Yesterday, I had the opportunity to watch a magical stage show about Meerabai's life. It was an excellent show performed by accomplished and passionate artists and very well organised by Rishi Chaitanya Ashram. Each and every aspect of the show was very well thought out and perfectly executed.
Two questions came to my mind. First, why did the parents of Meerabai not support her quest for spirituality? Why would they pray to Krishna and resist if their daughter wants to devote her life to the Bhakti of Krishna? What is the relationship between the parents and the kids? I can understand that the parents have not grown beyond the social validation, and they want to conform to the social convention. Since one of the social conventions is that it is the duty of the parents to get their kids married, the parents of Meerabai are quite keen to get her married. However, can't they see what is good for their kids? Can't they read what's written inside the heart of Meerabai, and if they can't read, where is love in that relation? If there is no love in the relationship between the parents and the kids, which other relationship in this world is based on love? If our kids have the same inclination, will we support our kids or resist that? I feel that's a bitter question all the parents need to ask themselves. If the answer is no, then why do we make Meerabai an ideal? In that case, her story should be told in a very different way so that children do not take inspiration from her character. Why this duality in society? Why do our ideals not match our actions?
I know that it is a very difficult question since in most cases, we do not love our children and rather treat them as trophies to get social validation. When there is a conflict between the life purpose of the children and our greed for social validation, generally, social validation wins. That is why so many Bollywood movies are based on the theme of love being resisted by the parents, either due to the difference in social status, caste, religion, or any other reason. It is because the identification of the parents with their society is much stronger than their love for their kids. The parents are not willing to re-examine their limited frame of life. They keep standing on their mount stupid, and since the children are not so strong, generally children fall into the trap mostly due to the strong sense of obligation they feel towards their parents. Is that love or manipulation? How can the parents of Meerabai not see what Krishna means to Meerabai? It can happen only when parents have never connected to the soul of the kids. Probably because their fixation on social validation is so strong.
It's not about Meerabai alone. Meerabai is being suffocated in almost every home. Kids have different orientations and passions for life. Their passion is being killed by their parents to fulfill their ambitions of having a super achiever at home. Almost everybody wants the kids to clear IIT. IIM and Civil Services without ever examining what the kids want to do. What is their passion for life. That is why most people are living a robotic life, and joy has disappeared from their lives, and mental diseases are at their peak. Since the country is running short of psychiatrists, there is a mushrooming of babas who can sell some placebos to the masses at a cheap price, and people spend their entire life taking these mass drugs of blind belief.
The other question that comes to my mind is what gave conviction to Meerabai to be sure about what exists in the domain of the unknown. She will courageously rebel against all the social norms in the worst of the situations. A society which is very rigid, and her husband died, and as per the prevalent social convention, she was supposed to be Sati. What gave her the courage to defy all the social conventions? I don't know what comes first: whether it is the realization of the futility of the artificiality or the awareness of the real? Probably Meera realized the futility of these social conventions and materialistic pleasures, and she was quite sure that her life purpose was not to live for their pleasures. Or she had those faint glimpses of divinity that she found too attractive, that she decided to challenge all the social conventions. What I can see with my experience is that it's a constant process. If one is aware, one is constantly reminded of the futility and temporariness of the worldly pleasures, and as soon as one drops a few of them, the empty space is filled by the divine grace.
Unless we examine and observe the reality behind the scenes, in every aspect of our lives, we will never realize the temporariness of the world. The world will continue to appear solid and permanent, and we will keep running after mirages created by this world. Only when we observe reality dispassionately, we get to see the reality of the world. As we see the reality, we drop a part thereof that looks quite burdensome. That dropping creates space, and that space allows entry of the divine. As we come into direct contact with the divine, we get to experience the joy of that connection, and more of the attraction of a few more worldly pleasures drops, which creates more space. I feel that it is a constant process, and slowly in the process, our dependence on the "social drugs" disappears, and we become capable of loving and being "free" of deep-rooted desire for social validation. That freedom makes us capable of "loving" our kids and seeing what they want in their lives. What is their life purpose, and as parents, we help them connect to that rather than making our kids trophies to get social validation for ourselves.
Comments