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Is Life all about conforming to the standards?

All of us participate in many meaningless events. Sometimes such meaningless events are organised in the offices, and sometimes in society. We understand that it is a sheer wastage of time and an ugly demonstration of our own lack of character and integrity, and yet we participate in these events. Why? Because we lack the courage and conviction to stand. Why don't we have the courage to stand? Because we are full of fears. Some people are so consumed by fear that they participate in and even glorify these meaningless events. Some will participate and justify them. Some will criticise them and yet participate. 

I have seen so many people murmuring that they do not wish to attend the marriage functions, but they have to. It is because they also wish for the presence of a crowd when their kids get married. They consider it to be prestigious. What is prestige? Is it about the numbers attending the party thrown by us? No. If so, let us organise a Bhandara, and there will be thousands who will come to have food. We want the presence of people "respected" by society. Who are these "respected" people? They are the "ones" who have achieved all the standards set by society. They are rich, occupy powerful positions, and are able to influence social discourse. 

The stronger the inner disconnection, the stronger the fear. The stronger the fear, the stronger the desire to conform to the social standards. While we conform to social standards to get that validation, we conform to the organisational standards to rise above the escalation matrix and to reach higher positions and ensure a smooth livelihood. That's why we are not able to say no to something absolutely stupid. The more we accept that stupidity, the weaker and more fearful we become. Every time, it is more difficult to take a stand because we have conformed on so many occasions and taking a stand will mean washing away the entire credit that exists to our account. It's easy to conform, and that's why we never take that stand. 

Life appears to be easy when we conform. However, on the contrary, it is quite difficult. Every time we conform to stupidity, we move away from reality. Moving away from the true self makes us vulnerable and fearful. A fearful existence is not easy to handle. If a person seeks money support to handle that inner hollowness, that dependency on money, after a time, haunts him every day. The same is the case with relationships and power. Whether we acknowledge it or not, all these things are quite temporary. People are giving a huge premium to health nowadays, failing to realise that death is the ultimate reality. Whatever one tries, old age is just around the corner. We may run away from reality, taking the support of anything under the Sun, the same thing that we took support from is going to haunt us very soon. That's the law of nature. Finally, everyone will have to realise the nature of reality. We have to realise that life is a tool given to us, not to get fixated on that and forget our true nature. Rather, the purpose of life is to remember "who we are" and then to use this tool to the best of its capacity and play with infinite possibilities, the way Krishna played. 

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