We are so stuck with our daily routine that it is almost impossible to look beyond the routine. Yey, it is also a fact that life is precious. We have so many responsibilities for our families. We have to arrange money for the education of our kids, for their marriage, for our own old age, and the contingencies. For all these things, the job provides necessary finances, and therefore, we have to stick to the job. While we do the job, we have to listen to the employer and put in hard work, and that takes away a major portion of our lives.
On the face of it, these arguments look quite convincing, and it appears that nobody can get out of the trap. With little awareness, we can break our "responsibilities" into pieces. The first part of our "responsibility" is about the essential things. For example, to arrange food, shelter, clothes, growth opportunities, and the safety of the family. There is no doubt about these. The second part of our "responsibility" is about the things that we feel essential, but may not be essential. For example, food may be basic food such as dal, rice, roti, sabji, or it may be eating out in five-star hotels. Both will have very different costs, and therefore, unless we remain absolutely aware, our minds may deceive us by mistaking the cost of such outings as essential. Similarly, the price of the houses may vary from a few lakhs to hundreds of crores. Our minds may deceive us by mistaking a lavish house for our responsibility. Similarly, the education of kids may be quite cheap or expensive depending on the university. We may like to give the best education to our kids, and therefore our minds may tag the cost of education at a famous university as a necessity.
I feel that the first thing that is very easy to observe is that life is limited. Death is just around the corner. Now, whatever limited time we have, we have to decide the best utilisation of the same. Secondly, we need to be authentic in our understanding of the purpose of life. Whether we want to have some pleasant sensations and that's all, or we want to dive deeper and live a life full of love, freedom, compassion, and exploration. In the first case, we would try to get those pleasant sensations through good food, a comfortable home, the latest electrical equipment, expensive cars, video games, social media, social validation, name, and fame. In the second case, we would realize the temporariness of the pleasant sensations, and therefore, the need for all these external possessions would reduce. When our actions are driven by love, compassion, and freedom, we feel contented, and therefore our dependency on external possessions to feel happy gets reduced significantly. The size of our home, the brand of clothes, the make of the car, the school of the kids, and what people say about us actually do not matter much. What matters is whether we are free to think and express what we think, and whether we can connect to at least a few people we interact with at the core of their hearts. In fact, when we are connected to our inner selves, we connect to others quite naturally.
As we start connecting to our inner selves, we can clearly distinguish between our "responsibilities" and "greed". We do realize quickly that we were justifying many of our "greed," giving them the name of our responsibilities. In fact, the whole concept of greed undergoes a significant change. The same greed that appears quite tempting suddenly looks quite burdensome. The cost appears so high. We get to realize the futility of investing in too expensive possessions and social validation. We get to become aware that the time and energy we spend in earning all these possessions, or getting the name and fame, is not worth it. We have far better utilization of that time and energy. We realize the temporariness of the pleasant sensations supplied by these external possessions and social validation, and also realize that most things in this world that are really worth it are free. Love and freedom have no cost.
The mind is quite deceptive and plays many tricks. However, we possess an inherent power of "awareness." The moment we stay aware, we can recognize the tricks our minds play on us. We can easily see how our minds attempt to disguise our greed as responsibility. We can also clearly see the temporariness of all pleasant sensations, and thus understand that greed can never be satisfied; it only increases with every effort to fulfill it. Moreover, we observe that the more we cling to "greed," the more uneasy we feel because we distance ourselves from our inner self. In contrast, we notice that actions driven by love, freedom, and compassion bring us true happiness. We come to realize that love, freedom, and compassion are our natural state and require no effort to maintain. When we become aware, our "responsibilities" do not hinder our inner journey; instead, we fulfill our "responsibilities" with love, freedom, and compassion. It simply takes a little awareness to see through our mental interpretation of "responsibilities" and discover a new meaning that supports our inner journey rather than obstructing it.
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