All of us have three predominant emotions: fear, the pursuit of pleasure, and ambition. Fear is the strongest emotion. If we are afraid, we can't think of pleasure or ambition. If a doctor tells us that we have a terminal disease, or the lawyer tells us that the court is going to announce imprisonment very soon, the mind becomes full of fear. In those moments, thoughts of pleasure and ambition drop. There is a sort of competition between seeking pleasure and our ambition. Some choose pleasure, while some defer pleasure and follow their ambitions. They delay sensual gratification. Basically, these three fundamental emotions drive the whole of the world. All of us are motivated in different ways by these three fundamental emotions.
Where is the place for love, creation, and exploration? When fear, the pursuit of pleasure, or ambition takes over, is there any scope for love? Yes, maybe. In pre-independence India, almost every Indian feared the cruelty of imperial rulers. Yet many of them overcame their fear for the love of their country. Many chose freedom over slavery and happily chose to be hanged. On the other hand, many Indians decided to betray these freedom fighters and allied with the imperial rule to target these freedom fighters for their greed, so that they could get some money or position for their own pleasure. How can one overcome even the fear of death for freedom, and the other stoops to the lowest for his greed?
Even today, I see all types of people around. A father is so greedy to have his social image intact that when his child decides to marry someone of a different caste or religion, the father cuts off all relationships with the child. All his love suddenly vanishes. When a girlfriend leaves a relationship, the boy feels so let down that he decides to take revenge. Love turns into hate; the lovers turn into the biggest enemies. A boy, post-marriage, does not even talk to his parents, without whom he could not have imagined his life. As if that love is an exclusive phenomenon and one can't love a wife and parents at the same time. People go abroad, and their parents die unattended. The same parents who loved them so much that they spent their entire life taking care of them. As if love has faded away with time. Friends who can't stay a day without each other in childhood don't even talk for years after completing college. As if love doesn't survive beyond time and space.
Some of us are driven more by love, freedom, and exploration, while some are more driven by fears, ambitions, and greed for pleasure. What makes the difference? Probably only awareness. When we go to a street vendor to eat "Paani-puri" with a mouth full of saliva, we don't notice that the water he uses is contaminated or that his hands are dirty. Our mouth is full of saliva, and our mind is fully occupied with the expectation to taste those Paani-puri. We have no time or space to notice the rest. Why so? Because every time we ate Paani-puri in the past and experienced a sensation on our tongue, we made a story in our minds that this experience was amazing. Society has confirmed this story every time we talk about Paani-puri. Repeated thousands of times, this story has become more real than reality. That's why, when we approach the vendor, we don't notice that it's unhygienic. A mind full of fear, greed, or ambition is unaware. That's why it fails to connect to love and freedom. But everyone has moments in life when these emotions subside temporarily. When he meets somebody exceptionally calm, or when he visits a profound place, or experiences extreme grief, or suffers extreme pain, or experiences crisis, or meets a realised soul. In those moments, the mind regains its capacity for awareness.
But do we have to wait for that crisis or profound experience to gain that awareness? No. Not at all. Not so that we don't see what fear, greed, and ambition have done to us, but somehow we don't have the courage to accept it. Maybe because we have got so used to being fearful that we are afraid of losing all our motivation if we accept that. We don't know what life driven by love, freedom, and exploration will be like. That's why we are afraid to let go of what we have. A bird in hand is better than many in the bush. But unless we let go of what we have, we don't have space for love to enter our lives. If we observe ourselves and others dispassionately, we become aware of the play of nature. Awareness builds the courage to let go of unnecessary things. It also brings acceptance that what we know is very limited. Together, we gather the courage to enter the domain of the unknown. To experiment with life. Once we start experimenting, we can't stop. The more we explore, and the more we realise the futility of the known, the more our life is driven by love, freedom, and exploration.
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