Dear God,
A recent conversation centered on true freedom, led me to a surprise finding. I may be wrong in my assessment. Nonetheless.
We are often weighed down by obligations, expectations, deadlines and responsibilities. Endless wants and desires only add to the misery. So what does one do - give up on material life and embrace hermitage? What about those who are dependent on you? What is to become of them?
Through the conversation, I kept thinking what else could be persuading us to live this kind of a life. If it was only a matter of relinquishing materialism and adopting total austerity, all of us may have done and lived it already. But even in austerity, the attachment remains - to meditation, to solitude, to wandering, to giving etc. So what makes a hermit different from me?
I realized that consciousness could probably be the culprit here. Because I am so aware of what is and isn't, I make choices. But imagine the mentally delinquent (I don't mean that offensively at all). He wanders aimlessly, lives for the day and enjoys his hard earned meal (albeit by begging). There is no societal pressure, no expectations, no one awaiting his return. Yet he lives - unmindful of the world around him and unconscious of anything.
I guess, the infant is a fine parallel - full of joy and glee until natural progression...
Consciousness, the killer in us!
A recent conversation centered on true freedom, led me to a surprise finding. I may be wrong in my assessment. Nonetheless.
We are often weighed down by obligations, expectations, deadlines and responsibilities. Endless wants and desires only add to the misery. So what does one do - give up on material life and embrace hermitage? What about those who are dependent on you? What is to become of them?
Through the conversation, I kept thinking what else could be persuading us to live this kind of a life. If it was only a matter of relinquishing materialism and adopting total austerity, all of us may have done and lived it already. But even in austerity, the attachment remains - to meditation, to solitude, to wandering, to giving etc. So what makes a hermit different from me?
I realized that consciousness could probably be the culprit here. Because I am so aware of what is and isn't, I make choices. But imagine the mentally delinquent (I don't mean that offensively at all). He wanders aimlessly, lives for the day and enjoys his hard earned meal (albeit by begging). There is no societal pressure, no expectations, no one awaiting his return. Yet he lives - unmindful of the world around him and unconscious of anything.
I guess, the infant is a fine parallel - full of joy and glee until natural progression...
Consciousness, the killer in us!
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