The problem of the present-day world is that people have built very strong ships which are navigating in the ocean. However, their GPS is spoofed. They have lost awareness of the meaning of life. It is because, since childhood, there has been no discussion on the purpose of life. The scriptures that may work like a lighthouse are destroyed. There is an ugly battle going on among the ships. They are just fighting the battles without knowing the reason thereof. The rich are mindlessly earning money by exploiting the poor because they have never tasted the joy of being free of the burden of money. The powerful are madly accumulating power. Just like an obese person weighing 200 Kg who has lost awareness of the joy of being light, keeps eating madly. It's high time we understood that our GPS is spoofed and made efforts to connect to the correct GPS signal. We have the strongest ships, even an aircraft carrier, but that's useless if its GPS is spoofed. Our scriptures, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, can serve as the correct GPS in this world full of chaos.
We see so much exploitation and aggression all around. The weak are constantly exploited by the powerful. The powerful just keep shuffling the targets. But why do all the well-meaning people keep suffering? Why do the powerful become so strong and exploitative? Why is there no check on exploitation? It is because the weak don't want to leave the little comfort they have. That's what happened precisely when India was enslaved by the British East India Company. People will not fight for their freedom out of fear of losing whatever little they have.
The ego is like the captain of a ship carrying a load of containers. When the ship gets threatened by the storm in the midst of the ocean, he will not mind throwing away some of the containers. For him, it is more important to save the ship because the survival of the captain and the whole crew depends upon it. The ego also operates the same way. It will always try to protect itself, whatever the price. Thus, the ego has certain identifications with the body of the ship and others with containers. While for some people, family is more important than their beliefs, and therefore they accept their children even if they marry across religions, for others, their beliefs are more important than family, and they give up their relationships with their children when they marry across religions. For some, their social image is very important, and that's why they lie and pretend easily to protect it, while others, who do not give a damn about their social image, are more upfront.
Almost everyone has an ego in one form or another. Some of us are very strongly attached to our family, some to our properties and wealth, some to pleasure and means of pleasure, some to our vehicles, some to our job or business, some to our beliefs, some to our social stature, some to our self-image of being good. Is the purpose of life limited to protecting this ego? What is the task assigned to the captain? Obviously, he has to protect the ship. But the ship is to be used to carry the containers from one place to another. If the captain becomes overly obsessed with the ship's safety, he will never take the ship into the deep ocean out of fear of strong storms. The ship will depreciate while being docked in a shipyard.
A good captain will understand the purpose for which the ship has been deployed under his command. He will not be afraid to fight the toughest storms if needed. What if there is a fleet of ships moving together? They will fight the storm together. Because they have a common purpose. Purpose connects all of them. That's how they support each other and gain overall strength. When we lose awareness of the meaning of life, we become overly obsessed with self-protection. We become narrow and limited. Somehow, trying to protect the ship, even if it is of no use and just rusted in the shipyard, its condition deteriorates with every passing day.
Comments