Human beings are a strange species. We can take credit for giving birth to a baby and feel helpless for our own ill behavior at the same time. Isn't that strange? We take credit for the things, we hardly have any role in and we try to run away from the responsibilities that are quite basic.
Our own experiences and choices shape our own perception of reality. For example, a child may be quite ambitious for his career and take responsibility for the same. Every time the decision clicks, such a child takes credit for the same, and every time it fails, he takes responsibility. He may be least concerned about what society thinks or feels about his achievements. On the other hand, somebody may give more importance to social validation. He may feel happy when people praise him and sad when people criticize him. He may, at times, even compromise with his career for these social validations.
Generally, we make choices as to what is central to our existence, and what is central to our existence decides our reaction to the situations. For some, fun and food are central to their existence, for some, it is a career, for some families, fame, or social validation. Whatever we perceive to be central to our existence, we take credit and feel responsible, while the other things we just leave to destiny.
When the circumstances turn against our wishes, we generally react in two different ways. For the things that are central to our existence, we try to set them right by making decisions and efforts that we believe will help them set right. In the process, we take the credit when due to our efforts, the situations turn in our favor. We also feel guilty when certain decisions of ours lead to unintended consequences. For the things that are not so central to our existence, we give up presuming it is out of our hands to set the situation right.
In the process, we generally do not realize how we get into the trap of our own choices. How our own choices make us limited. Such limitations bring fear and insecurities. Let's take the example of Rama. He was the eldest child of Dashratha who declared to coronate him as the king of Ayodhya. Generally speaking, Rama had the right over the throne being the eldest and ablest of the children of Dashratha. He could have naturally set the ambition to become the king of Ayodhya at the center of his existence. In that case, the decision of the Dashratha to send him to the forest would have been life-shattering resulting in either gross aggression or depression. However, when Rama was asked to go to the forest for none of his faults, he easily accepted that. Not only did he accept the same, but he also had love for his brother Bharata and mother Kaikeyi.
A normal human being would have been shattered by the incident. He would have treated Bharata and Kaikeyi as the worst enemies. He would have fought for his ambitions. He would have taken the support of the people of the kingdom to revolt against the verdict of the King. All these reactions are natural when our life is centered around our ambitions. However, we can see now how these narrow centers of life may us limited. Rama went to the forest and met so many Rishis. A normal human being would have been shattered had his wife been kidnapped by a powerful demon like Ravana and would have rushed for the help of Bharata. What made Rama walk alone? What kept him so balanced despite the situations?
Little interest in the life of Rama would take us to Yoga Vashistha. Yoga Vashistha is a scripture that reveals the internal conflicts of Rama when he was a young boy. He developed Vairagya and out of that Vairagya, he becomes disinterested in life. In that state of mind, he asks a lot of questions from his teachers Vashistha and Vishvamitra. They both tell him about the meaning of life. The biggest question in the mind of Rama is that when this entire world is so temporary, what is the purpose of living. That is what happens with almost all of us when we encounter the death of a close one. Whole of the life seems meaningless. The gurus told Rama about the eternity of consciousness and how different life events are just like bubbles taking form from that consciousness and merging back into the same.
The teachers help Rama recentering his life around that consciousness. They shifted his center of life from the outcome to the process. After realizing the temporariness of the life forms, Rama was confused about setting the outcomes. When all the life forms are so temporary, there is no point in setting any life form as the target. The teachers made him realize the futility of setting the outcomes. With life centered around consciousness, one just lives in the present moment. A tree has no target to sell its fruits to somebody and earn money. It just enjoys the process of bearing the fruits. Similarly, when we realize our true nature, we enjoy each moment of life and each experience. Enjoyment is different from seeking pleasure.
Coming back to taking credit or feeling guilt, fixation with the outcomes makes our lives quite narrow. While identifying with the known, we feel happy and take credit when we achieve a particular destination. We feel sad or guilty for making decisions that take us away from the target. However, all these reactions have their genesis in the narrowness of our understanding of life. We project our future based on our present understanding. That makes us so limited. Our life remains narrow and limited within the domain of what we already know. We develop a resistance for our own growth.
On the other hand, when we have that strong connection with the divine, we trust his directions. We experience the unknown and unexpected situations with lesser fear and insecurities the way Rama did. There is an inherent realization that all life forms are temporary and the consciousness is not affected by the life or death of a particular life form. It has its own perpetual journey and therefore what matters is the richness of experiences and not the types of experiences. With this understanding, we stop evaluating the experiences in terms of likes and dislikes and move along life with a certain openness and trust. That trust and openness take us a long way. It's like breaking free from the routine of life to the world of adventures.
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