We have been playing the game we learnt from our society during our childhood. We are also surrounded by people who are equally busy playing the same game. We are conditioned to live with a deep sense of insecurity since our very childhood. Insecurity which is an outcome of so many mental stories woven together. Darkness is threatening to us because we have heard stories of ghosts, and therefore, believing in God feels safe. God will protect us from evil forces. We fear being bullied, and therefore, we make friends who stand with us when we are being bullied. We feel insecure being alone. What will happen if there is a medical emergency? Who will take me to the hospital? We maintain good relationships with our neighbours to ensure we have the assurance of help in emergencies. We have been told since the beginning that it's not easy to live alone, and therefore, we marry someone who will stay with us in our old age. We are somehow made to believe that wealth gives us happiness through widespread propaganda and vulgar demonstrations of wealth, and we become full of fear, thinking of a situation where we are deprived of that precious "happiness" due to a shortage of money, and we keep running madly in the race to make more and more money.
On the other hand, we also catch glimpses of purity. Parents love us beyond themselves. Their self-interest takes a back seat when it comes to children. They taste anything good and would like their children also to taste the same. We get friends with whom we share without any boundaries or judgments. We follow our passion. Trekking, writing, reading, painting, dancing, singing, and so many more things are fun. Time just flies when we follow our passion. We also see acts of compassion in society. Some people feel so connected to a cause that they challenge all their fears to follow their heart. We see examples of people working for animals, the environment, the poor, children and women despite all the odds. We also see many examples of people getting over their insecurities and fears, fighting for freedom. The freedom struggle of India is one such example, where very young people like Bhagat Singh did not care for their lives for the freedom of the country.
No person on this Earth can claim to be completely fearless. We all keep penduling between insecurity and purity. Sometimes, we are full of courage. Love and freedom are our guiding forces, and the very next moment, we may be full of fear and insecurity. Fears and insecurities are so deeply carved into our psyche that we keep designing new tools and methods to control our lives. The more fear we have around money and the more we try to be sure of financial stability. The more fear we have of losing relationships, the more we try to dominate and assert exclusivity in our relationships. The more we are afraid of social approval, the more we try to capture the higher positions, and the more we invest in our social image. The more we are afraid of judgments, the more we pretend and the less authentic we are.
How will a person, whose entire existence is rooted in deep insecurity, taste purity? A fearful mind rejects any such idea very quickly. It's a defence mechanism of the mind. A person who has been constantly exploited by his own family members is not going to trust anybody easily. It is because that very trust in family members has proved to be a threat to his survival. That's why a fearful person builds a shield around himself to protect his identity. Like a strong anti-virus software. However, on the one hand, the anti-virus prevents us from malware and cyber attacks; it has to be intelligent enough to allow access to the genuine websites, otherwise we will not be able to use the laptop. The purpose of human life is not to stay safe and die. It is to make the best use of this body and mind. The best use of this body and mind is possible when we connect to that purity. When our lives are driven by love, compassion, awareness, freedom, truth and exploration. That's why intelligence is the key. An intelligence that knows how to handle the fears and create space for exploration and creation driven by passion. Parents need to work on themselves so that they can sort out their lives, and children have an example to look forward to. The rest of the people are hardly concerned. A father can observe from heaven his child retiring in this world and see how "unconcerned" people are about his child. Nobody will tell that child the truth that his father could not tell. The child will die with the same mental stories that the father instilled into his mind. The worst thing parents can do for their children is not to help them preserve the "intelligence" they are born with.
Comments