Right from getting up in the morning to falling into bed fully tired, everything is fully packed. We follow a similar routine almost every day. I don't really understand why. This Earth, which could have been such a beautiful place, has turned into a treadmill where everybody is running aimlessly. It's like a production line where everybody enters as a raw material, "educated" by schools and colleges, "conditioned" by society and parents to follow the norms and belief systems of society, "frightened" by insensitivity and uncertainty all around, "motivated" to accumulate the resources to allay fears, and to ensure that nobody revolts, "primed" with certain sensula pleasures.
There are three fundamental pillars of this structure: fear, belief, and pleasure. Society inflicts fear in the minds of kids from a very early age. If you do not study, you will be a failure. If you do not listen to your parents and elders, you will commit a sin. If you do not follow the traditions and customs of society, you will be ostracized. If you do not get a good job, you will be unhappy. If you do not marry, you will always be unhappy. There are thousands of such fears which are instilled in the minds of young children, much before they develop the free thinking to discriminate between right and wrong. Parents are so fearful that their kids will stop listening to them and, therefore, want to somehow control their thought process hurriedly. Society is equally afraid of any revolt and therefore wants to catch children early to take them into its trap by indoctrinating them with its widely held fears about life.
Beliefs are very robust tools of indoctrination. Most beliefs have been given a flavour of religion so that nobody can question them. In fact, it is often told in almost every religious discourse that we need to have a firm belief in the existence of God or a Guru. I fail to understand how a belief can lead us to the realization of reality. What is the difference between a person having a strong belief that money is everything in life and another person having a strong faith that God is the savior of this world? Aren't both equally blind? If somebody has a realization, there is no need for any faith or belief, and if somebody does not have the realization, faith and belief in any and everything are equally blind. However, we are so afraid of uncertainty that we somehow want quick certainty, and that's where faith and beliefs become handy to us. If we can't find the reason behind the Earth hanging in space, we may very well make a story that some God is holding it in His hand or some animal is holding it on its back.
Pleasure is the lubricant that is required to keep this production line moving without friction. Wherever people feel tired of the routine and there is resistance, people are primed with pleasure. Enjoy the food, travel, holidays, comforts, and luxuries. It is a fact that every sensory pleasure leaves us more discontented after its experience, and yet this priming works very well. People work hard to get rewards in terms of money so that they can buy all the comforts. People sacrifice their freedom so easily to get money. They are ready to become slave in their offices to get a few extra bucks in their pocket.
Since our brains are conditioned from a very early age, it is challenging to recognize the interplay of fears, beliefs, and the desire for pleasure within us. Yet, we all face moments when we must introspect about what has gone wrong. Most of us spend our lives orbiting like electrons in a fixed path around the nucleus, waiting to become exhausted and die our natural death. Some of us are more "aware" and encounter moments in our lives when things don’t make sense, prompting us to begin our journey to understand reality and, in the process, recognize the interplay of fears, beliefs, and pleasure. However, these elements are so deeply rooted that, even when we become aware of their interplay, we often lack the courage to cross the ocean and reach the "Lanka" of our unconscious mind. We may speak beautifully and sensibly, but beneath that, the demons from the unconscious mind continue to drive our decisions. Only a few truly find the courage and wisdom to cross that ocean, confronting the unconscious mind and ultimately slaying the inner Ravana. This inner ignorance is not easy to eliminate, as it takes many forms and possesses ten heads like Ravana. It keeps returning in different shapes. We must hit the arrow at the navel; the very foundation of ignorance must be destroyed. We have to be aware of the genesis of our fears and beliefs, and only then can we rid ourselves of them. Only "awareness" can guide us in this process.
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