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Swami Suddhananda |
Cote d Azur, Monaco, Cannes are the names of the
exotic destinations in the Southern France. The sky blue coast, the
sprawling hills, the palm fringed backyards conjure up a dreamy
elegance that attracts millions to be a part of that dream. They
call it the playground of the rich and the famous, not so famous and
the notorious. Poverty – the material poverty - seems to have no
place in that exotic landscape, but the poverty, the emptiness of
human hearts, constantly feeds on that dream to escape, and not to
fill up, that emptiness.
One can see it in the beaches, in the seafront
hotels, in the luxurious villas and in the dilapidated
neighbourhoods. Human emptiness is universal as even human
fulfilment, but not many are introduced to the inherent fulfilment.
All are experiencing emptiness and they struggle to get out of that
emptiness by escaping into various experiences. That is how the
exotic destinations are organised for millions to escape, but not
many talk about the aftermath, the end of the spell and the greater
emptiness. Everybody struggles to return to that place or travel to
some other place like that. The place itself can invoke loneliness
as everybody seems to revel in the hot spots with one companion or
the other. There ‘money’ is the greatest companion as it can
purchase all the hotel rooms, foods, gambling dens, drives and even
male or female companionship. Nobody looks for love. But everybody
moves around with the lust for money, pleasure and companionship in
their eyes..
The days pass. The weeks pass. The money comes to
an end and the tourist returns to the grind of office, hard work
that guarantees him the monetary reward. The memories of the exotic
holidays keep him going until the next holiday. Work is an escape in
order to escape the emptiness and that becomes a helpless burden. If
the rich can do it in style in the glamorous hot spots, the poor
attempts and fails to escape as he does not have the money – the
magic carpet - to fly him to dream destinations. The unfulfilled
cravings create a frustration as even fulfilled cravings create
boredom. Both look for some religious escapade and there are dream
destinations – the biggest temples, the grandest cathedrals, the
mosques, the religious hot spots that promise instant healing or
restfulness. Like the sharks in tourism industry, there are sharks
in the touristic religious destinations who advertise the exotic
destinations and experiences.
Anything that does not promise and fulfil the
craving for happiness and freedom, here and now, in one’s own Self,
shall turn itself into a travel agency where the travel agent sends
everybody on a wild goose chase without himself going anywhere, but
enriches himself with others’ money and dependence. He has to
safeguard his interest by promising many experiences that others
cannot provide. That is how both the secular and religious tour
guides operate and send people chasing ‘experiences’ without making
the least attempt to introduce ‘the experiencer’ to his own real
nature or identity. They must know it to initiate the process. As
they are unaware they become the providers of the experience and
that is their livelihood.
If only ‘the experiencer’ is known, then he will
have enlightened choices and thereby shall make every experience
divine, a meditation. This never rings true for the average person
and he is busy craving indulgences of various kinds to forget his
limitations, to pass his days. Some among the ignorant become the
facilitators for providing the exotic experiences both in the
secular and religious worlds and they become the leaders when they
are indeed the most manipulative ‘dealers’.
The unfortunate part is that the man who poisons
others sincerely believes that he is feeding them to keep them
alive. They feed experiences of different sorts with a sincere
belief that they are enriching the lives of others when, in fact,
they are making them dependant on various practices and in a very
subtle way on the leaders themselves.
In the name of freedom they sell slavery. In the
name of happiness they sell dependence. In the name of a divine they
further condemn the man to the mundane where, in fact, there is no
distance, no alienation between the divine and the mundane. When
they engage ‘the experiencer’ to seek ‘happiness’ in various
experiences, the experiences seem to bind them all. But when
somebody will learn ‘to see and be’ the happiness in every
experience, he will find the freedom in the same place.
In fact, there is no distance between infinite
and finite, immortal and mortal, happiness and unhappiness as even
there is no distance between the universe and the dust, the ocean
and the drop. Instead of helping the drop to recognise the presence
of the ever present ocean in it, some are busy promising oceanic
experiences to the tiny drop. The mind of a drop cannot think of an
ocean without seeing itself as the inseparable part of the whole
ocean. Some smart dusts are promising the dust cosmic experiences to
forget itself. The dust only bites the dust at the end and the
providers die with the delusion that they have tried their best to
give the best to enrich the lives of the dusts as drops.
It is high time every human being started
thinking and analysing his own experiences. Even to help analysing,
the man must be taught not by a limited mind but by the one who has
access to the Infinite. Long before we give it to the children, the
elders must learn to question their thinking as the thinking alone
creates the conflict and never the creation all by itself. The
solution is not in wiping out the thoughts or to discuss the entire
past to push a new series of thoughts but to isolate ‘the thinker’
who creates his own problem within the thoughts extending it to the
objects of the thought in the outside world. That thinker has become
a traveller to travel through many experiences to forget his own
limitations and thereby has become the prisoner of his secular and
spiritual habits and practices.
The focus must be on ‘the experiencer’, ‘the
thinker’ himself so that all the past experiences, however profound
or profane, deep or shallow, comforting or discomforting, enrich
life as a whole and the person discovers ‘a reality’ to exercise his
enlightened choice over all the thought possibilities, the memories
within. In the absence of the individuality and thereby the
individual need, there will be nobody present to exploit or
manipulate others causing unhappiness to the helpless, weak and
ignorant. Rather, such a person will always reach out to others to
share with them their native fulfilment and there is no price to pay
other than one’s own ignorance. Nobody needs to be afraid of
material or emotional exploitation which is the hidden hallmark of
an obvious or immediate experience or excitement provider both in
the name of secular and exotic experiences.
The grown-ups must look at themselves before they
are worried about the growing generation. The billions that are
spent on developing fine beaches, gambling dens or even warfares can
be directed towards the teachings of Self-awareness and the existing
systems of education must accept this aspect to enrich human life –
to give it a crowning finishing touch after educating him to
introduce him to the world and its various experiences.
We have tremendous means and we must use it
sensibly. Or else, the luxuries of the casinos, beaches and shopping
cultures will be more attractive than the centres of education for
the growing mind to be ever condemned to limitations, deluding
itself as the ultimate escape.
The simplicity and the profundity of the
Self-knowledge should not be confined to simple environs only. It
can be also represented in the best of the buildings, in most
beautiful surroundings to impress and attract the growing youngsters
who understand the language of the imposing structures and
prestigious environment. When falsehood is dished out through most
luxuriously decorated structures – both secular and religious – the
simple truth of Self-awareness is expected to come from ‘caves’
only. We must have ‘caves’ but, we must have visible structures also
to give ‘the Truth’ a visible place to help individuals discover
All-pervasiveness invisible to the eyes, but visible to the mind in
themselves.
Let us do that!
Swami Suddhananda
Samvit Sagar Trust
Tiruvannamalai
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