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How we look at the game of Life

We often feel hurt. We feel that so-and-so person has caused us harm. He has deceived us or cheated us. There remains a lingering pain in our heart regarding some event where a friend did not support us in a bad time, children did something that we did not expect them to do, a trustworthy colleague revealed something that we told him in confidence, or there is a breach of commitment by somebody close to us. It's difficult to bear the pain. Especially if we continue to live with the person, the hurt is all the more difficult to bear because every time we see that person's face, we recall the incident and feel hurt again and again.

So far so good. Going by the same logic, Lord Ram should feel hurt by Mata Kaikeyi every day he spends in the forest. He should feel hurt when Mata Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, and he has to go through the entire rigmarole of searching for Sita and attacking Lanka. It means every minute of his Vanvaas of 14 years, he should feel hurt. Had that been the case, Ram would not have become what He is. Not because people like forgiving is an attribute, but because Ram was intelligent. Ram understood the meaning of life from the very beginning. He had long discussions with Sage Vashishtha and Vishwamitra about the meaning of life, which is well documented in the Yog Vashistha. He understood the difference between the "play of the ego" and "the call of the soul".

The ego separates us from the rest of the universe. It fixates us on what we have. The properties, titles, community, ideas, and beliefs. It seeks to preserve what we have and achieve what we want. In the process, it forms numerous expectations from others. We invest time and energy in our children and expect them to behave in a particular way. That's why we feel hurt when they do something against our expectations. We feel hurt. We spend a lot of time and energy with our friends, and that's why we feel hurt when they don't stand by us in our bad times. It is a feeling similar to an investment going bad. It so happens because we have a very flawed understanding of life. We imagine life to be meaningful when we have reached certain heights in our career, or accumulated a certain amount of wealth or power. That's the play of ego.

On the other hand, the call of the soul is all about the action we like. Ram's call of soul is to fight for justice, and that's what he did all his life, whether fighting against Vali or fighting against Ravan. That's why it did not matter to him what Kaikeyi did. When we face tough situations, a strong egoist will look for solutions in the world rather than blame others for their fate. A weak, egoistic person will start blaming others. But a person who listens to the call of his soul will take it as a new challenge, and since he enjoys the process, he will enjoy the new game of life. When we play a video game that we enjoy, we don't get disturbed by the new challenge thrown at us. Rather, we enjoy the new challenge. We enjoy playing the game, so we are not bothered by the scorecard. Similarly, a person who enjoys playing the game of life would welcome new challenges rather than blame others or feel hurt. We may feel hurt or feel thrilled with the same event. It all depends on how we look at the game of life.

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