The metaphoric mind is a maverick. It is as wild and unruly as a child. It follows us doggedly and plagues us with its presence as we wander the contrived corridors of rationality. It is a metaphoric link with the unknown called religion that causes us to build cathedrals — and the very cathedrals are built with rational, logical plans. When some personal crisis or the bewildering chaos of everyday life closes in on us, we often rush to worship the rationally planned cathedral and ignore the religion.
– Einstein
Kabir – The couplet
मानुस जनम दुर्लभ है, मिले न बारम्बार !
पक्का फल जो गिर परा, बहुरि न लागे दार ॥
transliterated:
manus janam durlabh hai, mile na barambar|
pakka phal jo gir para, bahuri na lage dar||
Translation:
Human life is difficult to obtain, not something one gets again and again|
Once the ripened fruit falls to the ground, no science can reattach it to a branch||
My understanding:
Very often, we take life for granted – for it is not in our face every moment clamoring for attention. However, the world around us is – through the incessant input to our physical senses. From this input, our mind (the rational component) creates the construct we call ego, and then ascribes to it character, social status, and then assigns it a separate existence of it’s own. This ego then takes over the role of master, and enslaves us to itself for the duration of our physical life.
At the end of the physical life, as soon as the physical body is no more, the construct, ephemeral as it was, dissolves into nothing, and the soul is left to answer for the time spent in vain pursuit, in the absence of the master that drove the pursuit.
Try this experiment today – for 5 minutes, focus on just the breath going in and out of you – to the exclusion of everything else. Once in a more peaceful state, look at your day, detached from the ego we call ‘me’. Critically answer the question “Was every action done because it needed to be done, or with an anticipated/desired result forethought?”
More often than not, we act with the expectation of specific results. However, the results, even if we achieve what we want in the immediate time frame, do take on their own life and generate further consequences that were never part of the plan. However, as the generator of the original action, we hold the real responsibility of ALL the consequences. However, the ego helps us divest of responsibility of the later consequences, putting that blame on the other “who should have thought it through before they acted”. But did we? Did we really think it through the first time? The second time? The third time? Ever?
If this is the way we choose to spend our life (and yes, we do have the freedom to make that choice), then why blame the result on the cosmos, God, or whatever else? We made the choice, we are responsible for the consequence. But this is where we get squeamish. And the rest of life becomes an artificial construct where we dream up excuses to explain away our choice as someone else’s fault. A favorite of all is “fate” – poor fate never does get a good reputation. But this is not fate – it is a tale of poor choices, and of even poorer shirking of responsibility.
At the end of this life, we do not get the opportunity to reset the clock and start all over again. So treat each day, each hour, each moment as a new beginning. Look backwards only to learn and understand, not to carry forward burden or blame.
Act because you need to, think so as not to do that which need not be done. Let the requirement of the moment drive thought and action – not the carrot of result.
Surrender the result of action and thought to the need of the time, and move on with a clear heart. Life will begin rewarding you in ways unthought-of from that very instant. And from that instant, fear finds no more space in us, for we are filled with the light of the divine, the true glow of Consciousness.