Skip to main content

Freedom to Choose

In my discussions with my friends, one point that comes up quite often is the role of attachments in our lives. How will we be motivated to live life in the absence of attachments? In that case, we will not have any relationships. Without attachments, life will be dull.

I have a very simple question to ask. Do we play only for the sake of winning the game or can we play for the sake of fun of playing? I feel that best play is where there is nothing to win or lose and yet we give our best. The best artistic performances are where the artist is performing for the sake of expressing himself and not for the sake of earning money or getting a round of applause. The best scientific discoveries are the ones where the scientist is searching for the truth just for the sake of knowing and there is no commercial interest.

The soul has entered the human body. The soul is always free. Free of all types of attachments. It is fully aligned with the divine will. It wants to manifest the widest possibilities on the earth. However, the body is full of ignorance and inertia. While making the decisions, on the one hand, the soul wants to express freely, on the other hand, the body sticks to its own inertia. The soul wants freedom and the body wants pleasure. Sometimes, the body delays gratification and decides to work hard in anticipation of the pleasures at a future date and we confuse this hard work with free expression of the soul. So long as there is a desire to get immediate gratification or delayed gratification, it is definitely not the expression of the free soul.

However, each one of us definitely gets the moments every day when that soul expresses freely. If we are a little aware of those moments, we will start cherishing the freedom of the soul. With constant cherishing of freedom, there will come a stage when we start questioning the demand of the body for gratification. That questioning results in examination. A choiceless observation. Where we see things as they are. We see what constant gratification is doing to us. Where is it leading us? The very act of questioning, examination, and observation makes us aware of the trap. The moment we are aware of the trap, we are free of the same. The more we question, examine, and observe, the more of it gets dropped. However, there are layers and layers of ignorance hidden in the depths of the unconscious.

Each moment, we have a choice to listen to the chirping of the birds coming from the windows or to play loud music and dance to its tunes. Our conscious and unconscious minds have layers and layers of music that can play all our lives and yet they will keep playing the new soundtracks. However, there are always moments when this loud music stops at least for some moments. These moments bring an opportunity to connect to the chirping of the soul. We have the freedom to choose in each of the moments.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Field of Awareness

 I presented a paper on Vipassana long back at Delhi University, and at that time, a professor there asked me a question: "Who realises the temporality of the sensations when we practice Vipassana: the mind or something else?" That question stayed with me. I told him about my experience in Estonia. Once, I went on an office tour in Estonia, where it was extremely cold at around -15 degrees. I walked outdoors for quite a long time and developed severe stomach pain. With no medicines available to me and no doctor to visit, I sat in Vipassana and began observing sensations. After about an hour of observation, the pain disappeared. I told him that I don't know whether that was a realisation of the mind or something else, but the same brain that experienced pain some time back had no pain after some time.  The question is who was feeling the pain and where that pain disappeared after observation. When we sit in Vipassana, our minds are full of so many thoughts. Usually, our m...
Post a Comment
Read more

A "home" decorated with "bonsai"

 Somebody gifted a plant sometime back. When I look at the plant on the Table, it appears to me as if the plant had the potential to grow into a big tree, but we confined the little plant within the limits of the pot, and it has grown strangely. It has a thick stem but has small leaves and branches. We have designed the plants to look the way we like. What "I" want is more important than what the "plant" is. The plant will grow the way "I" like it to grow. And then, "I" would also claim that "I" love the plant.  Yesterday, I went to a coaching institute to get some test series for a competitive exam for my daughter. The guide there spoke for around 40-45 minutes on the risks and chances of getting selected in different competitive examinations. So much competition. Fear is instilled into the minds of the students from the very beginning. Everything is around fear. If they are not able to get enrolment in a professional course , they wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kurukshetra Within Ourselves

I watched the Netflix series Kurukshetra today. It's a wonderfully made series and, in fact, made me recall my childhood series of the Mahabharata that used to be telecast on DD. Mahabharata is magical. The most magical thing about the Mahabharata is that it has no straitjacket definition of Dharma . The entire battle of Kurukshetra is for Dharma, and everybody feels that he is fighting the battle for Dharma.  When Bhishma realises that Vichitravirya needs to be married, he goes to the Swamvara of Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika and forcefully brings them to Hastinapur . Ambika and Ambalika are married to Vichitravirya, while Amba carries out penance to take revenge on Bhishma. Why did Bhishma bring these three girls against their wishes to Hastinapur? If Vichitravirya wanted to marry, he should have shown courage and participated in the Swamvara. After all, Swamvara meant that the girls wanted to marry the most courageous person. Bhishma deprived them of their rights for his attac...
Post a Comment
Read more