Martin Luther King, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness – only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate – only love can do that.” Where do we get light? Where can we find the sounds of love to drown out the shrill rhetoric of fear and contempt?
We have to return to the teachings. We have to go everyday to the places that tell us we are more than this. And that we have to be more than this, to rise above these lower modes of passion and ignorance, and take a stand for intelligence, for wisdom, for unity within diversity.
Over the next few months we are going to be inundated with energies of competition, conflict, one-up-manship, crass talk, arrogance, and success built on others failures. A grey and cloudy forecast of toxic waste that will hang around our minds for a long time. We’ll need to create some bright spots for ourselves. We’ll need to clear the air in our own heads and hearts.
We can do that by letting the good books shine in our life. Take them off the shelf, open them up and read 10 pages a day. Just that much can turn things around. Try it and see.
Here are a couple of quotes to inspire our reading:
Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life… ~ Martha Postlewaite
This Bhagavata Purana is a brilliant as the sun, and it has arisen just after the departure of Lord Krishna to His own abode, accompanied by religion, knowledge, etc. Persons who have lost their vision due to the dense darkness of ignorance in the age of Kali shall get light from this Purana. ~ Srila Prabhupada, Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.43
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