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Joy of Living

I often wonder why some people live life full of love and compassion for all, while many live life full of fear, hatred, and jealousy. Is that a choice or destiny? I don't think anybody likes the negative emotions and yet we experience these negative emotions. Is it our destiny or a result of the choices we make?

It appears to me that the most fundamental choice we make each and every moment is to believe what society tells us unquestioned or to examine the same with an open mind. Examination requires effort and believing is easy. In fact, believing is natural. We are all born with mirror neurons that help us mirror what we see or listen to. We learn languages, walking, talking, etc. by mirroring what we look around. We do not question whether the way parents are walking is correct or not. We just mirror the same. We do not question the language parents and society speak and mirror the same. A Chinese baby born and brought up in Delhi in a Hindi-speaking society will naturally pick Hindi. That's what is happening with the NRI kids who do not know how to speak Hindi. Thus mirroring has great evolutionary utility. 

However, the same tool, which is quite helpful to make us stand on our feet and communicate with society becomes a handicap when it comes to the spiritual growth of human beings. Mirroring puts us at par with the evolution of society so far. We get to know the language and the literature that the society has explored so far. There are two distinct problems with mirroring in the path of spiritual growth. Firstly, since by and large society is busy with sensual desires, it has deliberately disregarded the ones who explored the spiritual path either by making them God so that we do not dare to be like them or by throwing them to the sidelines. This is not for the young people. The spiritual path is for the old post-retirement. These are the general preachings by almost the entire society without ever understanding the ABCD of the spiritual path like an illiterate person pretending to be a doctor. 

Secondly, and more importantly, spirituality is all about understanding the truth. Since everybody has experienced life and the truth behind it in a limited way, based on one's experiences, mirroring somebody's experiences is not going to lead us anywhere near to reality. We can get inspired by the ones who have moved on the path, but we have to carve out our own path. It is because every human being has a different constitution. Ramakrishna explored reality by taking different paths under the guidance of different guides using Tantra, Vedanta, and Bhakti. Paramhansa Yogananda had a very different path and got guidance from Yukteshwara ji. J Krishnamurti was initially associated with theosophical society and then decided to disband the same and devised a very different way to explore. Aurobindo could go deep into the inner self and write down his realizations in the form of different books. Everybody moving on the path has a very different way of looking at the same reality. We have to carve out our own path and mirroring will not be much helpful. 

Mirroring is easy. We need not make much effort for the same. It gets validated by the society since almost everybody is doing the same. Running after the pleasures, avoiding pain, and in the process getting exhausted almost every day either with the overdose of pleasure or apprehension of the pain and moving towards unavoidable death each day with a lot of fear and anxiety. That's normal. Mirroring will make us the same. We make a choice each moment to take the easy path of mirroring rather than observing the truth behind the appearances. since we make a choice not to be aware, the consequences follow us too. The more we get fixated on pleasures of different kinds the more we become fearful of losing them. We want to accumulate more and more wealth and power to ensure the perpetuity of these pleasures not only for us but for our kids and other family members failing to realize that each successive dose of pleasure diminishes its marginal utility and that we need higher and higher doses making it almost impossible to ensure the continuous supply of these pleasures and by the time we realize that its too late. That's how life is. 

My daughter who was reading this while I was writing the same told me that Papa it's never too late to be aware. Yes, that's true that it is never too late to be aware, however, it is also not intelligent to be too late. Intelligence demands to get rid of laziness as soon as possible and be aware of the truth. Observe the truth and come out of the narrowness. They say that the taste of the pudding is in eating. Similarly, the joy of life is in living: not with a narrow pursuit of pleasures that we are fixated on, but to explore the wide potential of life with wisdom, love, and compassion. 

Comments

dharani..." said…
"...it's never too late to be aware." Very well said. So very true.
April 10, 2024 at 7:31 PM
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