After the heavy and philosophically intense previous episode, let me start this episode with a light and hilarious story.
You probably have heard about the great Indian Epic namely Ramayana. In that story, the central figure Rama goes to the forest along with his wife Sita. Unfortunately, a wicked demon by name Ravana kidnaps Sita while Rama was away and takes her to his island kingdom Lanka. After lot of search, Rama reaches Lanka with help of his close associate Hanuman and his people. Finally, Rama succeeds in killing Ravana and releasing Sita. This is the story of Ramayana in short.
What I am going to narrate is not this story but a play enacted by small kids in a school, based on Ramayana. The play starts with Rama fighting Ravana and Hanuman watching their fight. The two kids fight so realistically that finally it was Ravana who could fell Rama, who almost fainted. That was not what happened in the original story.
But apparently, the kid who played the role of Ravana had some past dispute with the kid who played Rama and he tried to settle scores with him on the stage. He probably knew his role but was overpowered by his humiliation that he went through the previous day by the kid who played Rama. So, he did not care about the story line and knocked off Rama totally in contrast to the script.
Hanuman who was watching the fight could have come to the help of Rama and rescued him. That was what would have happened in the original story. But this kid who was playing Hanuman continued to sit unconcerned telling himself that “it is just a drama after all!”. He ‘knew’ that neither Ravana nor Rama was real and they were just acting in the drama as he himself was. So, he thought there was no need to rush to the help of Rama!
And suddenly another kid entered the scene. She was Sita. In the original story she was supposed to garland victorious Rama who had vanquished wicked Ravana. But what actually transpired on the stage was that it was Ravana who in fact had defeated Rama and Rama had fallen down. For a moment, this kid who played Sita was a bit confused. She could see her beloved Rama on the floor and wicked Ravana making victory cries. What was she supposed to do? Soon she overcame her confusion and went ahead and did her job – she garlanded victorious Ravana! 😉
Many of us are like these kids in this drama. Some of us know what is the right thing to do, but are so overpowered by our preconceived notions that we do just the opposite. And some among us are like the Hanuman, who think that life is just a drama and we don’t have to take it too seriously. We end up resorting to inaction. And most of us are like the Sita. We neither know who we are, nor what we are supposed to do, but end up acting stupidly taking wrong cues from the situation.
The right thing for these kids was to remember their roles and play them truthfully without getting bogged down by past prejudices, hollow philosophical stands, and if not anything, use common sense in a given situation. But how often we do it? We are often confused in our lives just like these kids.
If only we could remember who we are, and what role we have in our lives, we can avert most of the confusion in life. I am taking off from the previous episode where I talked about each of us being a form taken by the Atma or the God. As long as we are aware of that and act as per the script of the drama of life, there would be no confusion and probably no suffering either.
It sounds quite simple but we are often so bogged down in preconceived notions that we totally forget our true nature that we are all forms of the same Atma as the Upanishads claim. If only we could realize this fact, there would be no confusion, no matter what we do. In such a state of mind, we can hardly do anything wrong. We just play our roles.
But how do we know our roles? How do we know what we are supposed to do in a given situation? I believe that not just humans but even animals have this built in inner light that guides them in doing the right thing in a given situation. This inner light is often obscured by greed, hatred, and such other emotions. And we almost forget what we inherently are. We are like the Ravana in the kid’s drama that I discussed.
This awareness of who we really are and not letting it subdued by overpowering tendencies is what I call ‘self-realization’. Whether the narratives of the Upanishads that I discussed in the previous episode are factful or not, this kind of mental state can minimize most of our problems. It could also minimize the suffering of others around us. After all, all of us are various forms of the very same thing. If I hurt the other, I will be hurting myself in some way or the other.
This message of oneness amidst diversity is what makes Upanishads appealing to me. Upanishads don’t teach mutual hatred, nor self-centeredness, nor escapism from our responsibilities. They unite us rather than divide. They stress on the fact that we are all one at the core.
All this sounds great in theory. But in practice, most of us cannot reach that state of oneness. We can’t come out of our narrow identities – nationality, religious affiliation, caste, ethnicity, family identity, body identity, and so on. These identities force us to go in opposite direction and make us forget our real nature.
The Upanishads that talk about this high ideal of oneness of the entire world – not just the humans, not just the living beings, but also everything around us - also teach us how we can reach that mental state of oneness. We are all one anyway. It is just our mental makeup that pulls us apart. So, ultimately it is our mind that is the real culprit. How do we rein in this mind?
Upanishads offer meditation as one of the ways to rein in the mind so that it does not obscure our vision about our true nature. Secondary scriptures like Bhagavad Geetha, Yoga Sutra, and so on, elaborate more on this path of meditation which would ultimately lead us to realization of our true self. Let us discuss that in the next episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment