Highlight the positive

Over the last few weeks we have been battered by the terrible news about the rape and murder of innocent children in Unnao and Kathua. Such events militate against every fibre of decency and justice, and it is not surprising that the country has been vociferously protesting this outrage. Thanks to that, action is being taken and the political forces are seeing a check to their abuse of power.

At the same time, the more we protest against the negative and the vicious, the more we seem to perpetuate it. If you have any doubts about it, take a look at your personal life. The more you protest about the heat, the hotter you feel and the more unacceptable it seems. The more you resist the traffic, the more you encounter traffic jams everywhere you go. The more you resist your weight, the fatter you get. This is actually the way the Universe works. Whatever we resist, both within us and without us, will keep revisiting us. 

There is a saying, “Energy flows where attention goes.” The more we focus on something, the more we get locked into experiencing it. The more you focus on being unhappy, the unhappier you feel. The more you focus on being angry, the angrier you feel.

So how must we act when engulfed by such terrible news about the world we live in? Ignoring it is not an option; as responsible citizens we cannot wash our hands off the events around us.

Can we instead take responsibility for it? We are not separate from anything in the Universe. All of us together, sentient and non-sentient beings, form the consciousness field in which we exist.  We can influence this consciousness field by our thoughts, words and deeds. So each time something terrible happens, can we take responsibility for the toxic consciousness field that caused it to explode?

There are two things we can do to restore its equanimity. The first is to work on oneself. Tune in and eliminate the anger, vengeance, prejudice and lust that drove these events. Healing ourselves of these emotions is among the biggest contributions we can make to the world. Of course, this is not easy. It requires committed and dedicated awareness and acceptance of these traits and tendencies within ourselves over a period of time.

The second thing we can do is to increase positivity by doing things that make a difference to the world, lauding those who are a force for the good, highlighting what works about our society instead of what does not. Use your social media to write about some of the goodness you encounter on a daily basis. The more we focus on goodness, the more it will flourish, and eventually it will heal and uplift the consciousness field in such a way that these atrocities will diminish.

Have you noticed how you feel when you enter a five-star hotel? Its standards of impeccable order, beauty and cleanliness will impact you so much that you would never dream of littering it, or messing it up. In the same way, when you are in an elevated consciousness field, you would not dream of bad behaviour. 
How about trying this?

— The writer is former editor-in-chief of Life Positive magazine and founder, facilitator of the Zen of Good Writing Course.