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The Privileged Mind

पीरा नु मैं सीने लावां, ते मैं हसदी जावां

हो पीरा नु मैं सीने लावां, ते मैं हसदी जावां

धुप्पां दे नाल लड़ लड़ के, मैं लाभियाँ अपनीयां छावां

दुःख वि अपने सुख वि अपने, मैं ते बस एह जाना

सब नु समझ के की करना ऐ, दिल नु एह समझावां

तू झूम झूम झूम झूम, तू झूम झूम झूम झूम

I was listening to this song and thinking about what it means to embrace the "peeda," or the suffering. How would somebody embrace suffering and yet be happy and dance with happiness? How would somebody cope with the suffering? When I see the privileged kids and even adults complaining about little problems in life and giving up the drive for excellence for small problems in life, I feel sad that they will waste the potential of their lives due to their ignorance about the true meaning of life, coupled with stubbornness not to be open to exploring the true meaning of life.

Unless somebody learns to embrace the suffering, how will they realise their potential? Their entire life, they will keep running from pillar to post to make their life comfortable. So much time and energy will be wasted in maintaining that "bare minimum". That "bare minimum" that seems bare minimum to a privileged mind, while that's too much from a common standard. I wonder when Columbus and Vasco da Gama would have started their journeys into the deep ocean, into an unknown world, what would have been their "bare minimum"? When Lord Krishna decided to leave Mathura to fight Kansa, what would have been his "bare minimum"? When Lord Rama decided to leave Ayodhya to honour the words of his father, what would have been his "bare minimum"? When Gandhi ji decided to leave South Africa and come to India to participate in the freedom struggle, what would have been his bare minimum?

Had they all been fixated on their "bare minimum", they would have wasted their precious life in that "bare minimum". Have the biggest of industrialists and the most powerful politicians got their "bare minimum"? Are they still not running after money and power? The problem is that we will appreciate all these great personalities and then somehow term them "God" or "Great" so that our soul is not burdened by the moral pressure to do something like. We make them God and Great, and then we are free to be ordinary and keep running after that "bare minimum", all through our lives. 

The question is not about making a fool of people around. We can very easily make a fool of people by saying that all these great people were different from us, and therefore, we do not have to do anything like that. We are just ordinary people, and nothing like that is expected of us. However, the fact of the matter is that it is our life, and if the potential of life is 100 and we die at 10, we have wasted 90. We may be grossly dishonest with everybody around us, but not with ourselves. When we sit back 10 years from now and realise that we could have done 100 and have done only 10, how are we going to face ourselves? How will we handle that regret? All those years wasted by the privileged mind are not going to come back. That's why it is necessary to embrace the sufferings and keep growing. That's why we bow down even more, and that's why I relate so well to this song:

https://youtu.be/qUcaCYx0kzI?si=cqR23A-1J95g16XI


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