Journey of Life:

Journey of Life: The Human Mind cannot live in guilt. Therefore it creates a lie and then goes on repeating the lit to itself until it believes it.

A gang of monkeys once sat in discussion, “Man is so powerful. He has subjugated all species on land, water and has even conquered the moon. We need to find the secret of his power”.

One monkey said, “Well, I think I know what the secret is. They fast on the sacred day when its full Moon and at the end ask for a boon from their favourite deity, who then grants them the boon. That’s their secret”. Everyone was thrilled at the prospect of acquiring new powers and decided to go on a fast until the next day. The chief monkey forewarned the rest of them. “Remember the rule no one should look at the fruits, lest you may be tempted to eat them. Keep you eyes fixed to the ground”. Everyone followed the orders.

After a few minutes a monkey said, “How long can we stare at the barren grounds? We should not look at the fruits, but surely we could enjoy the beauty of the vast sky, the waterfall and nature”. All of them agreed and began admiring the beauty around, trying to shun their vision from the fruits alone.

“What’s the harm in look at the fruits? After all, we are not going to eat them”, said another one. It made sense and the fruit was also included to their nature-watching list. A restless silence followed the next ten minutes as all the monkeys engaged themselves in watching the countryside panorama. “Hey, what if we don’t have enough strength to get to those fruits by tomorrow when we complete our fast? Why don’t we just sit at the beginning of a fruit branch?” The brilliant suggestion given by another fellow monkey was immediately executed. All the monkeys rushed to the nearest fruit branch and there the nature watching continued.

Hunger slowly started creeping in their empty stomachs. “What if these branches do not have ripe fruits? Then we would have to go in search of another tree, when all our energy is drained. Why don’t we select the ripe fruits and sit near those branches?” Yes, nobody had thought about it! All of them patted the little monkey for his thoughtfulness and scurried in search of ripe fruits and occupied those branches.

By now their stomach had begun to make noises. “What if the fruits are not tasty or has worms? Even then we would have to search for other ones”, shouted another young monkey. After a short contemplating pause the chief monkey said, “OK. Probably we could just taste the fruits, but remember, no one should swallow it! All of you should spit it out immediately:. All monkeys excitedly ran to the end of their branches, plucked a fruit and took a bite. Soon spat it out but some swallowed it ‘unknowingly’. With the fruits in their hands all of them looked at each other with their eyes swaying end-to-end expecting someone to say something. Then one monkey declared, “Why take a risk? Lets eat enough today so that we could fast the whole day tomorrow effortlessly”. They all agreed unanimously and pounced on the fruits.

While the fact remained that the monkeys wanted to eat the fruits, not able to confront this truth, it cooked up various theories and explanations to believe that it is not so, drowning once again in self-complacency.

Man too is involved in a similar task, don’t you think? Out of a 100 lies spoken by a man, 90 lies he speaks to himself. We have a few values in life, which, due to a variety of reason we are not able to follow. We have created an ideal ‘me’ and are constantly trying to fit our actions and thoughts into those self-created images. When truth goes against these images, not being able to accept it, we create lies and begin to believe it to be true. This is the game man is playing.

“The human mind cannot live in guilt. Therefore it creates a lie and then goes on repeating the lie to itself until it believes in it”.

All problems in human life, whether internal or external, begin here with the inability to confront the truth of oneself.

After settling a business deal, two newly acquainted businessmen decided to dine together for further discussions. While the topic drifted to their college days, one of them said, “I was a state champion in Table Tennis during my college days”. Being a tennis lover and an amateur player, the other man was excited having found another tennis lover. They decided to meet at the sports club for a game.

They met the following week. As the game advanced, the state champion, fumbled over a few easy shots. “Oh my! How did I miss it!”, he said surprised, obviously discomfited at his poor show after claiming himself to be a state player. As the game progressed, seeing some classic shots from the novice he said, “I guess I’ve lost touch. It is nearly seven years since I played last”. The game continued. Unable to return a smash he said, “If you are not in touch then you lose the hang of the game, you know. I should have played a top-spin in return for that one”, he said with an embarrassed smile. After losing the first game, his eyes popped out, “It’s Strange! Probably I’ve aged and my reflexes have slowed down!”

While the fact remains that he had failed miserably, the mind builds theories and explanations as to why the champion in him gave a poor show that day. Not able to accept the truth at the face of it, the mind covers it up to appease itself.

The mind has a secret hidden agenda behind every one of its thoughts. A simple guileless act of praising somebody, lending a helping hand to someone in need or fetching a glass of water could have far-fetched reasons behind it. Though this is not visible superficially, for anyone who is in touch with himself this truth would be as clear as a crystal. It all sums back to being integral in the inner world.

The first step to being spiritual is to face this truth about oneself.

“All the Deeds good or bad of a thousand life times is burned away in the knowledge of self-realisation”

Self-realisation is not seeing oneself as someone belonging to a religion/creed or tribe, the immortal or as God. It is seeing oneself as he/she is right now. Seeing the mind with all its ugliness. This is the truth of an enlightened person. It does not matter who we are or what we are. What matters is – Do we know our inner truth and are we ready to confront it? Or are we lying to ourselves, covering it up by explaining it away?

With a thought of jealously, accompany thoughts of justification of the jealously. “Jealously is but natural for a person like me who has not enjoyed anything in life”, or “of course I am not jealous of her, someone had to put an end to her pride and it happened to be me”. While these thoughts justify our jealousy as being ‘natural’ or they deny the jealousy itself, the simple fact remains that we indeed felt jealous, no matter how genuine our reasoning might be.

Imagine a Mr. Nobody walking into the White House and faking President Bush. Wouldn’t he constantly live in fear and conflict of being exposed? This is the fear that man is living in today. Not able to face the truth about himself, he fakes an ‘ideal’ and lives in fear of being exposed. Ever wondered about the unknown fear lurking in your heart? This is it.

Liberation is possible only when we confront our ‘other’ side; for when we know what we are, there is freedom within.

“When you confront your ugliness and accept yourself, the conflict within you ceases. When conflict ends there is energy. Where there is energy there is happiness. And a happy man is always successful”.