What is Maitri? It is commonly equated with friendship. In the worldly sense this friendship is a mutual relationship. True friendship lies in regarding other people’s comforts or joys or sorrows as your own. For instance we have an example in Ramayana in the relationship between Rama and Sugriva. Their friendship was based on the fact that each could experience the suffering of the other as his own (Samana avastha). The bond of friendship is drawn when there is recognition of sharing of experiences common to both.
What is Karuna (compassion)? Seeing a person in distress and expressing verbally sympathy is not compassion. Compassion must express itself in action to relieve the suffering. Nor should you adopt an attitude of aloofness or indifference on the plea that each one is suffering for his own folly. Though suffering may be due to one’s mistakes-mistakes to which everyone is prone-we should seek to remedy such suffering just as we try to get rid of our own suffering. Some people try to show off their sympathy by setting up charitable institutions like hospitals, etc.
True compassion should emanate from the heart. It should not find expression in outward manifestations, which only reveal one’s vanity. In the Sathya Sai Organisations there is no place for such demonstrations of vanity. Everything that is done to help the poor or the suffering should be based on the feelings coming from the heart and appealing to the hearts of those who are helped.
Next comes Mudita. This means acquiring peace of mind through cultivating equanimity in the experience of honour and dishonour, praise or calumny, loss or gain, joy or sorrow. These pairs of opposites should be regarded as things, which come and go, like passing clouds. Every Sevak (volunteer) should develop such equanimity of mind.
The fourth requisite is Upeksha. Apeksha (craving for the fruits) binds man. Upeksha (indifferent to results) frees man. Apeksha means involvement with the worldly concerns. Upeksha means getting rid of this involvement. Take the example of a pumpkin. A green pumpkin, when it is placed in water, it sinks. The pumpkin has plenty of water within it and when placed in water it sinks. The same pumpkin, when it is dried and has no water inside it, floats on water. What is the reason? In the first place the pumpkin has friendship for water and it makes water part of its own self. Similarly, when you are worldly yourself and you move in the world you are bound to it. When you free yourself from worldly attachments you go towards divinity and you are freed from bondage to the world. It is the process of ‘freeing yourself’ that is called ‘Upeksha’.
In the Ramayana, when Rama decided to go to the forest, Sita wanted to accompany him and she gave away all her possessions. By giving up attachments to the possessions she could get Rama. But, when in the forest she developed a desire for the golden deer, she was separated from Rama. In the first place when she removed Kama (the desire for possessions) she became one with Rama. The meaning of this episode is, so long as you are tied to Kama, you cannot hope to get Rama or God.
This does not mean that you have to renounce the world. Living in this world as you are, you must strike a balance between worldly life and spiritual life. Man’s life is like gold in its native state, associated with dirt, which is impure. It is impure in the initial stages. When you begin to purify your thoughts, speech and actions through seeking good contacts and cultivating noble ideas, you will be transforming yourself. This is the process of Upeksha. (SSS Vol.17, pp. 106-108)