I don’t know why life has become so busy. Everybody is running around, as if trying to achieve something great the whole day long, yet feeling depleted and dissatisfied at the end of the day. Organisations have become mad places to work. Almost everybody is busy pursuing multiple targets at the same time, without knowing whether any of them are relevant to the organisation's growth. People want to become the kings of social media with millions of likes and followers, without ever contemplating the true value of these likes. People want to have thousands of friends on Facebook without ever realising what friendship really means. People just want to attend one party after another, without ever thinking that the happiness of attending the last party did not last even 24 hours.
Why have we become so mindless? Probably because this is a significant difference between the word "Pre 2000" and today’s world, which is full of electronic devices, like mobile laptops, Video games, and notepads. We are spending more and more time on the screen than ever in the entire history of humanity. Almost everything is available on the screen. We can order food from many restaurants to eat. We can order dresses, groceries, and anything we want. The gratification is instant, choices are infinite, and there is hardly any effort required for such instant gratification. We can listen to the music we like with a click of a button and keep shuffling effortlessly among the songs. We can get whatever information we want with a click of a button, with no effort. We can effortlessly carry out financial transactions in our bank account through our mobile application.
Each one of us has a Genie in his pocket in the form of a mobile phone, and we can order whatever we would like to consume. In such a scenario, there is no compulsion to have a time lag between the moment we desire and the moment we get to consume the thing we desire. We can keep creating desires, and the Genie is ready, nonstop, day and night, to grant whatever we want. There is hardly any leisure or free time when we are away from the Genie. We hardly have any time to think about the meaning of life and what we are here for. We hardly think about the Deep questions of life, and our entire daily schedule is filled with either mindless work or the satisfaction of our senses. In fact, we work mindlessly so that we get uninterrupted services of the Genie who keeps satiating our desires.
In such a scenario, people behave like robots programmed to keep doing the repeated tasks mindlessly. There is a silent exploitation of almost everybody. People are deprived of the true joy of life. They are fixated on objects of instant Gratification. There would be plenty of objects of sensual gratification available in Lanka, and most people would be happy enjoying the same. However, some people, like Vibhishana, would retain their aspiration for the divine and keep struggling their entire lives to find Ram. The pleasures of Lanka would appear meaningless to Vibhishana. Obviously, he would be insulted by Ravan day in, day out, until they meet Ram. Until then, they have to go through the hell which sounds like heaven to most people who have succumbed to the temptations of the material world. A scientist is not satisfied with the praise, medals, and prizes he wins if he feels that he has not been able to understand the truth. Similarly, a person who aspires to live a life of truth, freedom, and exploration can never be happy living life like a robot. It's difficult to be Vibhsiahana in Lanka, to be human in a world full of robots, and to have depth in a world full of superficiality. Fulfilling life is not easy. Yet, anybody whose locus is that fulfilment will never be able to choose superficiality. That's the price of seeing through. Once we see through the superficiality, we can never live like robots. Do we dare to see through?
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