Mar 2018: One may ask, 'How can one be in solitude when so much has to be done and achieved?'
Sure food and shelter has to be arranged, security ensured, Families particularly children and the elderly need to be cared for. Development and learning have to be pursued, and a thousand other things need to done. Bills have to be paid, So what?
We do what we must, but what if we are not there tomorrow? Surely, they will still get done, but by others. We hold ourselves in far greater importance than does the universe.
Imagine our individual lives as being drawn into a cyclone.
Lives and things, problems and opportunities, work and responsibilities etc. A multitude of factors are constantly swirling around us, in this cyclone where peace eludes us.
We can choose to be in the swirl where everything is a noisy blur . Those living in the swirl seem to live exciting and extremely active lives, dodging, running from fears and towards wants. However being active merely for its own sake, achieves little, while nourishing the ego. We land up living mostly numb, flowerless and hence fruitless lives.
We cannot escape this cyclone called life, so where can we find individual peace? There is a place. We can choose to be at the centre of the cyclone where everything is peaceful and silent. Everything is clear and we do what we must, when we must without being attached to anyone or anything. Active only as and when needed. This may appear selfish but its not so, for we act with awareness and meaning. In India we have a word for it called 'Sw-arth' coming from two Sanskrit words 'Swayam' for 'the self', and 'Arth' for 'meaning'. Translated it is 'meaning of one's existence'.
Religion, politics, family, society, and rulers/government and now employers ordain the meaning of ourselves to us. Treating us all as identical. That is not desirable even if it were possible, but these forces have almost total domination over our existence. That is why individuals always rebel against these forces sometimes openly but usually clandestinely. The individual rarely discovers the meaning of his or her own life.
When we learn to silence these forces by travelling within ourselves where each one of us is absolute master of his her life, we learn who and what we are, we discover our 'Swa-Arth'. Once we discover that meaning of oneself, freedom is natural.
This is why all great masters have always advocated silence, contemplation and finally meditation. Life goes on we live a meaningful existence, not in the uncontrollable swirling mess but in control and in total awareness right in the peaceful eye of the storm.
