2. SO LETS KNOW WHO ARE THESE FOUR
FRIENDS
Metta means “loving-kindness”;
Karuna, means “Compassion”;
Mudita, means “Sympathetic joy” &
Upekkha, means “Equanimity”.
3. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL MAKE THE
DIFFERENCE WHEN WE HAVE THESE FOUR
FRIENDS
• So when we develop these four important spiritual qualities we become
like God. That's why they are sometimes called "The Divine Abodes".
• I would like to see them as four of our very beautiful friends in each one
of you present here.
• When we have these four friends within us they will make us beautiful,
they will make us experience more joy and lightness and this can also
affect others around us.
4. QUALITIES OF METTA & KARUNA
• Metta helps us to open our heart to ourselves. It also enables us to open our heart to
others.
• Karuna is when you see suffering in yourself and when you see suffering in others,
doing something to overcome your own suffering and doing something to overcome
the suffering of others. This is developing the quality of Karuna, compassion.
• In this modern world, where there is a lot of suffering, and the suffering manifests
itself in many different ways, it is extremely important to develop this quality
of Karuna in relation to others and in relation to your own suffering. In this connection
the Buddha has said: Helping others is helping yourself; helping yourself is helping
others. And eventually you see no difference between yourself and others.
5. MUDITA
• Mudita is being happy because others are happy. This is sometimes not easy
because the opposite of this quality of Mudita is jealousy and envy, especially
when you see others doing better than yourself.
• Another aspect of Mudita is making an effort to make others happy. In a way one
can relate it to Karuna because when you see others suffering you try to do
something about it and to get them to experience some joy and lightness, and
make efforts to make them free from their suffering. Then when that happens
you can be extremely happy about it.
• Another aspect is to rejoice in your own happiness, to rejoice in your own
goodness, to rejoice in seeing more and more the positive in yourself; and when
you see more and more the positive in yourself, then you are bound to see more
and more the positive in others.
6. UPEKKHA
• So having an equanimous mind means, whether it is pleasant or whether
it is unpleasant, no plus, no minus, no liking, no disliking - learning to see
things just as they are.
• When you are reacting, just know that you are reacting, to take that as a
learning experience and learn not to react to it. And when you are not
reacting just know that you are not reacting, and see for yourself the
results, the benefits of it. So if you can really learn to be open to both the
reactive mind and the non-reactive mind and to see the difference
between the two, that can be considered something very important.
7. • I would like to sight out few live example of karuna that had inspires me in my life.
One of such example is of Lord MAHAVIR
I would like to narrate a story of his. Ones upon a time, Lord Mahavir was doing meditation
in a jungle, when he was meditating there comes a snake named “CHANDAKUSHAK”
who bit him but when the snake saw that instead of blood there was milk coming out of his
body, the snake felt the kauna that lord Mahavir had on the snake and when lord had
waked up the lord gave the ghyan of kruna to the snake, and the snake said to himself that
he will not bite any one from now, and he went to a hole.
And People started giving milk to that snake in that hole, many ants came on the snake
because of the milk on that hole. then snake had thought of the ghyan of the lord and did
not move even if he was bearing as if he had moved many ants may die. So he felt karuna
for those ants.
So the moral of the story is when a Snake can show kauna why not we as a “Human being
be left behind”.
