BUILDING HARMONY THROUGH MUTUAL RESPECT
Family unity is based on mutual consideration and respect. This happy state of affairs can easily be extended to the level of communities if enough individuals simply put their minds to carrying it into effect. If the kind of harmony that families achieve through patience, affection and general tolerance is set up as a definite aim by all communities, there is no reason why it should not be attained. It is a question of wishing it to be so, making positive efforts towards it and forgetting all the old scores and grievances.
From my childhood days, I remember a friend who used to recite:
Kabhi bhul kar kisi se na karo suluk aisa
Ke jo tum se koi karta tumhen naagawar hota
(Never, even in a moment of forgetfulness, should you behave with anyone in a manner that you would find unbearable if someone behaved with you in the same way.)
The message contained in this couplet is a vital principle for social life. If we can only call it to mind at crucial moments, both inside and outside the home, all frictions
might disappear.
Every incident can be viewed from different standpoints, and it is a mistake to think that one’s own is always the correct one. However, if we were all to stop and think that there might be some aspect of another person’s argument that is worthy of consideration instead of exaggerating the virtues of one’s cause and the vices of the other, there would likely be much less ill-feeling in society and then the causes of quarrels, when viewed coolly and in a spirit of tolerance, would often disappear.
In many multi-religious societies, the factor that most undermines inter-community harmony is an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion that has grown out of complex historical factors. If only this barrier could be crossed, people would likely discover that many communal problems have been resolved. This no doubt requires great self-control and mental effort, but the results would be wonderful to behold. It would be like an aeroplane that takes off in dense fog but slowly climbs above it to an altitude where all is brightness and sunshine.
In reality, many of the problems of this world arise from sheer ignorance, and it takes real wisdom to solve them. This is particularly true of inter-community problems, in which the element of ignorance on the part of miscreants often sparks disputes. If this could be properly understood and the situation treated with wisdom and forbearance, disputes might cease at the very outset.
