Way out of the maze called life

 


Way out of the maze.

Man wanders into the maze called life; takes birth, owns a body, witnesses a world, tries to fit in, gets attracted by pleasures, develops desires, owns assets, feels safe and secure, imagines such a life will continue forever.

Responsibilities increase with age. Worries and anxieties surface. The mind troubles. The body loses strength. Old age arrives. Confidence lags. As pleasures recede and pain comes haunting, the man wonders what life is about.

By then the world has trapped him in its folds. He does not know anything beyond the illusion. The thought of being alienated from all that is dear is the most painful thought that scares the worldly person.

Death is inevitable and so too is rebirth. A new body and fresh hopes pulls the person once again into the world he had a taste of earlier. Pain forgotten the person gives in to hope. But the same cycle repeats again.

Sri Ramakrishna tells of the parable of the fish that lives in the mud at the bottom of the pond. It feels very safe and secure and that the fisherman's net will elude it. But one day the fisherman dives deep and has his catch. Everybody is ultimately dragged out, says Sri Ramakrishna. Days of pleasure and security do not last forever. Karma hounds a man and ultimately finds him.

There are three types of people in this world, he says. The bound one, the one that seeks freedom, and the one that has gained freedom: Baddha, Mumuksha, and Mukta. The bound person feels the world is everything and wallows in it, like the fish in the mud, not knowing that all pleasures and possessions are temporary.

After tens and thousands of lives the embodied person wakes up to the fact that where there is pleasure pain is inevitable. Then he starts thinking and is led to the wisdom that awaits him. Like the child that starts to walk he rises and falls as sense arises yet old tendencies act as the stumbling block. But the journey has started.

Thinking societies do not like the concept of blind acceptance of the world. The members of such a society enter the maze of the world but only after knowing what it is about and how to escape its clutches. They know the temporary nature of the world and do not like to get caught up in it.

The journey begins like the sinking man surfacing to gasp for a breath of air. But as the skill of swimming develops the person seeks the shore.

The mind of the one seeking liberation is given more and more to the divine. The strength of old tendencies recedes. Moving towards the state of desirelessness the person awaits the dream to pass as he can wake up to the treasure that is his.

Blessed is that person to whom the knowledge comes early. Even more blessed is the one that is attracted to that knowledge and starts imbibing and practicing it.

There is a way out of the maze. It appears to those who seek it.