When Ram decided to leave Ayodhya to honor his father's words, was there a thought about Sita? He was newly married, and Sita would have been left alone. When Sita decided to accompany her husband to the forest, had she given a thought about her safety in the forest? When Krishna decided to leave Brij, did he think about Radha and his friends? When Mahatma Gandhi decided to leave his job and fight for freedom, did he think about his family?
Conflicts are part and parcel of our lives. How do we make decisions while facing these conflicts? Conflict between the comforts of home and the temptation of a good education in a university abroad, conflict between the security of the present job and pursuing our passion, conflict between continuing a relationship that's not working, and dropping the same and moving ahead, conflict between eating tempting food that gives immediate pleasure, and helthy food that makes us feel better after some time, or conflict between listening to what society says, and what our heart tells us. We face one or the other conflict almost every day. Conflicts indicate that we are not sure. We are not sure about which option is better. In fact, we are not sure about what we want in our lives, or to put it in other words, what life is all about.
There is a meaning of life that has been communicated to us since our childhood. Depending on the growth of the parents, different meanings are communicated to the kids from their childhood. In an insecure society like ours, most parents tell their kids day in and day out that they have to first settle down. Settling down means that they have to get an education from a good college. The sole purpose of education is to get you a good job. A good job means a job that offers a very fat pay package. Once you get a job, you immediately have to get married. Once you get married, you immediately have to have a kid (in some families, you have to get a male child to get settled). After the first child, you have to get a sibling for the first child. Then you have to work like a bonded labourer to ensure the same education, job, marriage, and kids for your kids. You try to ensure at least the same standard of living for your kids as your own. By that time, you are exhausted. Now you can die peacefully. To lubricate the machinery, you get a few doses of social validation of being a good son, daughter, wife, husband, father, and family man. You also get a few doses of pleasure in the form of food that satiates your taste buds, go to some places that please your eyes, and get some possessions that make your skin comfortable. We also get the pleasure of being a part of the crowd, the society, and feel secure.
So far, so good. Most people follow the rules of society, and there are hardly any major conflicts. Like an electron, one keeps orbiting around the nucleus, and then dies. The problem comes when someone gets to observe this trap. The moment one gets to see it as a trap, one becomes desperate to understand the reality, the meaning of life. He questions Yama like Nachiketa. Yama tries to tempt him in different ways, and most people get tempted. Somebody joins some baba to learn some black magic, somebody joins some cult to shift to another blind faith, someone reads a lot of scriptures to become intelligent enough to prove his point, citing the sayings of the scriptures. The fundamental quest is lost in the process.
The years of conditioning lie deep in our unconscious, and even if we logically decide to escape the trap, the unconscious maintains a strong grip on the conscious mind. It plays tricks, causing us to feel responsible for our family while failing to understand that the family has made a conscious choice to stay in the trap. We fear the unknown, not realizing that the journey is fundamentally about exploring the unknown, and that is the most beautiful part of the experience. Although we are uncertain because the destination is unknown, we overlook that the known is, in fact, a trap. This creates conflicts—conflicts rooted in a lack of conviction. We are unsure about our experiences when we finally break free from the trap. Arjuna is uncertain about the consequences of entering the battle. Our brains have been conditioned to always set targets based on results. It goes against our basic instincts to seek security and certainty. We want plans A to Z to feel safe. What we fail to recognize is that spiritual life cannot begin until we shed our conditioning. It's not an entertainment movie where we go camping for a few days and return fully energized and rejuvenated to run faster. It is about realizing the fundamental truths of our existence, achieving complete awareness of our unconscious, and, in fact, killing Ravana and coronating Vibhishana in our unconscious "Lanka." When both the unconscious and the conscious are equally illuminated, there is complete clarity, and no conflicts exist.
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