Autism — My World – Your World

A view on Autism.

We all may be in the same physical world, yet each one of us lives in a different world, a world made up of our thoughts, our emotions, beliefs, desires, expectations, plans, goals, and the rest of it. Such a world that is governed by your mind and its modifications.

Let me share something profound with you: the root cause of all conflict, in all relationships, without fail, is when your world and his world do not coincide. When you can understand another person’s point of view, if you can be in her world, everything starts to make sense; misunderstandings and conflicts disappear. It takes a certain degree of self-reflection and contemplation to comprehend or experience the world of the other person. You may want to read – What is this world about?

Today, I bring to you a video, a very special one. Special, because it has the story of a special child. I have known many autistic kids in my life. Whenever I see an autistic child, I just cannot get past the unblemished innocence on their radiant faces. Of all the human qualities, the one I find divine is innocence. One who is innocent is able to love purely. What gets me most about an autistic child is how wonderfully they are living in the moment!

They are not sulking over the past, thinking about the future, nor endlessly engaged in planning, not making any cunning designs, they are just being who they are, childlike, genuine and unpretentious.

The world requires one to live, act and express in a certain manner. Laws have been laid out to enforce many systems, education has been designed, perhaps not deliberately, to turn you into an average thinker, to limit your free mind, to condition you. It is subtle yet powerful.

When ‘your world’ increasingly matches with ‘the world’, you are looked upon as a success, an idol, a role model, and so forth. But, when ‘your world’ does not gel with ‘my world’ or ‘the world’, you are promptly labeled. Once you are labeled, the world does not want to understand you or your world. Their mediocre education makes them believe that the smartest people must have done all the research to arrive at a certain conclusion. In fact, it is for this reason that *all* religions and many philosophies have flourished on this planet. Followers just adopted it as the right way of life, of living without discovering their own truth, their own path.

In this short video, you get to see the world from the eyes of an autistic child. The video is based on an award-winning story called The Red Boots by Poornima Ram Kiran. When I emailed her, she promptly and kindly gave her consent to narrate the story in a short video.

So, give seven minutes of your attention and time to watch this video, preferably with your headphones on. And, if you like it, share this video so we may help spread autism awareness. To know more about autism, you can go here.

I dedicate this video to all autistic kids, their parents, and siblings. Let us pray and work towards making this world a better place, a more tolerable place, more open, the one that allows room to play, to be yourself, to be free.

Share this video with your loved ones, your friends and family; this is the easiest way, the least you can do, to help the cause on autism awareness.

Peace.
Swami