When Putana, a demon, came to kill Krishna, she took the form of a beautiful mother and expressed her willingness to feed Krishna. Maricha also took the form of a beautiful deer to deceive Rama so that Ravana could kidnap Sita. Ravan also took the form of a Saadhu to kidnap Sita. In fact, all the demons enter our lives taking the form of comforts and pleasures. If we are aware like Krishna, we do not fall into their trap. If we are a little unaware like Sita, we fall into their trap and have to go through the resultant pain.
The entire society is like a marketplace, full of different products promising us pleasure and comfort. If we do not ask the right questions, as an aware customer, we are bound to get cheated. As a child, we see every other child celebrating his birthday. It appears to us as if celebrating our birthday is a big fun and we get so many gifts and get the attention of everybody who comes to celebrate our birthday. We keep our eyes closed and do not see the trap. We get into the trap of birthday parties and continue craving for the same for almost the whole of our lives. If somebody does not wish us a birthday, he or she looks like an enemy. We fail to realize that seemingly innocent birthdays have grown into big monsters that need time, money and energy to be spent and have become so central to our existence that each year, we spend countless hours just attending the birthday parties where we end up wasting our precious time.
As a child, we see such a heavy advertisement for careers and jobs that we get tempted by the same. We spend countless hours working hard to get admission into IITs and IIMs or to become doctors. Big dreams are sold at every counter. As if once a student gets into IIT, IIM, or a government college, his life will become heaven. We once again keep our eyes closed and again get into the trap. We invest countless hours in studying and get into college to realize that it is just a trap. After completing the courses, students get into the trap of routine jobs that they do not like. However, they can neither chew the same nor leave the same.
The problem with human beings is that they are habitual fools. We keep getting fooled repeatedly by the market of pleasures and yet keep running after new products. The most fundamental reason for this foolishness is a lack of awareness. We do not stay aware of the tricks that salesmen are playing in the market. Secondly, we do not connect to our inner world and therefore keep looking in the outside world for happiness that does not exist in the outside world. Clever salesmen can well very read the human psyche and keep selling their products for the small margin they get out of the sales.
The next product on the cards is marriage. Parents want to marry their child soon before the child is ready for marriage probably in a hurry to have a workable arrangement with the would-be daughter-in-law or in a hurry to discharge their responsibility. The poor "child" unable to understand the nuances gets trapped in marriage and faces the music for his or her lifetime. Of course, the child too is tempted by the "so-called benefits" of the marriage and therefore gets ready for the same. In fact, in today's world, children are more tempted by the benefits rather than the parents. Marriage has its own cycle of kids and responsibilities as a parent and when we take this decision without being fully aware of the consequences and responsibilities, it backfires. The perceived pleasure of marriage soon turns into real pain.
The same deception takes place with all other perceived pleasures such as social validation, power, prestige, positions, knowledge, and so on. All these are just traps. The moment we are caught unaware, they deceptively enter into our lives and take over our lives. We get addicted to them and fall into the trap of fear of losing them. The nature of pleasure is just like a drug and as we get used to drugs, it's difficult to leave them. Even if there is a firm determination to get out of the trap, we have to undergo the painful withdrawal symptoms. However, in most cases, it's rare to develop even that willingness to come out of the addiction. All the more because these are socially validated addictions. The entire society not only supports but promotes that we stay attached to all these pleasures the whole of our lives and die purposelessly.
Neither our parents nor the society is our enemy. They are not stupid either. Then what is the reason that the entire society is trapped in the cycle of pleasure and pain and sets the same trap for the next generation? That's because of the deception of pleasure. Each pain has a very beautiful outer covering. The package looks very attractive and therefore it's very difficult to see what is inside. More so because we have never connected inside. That is the reason why most parents have been deceived of so many pleasures that turn into pain as they grow, and they see the reality of that and therefore dissuade their kids from that path. However, since they never connect to their inner self, they still have the firm belief that there is no other way to live life than to have external motivations and aspirations. That is the reason why they sell the products that they have not experienced to the next generation which again falls into the trap of new products and the stupidity continues generation after generation.
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