The very essence of love is that it is unconditional. Just as common as we think it is, it is in fact rare. Faith, love are the fragrance of the purest core of us, devoid of any selfishness, pretentious, conditioning’s. It just is and just being is enough.
The most primal urge of a human being is love of oneself. Unfortunately, this love as we know it – is not our purest core – it is tainted by selfishness that feeds on the sense of our identity – of ‘I’, ‘I am’ and ‘Mine’. We live are whole life in pursuit of all that we believe will bring us happiness. Almost everything we do in life is about us.
Our actions – thought, speech or act are a reflection of who we are. Who we are is an expression of what we believe. What we believe is what we know. What we know is the knowledge we have gathered over Time. This knowledge is a vast gathering of all the impressions we collect from our environment, teachings, learning, experiences and our feelings from our experiences. What we gather is a sum total of all our experiences in Time. Time for human beings can be understood as the total passage of experiences. The impressions of these experiences are what make us who we are. In this vast ocean of impressions, are impressions which we have coined as good and bad or those we like and dislike. What we like is our idea of joy, happiness and what we dislike is our idea of sorrow, unhappiness. From the bed of impression are the subtle desires born, from which flows the stream of desires and cravings arising thence from. Cravings further give rise to resolve and actions.
We naturally crave for all that makes us happy – fulfill us. Our pursuit of happiness attracts us to what we desire – the experiences that we believe make us happy. This attraction is the force of desire and that which we are attracted is the object of desire. The attraction creates a bond between the object of attraction and us. It is the bond of attachment that binds us. Greater the attachment, stronger the bond of attachment. The attachment is such that we are engaged in the object of attachment and hence any fluctuation in the field of this play affects us – we are tossed like a leaf in the wind – at mercy of the situation at play. So sometimes we are happy and elated and at other times sad and low. The field of operation of desires is a breeding ground of frustrations, mainly because we are the slave of our desires.
Desires weaken us, attachments lead to frustrations and bring about delusion. This delusion is self-deception. Since the entire drama unfolds in the field of operation of ‘I’, it is very basis of our perceptions, our cognition and our expression in form of our actions. Hence, it affects our thinking, our perception, our behavior, our cognition. We become prisoner of our desires, our cravings, we are controlled by them or by the object of our desire.
Once in the clutches of our desires our perceptions, cognition and thinking is under the spell of the desire – our mind is clouded and our judgment impaired. Thinking is the ability to analyze, consider possibilities. When this ability is untainted, it functions as a fact and possibilities collating machine. When under the spell of desires and attachment it is tainted with prejudices and biases. At such time our ability to think is afflicted and distorted by the whirlpool of thoughts, all arising out of the ‘I’ and surfaces a series of emotions including fear, anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, pride. This leads to utter confusion and veiling of the power of intellect. Our power to discern, discriminate, tell right from wrong disappears behind the dark clouds of desires. Our inner voice, our faculty to discriminate, tell right from wrong gets hidden – we are in a deep sleep under the spell of our desires and the infinite shoots sprout from it. The power of discrimination is destroyed and with it we lose our Self.
This is a time when we lose all reason and are caught in what our mind conjures. We believe it is the reality. This is self-detrimental, as it creates an hubris of I know it all and prevents us from listening to the voice of good counsel and well wishers. This is a time we are most vulnerable to beliefs, dogmas, theories which feed our sense of self. We are also vulnerable to people who can make use of our self-absorbed state to further their own agendas and play with us like puppets on strings. Let’s ask ourselves, what drives us – a little bit of reflection will do us a world of good. Here we come back to love – the purest spring from our core. The sure test to determine that which takes us to our core or away from it is to determine the source of every action. Any action that is rooted in selfishness, ‘I’, ‘Me’, ‘Mine’, no matter the colour we choose to give it, is tainted and will bear fruit accordingly.
This could be a cycle ad-infinitum until, we are jolted by the lightning of realization that we are drunk with desires and delusions born of it. It is no different from a drug that brings about hallucinations and impairs our ability to discern and robs us of our Self. But once, we wake up from the slumber – the chains of attachments snap, we can dispassionately see what is what and discern what is right and wrong. With the clouds of desires dissipating, the light of intellect shines through and shows us the world within and without in its light.
This is an Awakening waiting to be for each of us. Cause until then, we will always be only as good as the bonds of attachments allow us to be. There can never be freedom from the taint of selfishness. Only living with the light of intellect can keep us free – pure – at our very best. While past cannot be changed, it is a powerful tool to learn from. After all what is life but a series of experiences. Desires are like shadows that come out in dark and can only be chased. Being awake, the master of one’s own life, is being the light itself that illumines everything.
To live selflessly, for a higher purpose, without being attached to the fruits of one’s actions – brings a strength and bliss unsurpassed. For the first time we stand at the shores of eternity. Love is the awakening that enables us to strip all that binds us down and soar high. It sets us free, makes us vast, the drop finds the ocean.
Radhika Pereira, is a graduate of Life Sciences and Law from the University Of Mumbai and has done her Masters of Law from University Of Cambridge and Harvard University. She is a practicing corporate lawyer and a partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co ...
