Who Is Disabled?

​Let’s look at the picture of this child.
​
What comes to mind?  Cute child.

Hessam Nabavi/ Unsplash

Now look at this picture.

What comes to mind? 

Jon Tyson/ Unsplash

​Both are children. 

​One has a typical body and the other has a body with a disability. 

It is easy to be enamored by a cute child and the appearance of beauty and perfection. 
 
When we meet a person with disability, we may experience different emotions.

We may feel indifferent, repelled or sometimes even scared.
 
Individuals with disabilities count among the most excluded members of society with very limited participation in activities within the community.
 
Individuals with special needs are no different from you and me. They also want to feel connected, accepted and appreciated.

However, their souls are encased in bodies with impairments, giving others the notion that they are not like us.
 
Samkhya Philosophy teaches us that all embodied beings have Purusha, Pure Consciousness which is beyond time and space, beyond the material world, and therefore beyond physical perfection or beyond disability or imperfections.
 
All beings, regardless of how they look, how they think, or whether they can do certain things or not, by virtue of the Purusha, are perfect in their own right.
 
When we transcend the physical world, disability is no longer an issue. 
 
Essentially, we are all the same if we all relate beyond the level of the physical body.
 
Perhaps, the next time we see a person with disability, let us remember that only the body has the impairment. 
 
Beyond the body, there is a soul living inside of it and a perfect one at that. 
 
Let me conclude by reading out an excerpt from the poem  
​​

”Who is Disabled?” by Tony Wong
 
If you do not see the person but only the disability, then who is blind?
 
If you cannot hear your brother's cry for justice, then who is deaf?
 
If your heart and mind do not reach out to your neighbor, then who has the handicap?
 
If you do not stand up for the rights of all persons, then who is crippled?

​Our attitudes towards persons with disabilities could be what makes them disabled, and also, what makes us disabled.
 
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Poem: Who Is Disabled?  by Tony Wong of Jamaica
Photos from Unsplash