We often get confused while making choices. Which subject to study, which organization to join, whether to marry or not, whom to marry, whether to spend weekends for office work or not, where to buy a home, and so on. There is confusion at almost every stage of life. Arjuna is also confused while entering Kurukshetra's field. He wants to fight the battle but feels that fighting the battle against the Kauravas will be against the social norms. He feels that this will not have good results.
Probably all these confusions arise due to the headless framework of life. Somehow the understanding of of society about the purpose of life is quite shallow. We have discarded the grand ancient wisdom of life considering that to be a post-retirement hobby and unfortunately, we are not willing to retire till the last breath. We always want to remain young and keep running away from the reality.
Each one of us has a three-level hierarchy of goals. At the top comes the purpose of life which is exploration and growth with the understanding of the temporariness of everything we explore. This is difficult to understand unless we understand the true nature of self. This exploration takes place in different ways. The middle-level goals in our lives signify these different ways. For example, we may like to get an education in a particular stream and explore the world using that education stream. We may like to join some organizations to work and explore different possibilities to contribute to that organization. We marry a person and explore the possibilities of exploration with that person. We make friends with different people and invest in different relationships to explore life with them. Then we have the short-term goals such as the daily tasks to be performed.
I feel that confusion arises because we do not have the awareness of the top level in the goal hierarchy. This headless framework of life lands us in a situation where there are many middle-level goals such as taking care of the family and doing well in the office and we often get confused because there are "different narratives" going on at different places. In the office, the best performers are being appreciated and at home, everybody seeks more time and involvement. It appears as if everybody wants a pound of flesh and we are struggling to somehow survive. We keep shifting our priorities and in the process get exhausted and fall sick.
Confusion consumes a lot of energy. Arjuna can not fight the battle in a state of confusion. Duryodhana is not confused despite a headless framework of life. This is because of his obsession with a single middle-level goal to get the kingdom of Hastinapur. Arjuna is confused because there are many middle-level goals in his life. He wants to fight the battle with his brothers, and at the same time he does not want to fight the battle against his own cousins and other relatives, he wants to do what society considers to be right and thereby wants his actions to be validated by the society. Duryodhana's entire framework of life is built around his desire and greed while Arjuna's framework of life has expanded much beyond the desires and greed and and yet not found the purpose of life therefore the headless framework is creating confusion.
All of us who are interested in the spiritual pursuit are at the same stage where Arjuna is. We have the same types of confusion while making decisions in our day-to-day lives. We want social validation for our actions, want to contribute to the family and at the office, and at the same time have ambitions to reach different positions and become interested in money and power. Our focus keeps shifting among these goals till we get exhausted at the end of the day and sleep. In this confusion, we do not get a direction to move forward and like a boat stuck in a sea without a compass, we get lost and the huge waves of the world eat us away. The moment we calm our mind and take some time and energy off this turbulence and focus inwards, we get clarity on our purpose in life and that shows us the way like compass and rest of the middle-level goals get aligned to the top-level goal. There is no confusion and conflict since everything we do is to explore truth. That is what Krishna told Arjuna. Each of the actions is to be performed for Him. Do we have confusion in taking care of many family members? Not at all, because love is the primary force that binds all. Similarly, when love, compassion, freedom, truth, and awareness are at the top of the framework of life, there is hardly any confusion in life.
Comments