In Search of Enduring Bridges - Subtler Connotations of 'Bridge'

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When we step into our inner world of ideas, emotions and desires, there too we find the bridge-idea playing an important role. For example, we all have certain ideas, but very often ideas do not meet our emotional loyalties. We feel that we should be truthful and kind but often our intellectual conceptions are contrary to what we feel—or vice-versa and so on. When there is some agreement in our ideas and emotions, we find our will to be too weak and incapacitated to put into practice what we think and feel. It is like getting into a boat having three boatmen, each wanting to take us in a direction he thinks fit! Most human beings, therefore, suffer from their own broken personalities. They lack integration of personality produced by the lack of unity in their thoughts, emotions and will.

An inner integration is essential to make a complete, integrated personality. Building up inner bridges which would interconnect and unite these 'independent' faculties into one solid whole is the basis of having an integrated and healthy character. All healthy living involves that we have some degree of inner integration.

Sri Ramakrishna called this integration as 'making one's speech and thoughts one'. A peace-chant from the Upanishad says:

'May my speech be fixed in the mind. May my mind be fixed in the speech.'

Indeed a person whose mind and speech are fixed into each other is a man of integrity. To develop a character of integrity, one's life should be integrated around one's deepest convictions. This inner integrity is the source of all moral and spiritual excellences. In the absence of inner integrity, one's social or community life also disintegrates.

Not only should one connect and interconnect all one's inner faculties, one should extend this idea of building enduring bridges into other areas of life as well. There is often misunderstanding and mental strife in families, communities, and other areas of group living. One of the major reasons for this is the absence of bridges of understanding and mutual cooperation. Just as we need to cross over a river or a valley which obstructs our path, we need to build up bridges of understanding with others as well. Every man is an island in himself—living his unique life experience. He or she has to emerge out of the island of existence in which he or she lives or else life will become a stinking pool of despair and constant complaints. Says the eminent social psychologist Eric Fromm:

'Man is gifted with reason: he is life being aware of itself; he has awareness of himself, of his fellow man, of his past, and of the possibilities of his future. This awareness of himself as a separate entity, the awareness of own short life span, of the fact that without his will he is born and against his will he dies, that he will die before those whom he loves, or they before him, the awareness of his aloneness and separateness, of his helplessness before the forces of nature and of society, all this makes his separate, disunited existences an unbearable prison. He would become insane could he not liberate himself from this prison and reach out, unite himself in some form or other with men, with the world outside.'1

This act of uniting with others—love, in all its dimensions—is possible only if we build bridges of understanding others. Then only can we overcome loneliness and mental helplessness that make our lives miserable. Much time is wasted in our unwillingness to step out and to understand others. We become too self-righteous, too self-glorified in acknowledging others' cultural and personal perspective. Absence of understanding leads to increasing cases of taking offence at the slightest instance. Forgiving others becomes difficult. Resentments ride high. Life becomes an inferno of likes and dislikes, full of misery.

About the author

Swami Atmashraddhananda

Swami Atmashraddhananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order and editor of The Vedanta Kesari from the year 2004 .

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