The known world looks very attractive. All of us would have watched the movie "Taare Zameen Par". When that child is sent to the hostel, how alone he feels. Remember the following scene?
https://youtu.be/Mdo_A1Bj67w?si=BWa0GyenkWN7u3Kb
This feeling is so familiar. When something dear to us is taken away. A good friend whom we loved wholeheartedly disappears from our lives. When we have to say goodbye to a very close person with whom we spent our whole lives. When the project we had been working on day in and day out is closed for no reason. When somebody is sacked from the job one fine day without any reason. When a doctor tells a person that he has been diagnosed with a terminal disease, and he has limited time to live.
Because we don't know what lies on the other side. Ishaan does not know what lies ahead in the hostel. He would not know that there would be a teacher like Nikumbh sir who would take such a keen interest in him and change the perspective of the whole world, including his parents, towards him. But he knows for sure that he would miss his mother's food, the comforts of home, his own room, and his mother's presence. When we bid farewell to somebody near and dear, we don't know what lies ahead, but we know for sure that we will miss spending lovely time with that person, the comfort of his presence, and feeling complete in his presence. When we are sacked, we don't know about the new job, but we know we'll miss the workspace, the colleagues, and the financial security. When the doctor tells us the news about the disease, we do not know what lies beyond this life, but we know that we would be missing what we had in this life. The home, family, friends, and whatever we had.
The feeling of sadness at losing something dear, coupled with fear of the unknown, is quite natural. But there is also a story of Yama and Nachiketa in the Katha Upanishad, where Nachiketa's father offers him to Yama, and when Nachiketa reaches Yama's city, Yama offers him all kinds of things from the known world. Wealth, comforts, a kingdom, and yet Nachiketa asks one single question: "Is this permanent?" He is not willing to accept anything less than the truth. Finally, Yama has to tell him the eternal truth. All of us know we have to leave this world very soon, yet we get so attached to so many things. Fixation on the known prevents our growth. A bird that falls in love with the cage can never fly.
But we do not know the unknown. How can we look forward to something that we do not know? Definitely not. We can't look forward to it. But we can definitely examine the known with an open mind. That's what Lord Ram did. That's what Gautama did. They examined what they had with an open mind and realised that happiness is just a mental story. They lost interest in what they had. As they lost interest in what they had, they were open to exploring. The openness to explore will not come until we live under the illusion that what we have and what we know is the end of the world. Unless we dissect our own mental stories about happiness and the purpose of life, we will not know the truth behind them, and by the time circumstances make us understand, it will be too late to explore them. Once Gautama looks through the mental stories people around him have formed, nobody can stop him from setting out on a journey for the search of meaning of life.
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