Every day, while walking, I see many street dogs lying carelessly on the street. As if they are the kings of the street. The younger ones are even more carefree. Each vehicle on the street knows that they have to manoeuvre its way between these dogs. Their sense of freedom is really infectious. On the other hand, I see so many people going to the office every morning. Cars move bumper to bumper. The time on Google Maps keeps increasing as I'm on my way. Nobody knows where all this traffic is coming from. Everybody gets irritated, and yet everybody has to come first in the race. All of us appear to be slaves to development. Is it evolution from Dog to Man, or does Man have to aspire to become Dog to gain that freedom?
Dog appears to be careless. But behind that carelessness lies extreme vigilance. The moment a dog smells any danger, he will run at speed and bark so loudly that even the strongest man on the street will panic. I hope each of us has witnessed that scene. Man is lost in thoughts. Thoughts of past and future. God gave him a brain full of intellect and memory. He filled that brain with the worries of the future and grudges of the past. It seems that this brain is the root cause of the problem. Is it really so?
A child in the street has no mobile or electronic appliance. He plays with his friends. He has an old bicycle tyre and has turned it into a toy. He makes the tyre move with a stick. He is racing with his friends. Who will run it fastest? The ecosystem is full of laughter and shouting. Bubbling with energy. On the other hand, a child has a laptop, a mobile, and the latest PlayStation. Sitting alone at home, he is busy with his mobile, watching shots for hours. Every new video is exciting, and he has been experiencing this excitement for hours, yet his face shows that he is quite exhausted. Why? Why is the child with no resources so full of energy while the child with a mobile is so exhausted? Is the mobile the reason?
The problem is neither with the human brain nor with the mobile. As we evolved, our brain evolved too. As we get a bigger home, we may fill the whole of the same with garbage. Or we may use the extra space to find new possibilities. To decorate the home creatively. Similarly, the human brain is more evolved. We may fill the same with the worries of the future and grudges of the past. Or we may use that as an effective tool to manifest ourselves. To do something creative. The boy innovated within his limited reach: a new mode of entertainment. The other boy, with a mobile, can also create and innovate with the mobile, laptop, and everything else he has. Human beings have far more possibilities to innovate than dogs. But because of our greed, we make our lives worse than a dog's.
So man does not need to aspire to become a dog to be free. Man just needs to recognise the greed that is making him worse than the dog. The moment a man realises that, he is free to explore and create. An exploration and creation that the dog can't even imagine in his dreams because man has developed that capacity over millions of years of evolution. It seems extremely sad to see that people live lives worse than those of dogs. We have more fear than the dog on the street, who actually has a very limited capacity and brain. It seems really sad to see people with everything in life living in such fear. What a waste of life. Who will tell them that all through their lives, whatever currency they have accumulated has been demonetised and is of no use. You can't even convert. You can't buy an ounce of peace and happiness by spending millions of rupees. But little awareness can change everything, and that little awareness can't reach us as long as we don't give it space. Space from maddening pursuit of pleasure.
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