Yesterday, I met many people. A young boy who is quite concerned about how to crack civil services while being in standard 8th, some grown-up children who have different conflicts and confusions, few friends, and some adults living in my hometown. I also saw many workers, carpenters, shopkeepers, and fruit vendors. I was amazed to see that people have carved out their comfort zones wherever they are. They have preferred comfort and stability over growth.
I think we human beings have a very natural tendency to grow both worldly and spiritually. We want to explore new cities, new countries, and different cultures, and gain different types of knowledge. We also want to grow spiritually and want to know about ourselves and the purpose of life. Both these instincts are quite natural among the kids. They want to explore every material object they encounter and also ask questions about life and God. However, as we grow up, society starts confining our choices. We should concentrate on the syllabus and look at anything else. We should believe in the "theory of God" that they have been believing and discard all other theories. Our truth slowly and gradually becomes singular.
As we grow up, most of our choices are decided by the "single source of truth" being our society. We make decisions about careers based on the preferences of society for different careers. Our career choices are highly influenced by the choices of our parents. We marry a person who is more suitable to our family and society has a similar thought process, and mostly belongs to the same caste and religion. We make friends with people having similar thought processes and slowly our truth becomes more and more singular as we grow up. To the extent that adults start fighting among themselves defending their own "mental stories" told them by their societies, when they encounter different "mental stories" told to other people by their societies who too have a similar conviction in their mental stories.
This "single source of truth" gives us a lot of comfort. If we don't challenge it, we are accepted by the society. We become "good" in the eyes of the society. Another stupid in the herd of stupids is always welcome. Any person who challenges stupidity is a potential threat to everybody. That's why society crucified Jesus and killed Socrates. Nobody likes to have such a threat to existence and therefore accepting what society says is quite an easy choice.
We generally choose comfort over growth. In the physical world, we choose stability over challenges. In a spiritual world, we choose quick answers over the questions. That is why we are what we are. We become so weak that we try to every challenge and every question, We would accept the broken roads and filthy ecosystem because we do not want to raise the issues. We are too afraid to raise the issues. We accept whatever rubbish society tells us about God and our purpose of life rather than enquiring about the same. It's too easy to listen to some story from some self-proclaimed guru rather than make an effort to read the scriptures and realize the truth ourselves. This obsession with the comforts makes our lives quite narrow, limited, and routine waiting for a crisis and when that crisis comes, we become restless and start cursing the same God that we have created in our minds quite stupidly. And yet we do not grow any more intelligent and get back to the same routine. That's why it feels so good when I meet young kids whose real-life questions and willingness to take up challenges have not been killed by this brutal society.
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