Our minds are highly capable of creating a barrier with reality that is as opaque as an iron curtain of the mind blocking the right doorway to freedom, as we become tangled down in the process of living. This could cause us to make small errors that lead us away from the right doorway to Moksha.
Once, a King played a game to convey a message to his subjects. He was put in a huge hall that had one thousand doors. He had a task to quickly find out the right doorway that would open and lead him to the exit to another world. The King started running and touching each door, as there were nine hundred and ninety nine doors which though appeared as the right doorway but were not so. Only the right doorway can be opened to the exit. The time was short. The King went about touching each door at a good pace. When he came near the right doorway, he paused and felt like scratching his head. In the process he missed touching the real door leading to the exit.
“Though I recollect the story, I have forgotten the punch line of the story. How in an insignificant act of a momentary distraction, the King missed touching the right doorway and thus opening it to exit. One takes the human birth after many births. In this human birth, which comes as a chance, we forfeit the gift of life in trivial issues and get lost. In the process we miss opening the right doorway to freedom or moksha.
Through one small error our whole life can be wasted, told the mother once. I have observed in my family and among friends – one habit of smoking has practically killed a person. Another relative of mine who is a very good soul has fallen prey to the habit of alcohol addiction, that has destroyed his life. Also I believe that, even the wrong habit of eating can even lead a person to their death bed.
Mother added to my understanding that though I was prioritising exercise and did hours of floor exercises, yoga, martial art, aerobics, gymnasium, I was not prioritising my diet much. She pointed out that even though my eating was based on a healthy diet, lately I have been prioritising on having a researched diet with balanced carbs, fat, fiber, protein and also calories count through which weight reduction of thirteen kilos was possible without much exercise. The punch line she came up with was – I hardly lost any weight doing only exercises.
As an advice, she recalled a newspaper article that once I shared with her where a celebrated actor had said his success for fitness lies in 90% diet and 10% exercise. She recounted with a smile that such a small tip helped me as I was open to explore and find a breakthrough for my weight reduction program.
“Is this also true in the realm of the psychological world?”
Yes. It is very applicable. In the corporate world, a boss may utter something unpleasant but if one goes about worrying about that, one’s quality of life is affected. I know of a person whose daughter had gone through a bitterly fought divorce. The daughter is well educated and works for a good company. But her mother is constantly worried about her divorced daughter. In the process, the mother misses the joy of being in the family along with the other good things in life. One small error is spoiling her life and health. A psychological error can mess our lives up.
“What do you think is the real cause?
There are several causes. The most important is – if you have ego, the ego in you wants to survive its misery by hook or crook. Ego creates its own unique misery. Besides, we don’t listen to our body, mind, feelings, distress and sorrows
When we listen to our sorrows, we realize that our sorrows are an extension of some illusion that we are holding. For example, if you find that married people are happy and find your daughter is not married, you worry because of the illusion that you carry. When the philosopher Socrates was asked a question, “Will I be happy if I get married or will I be happy not getting married”, he replied, “Either ways you will be unhappy”, for happiness is not the result of marriage or not getting married. Happiness is an approach to life.
“How does one listen to one’s inner call?” Generally, in our listening we are more committed to our opinion, our conclusions, our inner conditionings… where are we truly listening? We are listening to ourselves. We are stuck with our opinions and conclusions. If we can listen to the birds without likes and dislikes, and similarly with other human beings, our intelligence understands more than our conditioned mind. Similarly, if you are worrying, listen to your worry and it will present you with its story of illusions and also demonstrate its psycho drama of errors. But we don’t allow this learning to penetrate us. An iron curtain of our self-talk filled with desires and a conclusion is our block to seeing or listening.
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