Comparing Brings Discontent

Let go of “me”, “mine” versus “yours”

- Dr. Hansaji J. Yogendra

Yoga talks about good qualities like good thinking, good feelings, good behaviour. These qualities bring much peace of mind. But whenever and wherever "me/mine" comes in, comparison also comes in and peace is lost.

I often narrate a joke that a person opened a sweet shop and wrote on the board outside “The Best Shop in this Lane”. Another person also started a shop and wrote “The Best Shop in this Area”. The comparison started here; from “lane” it became “area”. Now, the sweet shop owner thought that if he has written “area” then I will have to write something else. So, he rewrote, “The Best Shop in Santa Cruz”. The other shop owner wrote “The Best Shop in Bombay”; the sweet shop owner trumped with “The Best Shop in the Country”. The other shop owner replied by writing “The Best Shop in the World”, countered by the sweet shop owner’s “The Best Shop in the Universe”.

Now, how far can one go? We are bound to get stuck at some point. So, the second shop owner started thinking and after much deliberation wrote, “Better than the Opposite Shop”. So, the whole thing ended on the issue of “mine” and “yours”. The whole problem ultimately goes around and comes back to this same issue of “me” and “you”. So, until this “I” sense does not reduce, this kind of tension will always go on.