Every day we travel on the road, we see so many beggars on the road. Most of them have their genuine needs: generally physical such as food and clothes and because of any reason they do not have the opportunity to have a source of earnings to fulfill these needs and that is why they request others to help them with that. However, we see many begging for their greed. The rich businessmen begging for political favors to satisfy their greed to become bigger businessmen, some of the politicians begging for votes or seats or ministerships to become more powerful, and all of us begging God to give us more than what we already have. Thus, the world is full of rich beggars.
There are not only beggars but also many traders and fighters. The traders want to exchange what they have for what they do not have. Some have a lot of money but not the prestige in the society. They start running NGOs by spending the money they have to get the name and fame. Some have positions but not money to satisfy their greed. They start selling their discretionary powers to get the money they want. Some have the name and fame but not money. They start using their name and fame by selling their names to different brands to earn money. Thus, we find that there are many traders in this society. There are many fighters too in society, who keep fighting for money, power, and positions; whatever target they fix for themselves.
However, be it a beggar, trader, or fighter, they all share a common attribute and that is dissatisfaction. They all are dissatisfied and develop a concept that "something" will make them satisfied. That "something" may be money, position, power, or knowledge. In fact, in today's world, beggars have set a different target altogether. Now they crave a particular spiritual experience and call that experience spiritual seeking. They keep running after different gurus to have that desired experience. Some smart fellows try to trade the same for the money, power, and positions they have.
A baby is not begging or seeking or trading or fighting anything and yet he is so happy? What is the reason? One of the reasons may be that his hunger is being taken care of by the parents. However, if we just observe a bit deeper, we will soon understand that the biggest reason is that the baby has only biological needs like food. He has not yet been exposed to the society that has built so many concepts around the need. One has to have a good bank balance, a remunerative and secure job, medical insurance, life insurance, social validation, and family and friends to be happy. I do not know whether all these things are required to be happy or take us away from the happiness that we already have as a baby?
So, do we not make efforts at all? Why not make efforts but whether efforts are necessarily to aim at some pleasure? Can't we play a game not to win but to enjoy the game? Can't we participate in a stage program not for the medals and applause but for the fun of performing? Can' we study not for getting good marks in the exams but for the sake of learning new things? Can't we work not for the promotions and pay hikes but for the sake of the joy of working? Is it such a difficult thing? I don't think so.
However, we will always keep focussing on the results since we are so incomplete and dissatisfied and we have formed so many mental concepts that the achievement of these targets such as money, power, positions, social validation, medals, and pay hikes will make us happy. We are just like the person who listens to the crowd coming out of the cave saying that Baba inside the cave will bless everybody and believes the same without examination, and after going inside the cave to meet the Baba, get slapped, and tells everybody that Baba is giving blessing so that we do not look stupid. Since childhood, we get trapped in this mass hypnosis because of the simple reason that we are not aware and we do not want to examine the social narrative. Awareness and observation require effort and we choose the easy option. We get trapped in the consequences. This process of mass hypnosis goes on each day and a day comes when even after realizing the consequences, we have no energy left to work on our life. Like a chronic drug addict, our addiction has severe withdrawal effects and we do not have the determination to fight these consequences.
We have a choice to be beggars, traders, and fighters all our lives; knowing very well that each target and milestone is just the beginning of the other target and milestone. Like a mirage, these milestones and targets are never going to quench our thirst. The more we are running after these mirages the more we are moving away from the source of water. The moment we become aware of this reality and start examining the trap, the trap is gone. Once we stay aware and observe our lives with that awareness, we get rid of all such traps and regain the inner state of joy. We realize the water in the river of life is always pure and we ourselves are polluting the water and the moment we stop adding impurities to the water, the river is clean. We do not need to make any efforts to make the water clean, rather we just need to stop efforts to pollute water.
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