Seeing the world FEELINGLY…

Neeraj Alavelli
3 min readNov 11, 2018

A few months ago, I was listening to this powerful speech by Philip Wollen in a debate. Which started with the following anecdote

King Lear, late at night on the cliffs asked the blind man Gloucester “How do you see the world?”

and the blind man Gloucester replies “I see it feelingly.

(from Shakespeare’s play “King Lear”)

And the speaker appealed “Shouldn’t we all? (see the world feelingly?)”

Lately, I have been contemplating on this one line, and I wonder how beautiful this world would be if we all start to see the world feelingly. I am inculcating this gradually and here I share my reflections on the same.

How To See the world FEELINGLY?

This is a simple practice to get better, get better gradually one moment at a time.

Stop rushing through your daily chores, take each day anew, slow down your pace andand feel your work, savour the food you eat, take time to reflect upon the small things of life.

Start using the words “Thank You”, “Sorry”, “Have a Great Day” more often. Appreciate people for their service to you, however small or big. Let go off all the hatred, and forgive people for all their mistakes

Get over the biological, physical and financial designations of people. Also get over your opinions about them and then try to perceive just their feelings — The feelings beyond the clutter of EGO — i.e., Lust, Anger, Greed, Illusion, Pride, Envy, Hate, Arrogance and Ignorance.

The obstacle in this paradigm is that your own faults and the clutter of your mind gets conspicuous to you, which might bewilder you and throw you into the trap of guilt.

This is when you have to embrace your guilt and let go off it too. Forgive yourself and believe in getting better.

Yes, it is difficult. It is difficult initially, but if you try to practice it one moment at a time. It gets easier gradually. It is beyond difficulty, beauty lies.

What to expect from this?

Adds a human touch to your life. The emotions of people become more conspicuous and thus your relations with people get better and stronger.

And you’ll begin to realize that we are all the same within beyond the externals, thus we’ll learn to celebrate everyone’s uniqueness.

It gets easier to break habits which either hurt you, your body or others and make those habits which make you a better person.

Just as in a clear pond, it is clearly visible what’s beneath, you’ll get to perceive yourself beneath the externals — The Real YOU. And thus you’ll get to experience the beauty Mindfulness, God-consciousness and Self-Realization.

It boosts your Gratitude, Appreciation and Empathy. It starts with changing your world to the better and thus makes you an instrument in making this world a better place. Technically, if your world gets better, the world also changes to the better with it.

and eventually you become better, wiser and happier.

Suggested Practices:

  • Keep a Journal/ Diary and reflect upon your daily life in it.
  • Practice the Pause. Pause before judging — Judging people, judging your situation and in the pause, observe.
  • Savour your food. Whatever you eat, eat consciously.
  • Practice Meditation or other Mindfulness practices.

To conclude with, Jesus Christ in the Ten Commandments says, “Love your Lord with all your heart and all your soul, and love your neighbour as yourself.” To do which, the first step would be “Seeing the world feelingly”.

Please take time to share your feedback which helps me get better and if you like this idea, please share it with atleast 3 friends in the next 5 minutes.

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Neeraj Alavelli

Senior Engineer @ TCS | IIT (BHU) CSE Batch of '21 Bibliophile | Writer | Thinker | Traveller | Altruist | Spiritualist | Devotee