I sometimes wonder how come so few could realize what life is and move on the path of self-realization, while most of us live a routine life and die. Why is there Buddha only once in a millennium? Why is it so difficult to be like Aurobindo? Why is it so difficult to even appreciate what they have experienced and written? Why is there so much of a crowd in the Ashrams of the self-proclaimed gurus where the gurus offer cheap placebos to their disciples? Millions of people dance to the tune of these Gurus and close their minds to see the reality.
Probably, we are not ready to examine the fundamentals. The entire humanity has a fundamental belief system that the purpose of life is to have pleasure and avoid pain. Different people and societies take pleasure in different things. People take pleasure in food, strong bodies, clothes, beautiful homes, decoration, furniture, accumulation of wealth, comforts, electrical equipment, digital media, likes on social media, number of subscribers on social media, name, fame, power, positions, accumulation of knowledge, traveling to different places, validation from the society, and so on. Different people get pleasure from different things but there is almost consensus that the purpose of life is seeking pleasures. We also like to avoid pain. Pain is just the opposite of pleasure. Whatever we like, if taken away from us due to any situation, we experience pain. Some defects in the body, inability to get a good home, problems at the job, insult by somebody, lack of recognition of the hard work, criticism by society, and so on.
Whenever we experience any painful situation, we become restless and try to find a solution. If we have a problem with the body, we visit the doctor or get hospitalized. If there is a problem with the job or boss, we try to change the job. If there is a problem with the home we live in, we try to buy a better home. If people do not respect us, we try to grab higher positions. Whatever we do, we never challenge the fundamentals. The fundamental truth of our lives remains unexamined. We feel that certain things give us pleasure and we keep making efforts to get those things. Life is all about seeking more and more pleasure either from the material things or from the relationships. We constantly make efforts to be happier. However, we fail to realize that we were happiest in our childhood when there was no such goal post and we lived life as it came. We do not want to examine our own truth.
Probably, we have lived a false life for quite a significant part of our lives and now we are afraid to admit that. Admission would mean that we have wasted so much of our lives. It would also mean challenging everything that we have believed so far and we have neither the energy nor courage to do that. We somehow accept the defeat and live the rest of our lives pretending to know the purpose of life. The smarter ones (or bigger fools) keep one of their legs on the boat of material pursuits and the other leg on the boat of commercial enlightenment offered by some Guru. They feel that they will have the best of both worlds unable to realize that not only the gurus but they themselves are making fun of themselves. Unless we admit our foolishness, how can we become wise? Unless we observe the problems with the purpose of life taught by society and admit that our understanding was wrong, how can we correct the course of our lives? Unless we see that we have been running after a mirage, how can we connect to the real? Since people do not want to address the fundamental problem, that is why this society is full of fake gurus who just want to foolishly achieve their own hidden desires by making a fool of their disciples. Truth and falsity can not co-exist. The truth will emerge automatically when we drop fixation to the falsity.
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