BONDAGES
Man is born free but he is living a bonded life. In contradistinction to every man’s desire to live a free life, most of the people are living in constraints in their social, religious, cultural and economic life. The shackles of rites and rituals prevalent in society are, in fact, ready to imprison the baby even before it is born.
The moment a child is born, a concurrent birth of bonds of life takes place. The social standing of the family, the stratum of the society it belongs to, the caste of the family, the nationality of the family, etc combine together strengthening the bondage of the child in the society. As the child grows, the pride of one’s family, caste, financial status, etc coupled with the ego, further ensnares a human being. When the child grows into an adult, the pride of one’s learning, physical strength, beauty, or intelligence becomes a fetish. As a consequence man loses the freedom to think because our mind gets obsessed and he becomes a slave.
A slave is a person who does not have either independence of either action or thought. The human beings today are slaves to wealth, pride, ego, et cetera as these do not allow independence of thought or action. His Holiness Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj once narrated a story about how Alexander, the great king of Macedonia. He went to pay homage to a saint before spearheading an armed expedition. As the king approached the saint to seek his blessings, he expected the saint to honour him by getting-up. But the saint in his meditation did not even come to know that Alexander had come to meet him. This made the king angry and he started calling names to the saint. The saint replied: “Do you want me get up for my slave’s slave?” The king arrogantly claimed in an angry voice “I am the great king Alexander of Macedonia. How dare you, a petty ascetic, call me a slave?” Maintaining his poise the saint replied, “Anger is my slave and you are a slave of anger. You act under the influence of anger which is equivalent to becoming a slave of your anger. Therefore, it does not befit that I get up for you who is my slave’s slave.” This made Alexander to realize that he was a more slave.
The vices like pride, anger, ego, lust et al have enslaved man since times immemorial. Satan, as in the biblical stories, felt that he could not fight uprightly with God and, therefore, conspired against Him. He ordered his army of vices (lust, anger, pride, violence, etc) to infiltrate every man and distort man’s image by enslaving man to the vices. Therefore, by enslaving the mankind whom God created in his own image, Satan wished to overpower God by guile. And undoubtedly, today, man is a slave dancing to the tunes of material wealth and the pride associated with it.
The way to be free from these bondages, however, is not the renunciation of the material wealth or possessions as some would think. His Holiness has often stressed in his discourses that “renunciation does not mean running away from the material pleasures. Renunciation is another name for the awakening of our soul – i.e., the use of material belongings with a sense of detached-attachment. A saint knows that he needs to use material belongings for his and everyone’s good but he also knows that the use or possession of the material things should not instill pride in him. As a consequence, a saint commands the situation by being the master because he is not enslaved by the pride of possession. Instead, it is the pride that is enslaved.
‘‘But are we masters of our lives?’’ This is a subject for self-analysis. A didactic story from the Upanishads aptly portrays to what extent we are the masters of our lives and not slaves to pride or forgetful of the goal of our lives.
A haughty king on seeing a majestic elephant expressed his wish to ride it. The advisors of the king counseled against riding the majestic but mad elephant that went uncontrollably wild even when ridden by the best mahout in the kingdom. The king could not be convinced against his wish and decided to ride the elephant. As expected, the moment, the king rode the elephant, it went wild. The king fell from the elephant and banged onto the ground. He started running away, from the elephant running amuck, trying to save his life.
In a bid to run away and save his life from being trampled under the elephant, the king faced a dilemma of jumping into a well. The king jumped into the well, and while falling, his legs were stuck in the trunk of a small tree growing out of the rondure (of the well). Life could not have been more miserable for him. Dangling precariously upside-down from the tree, the king saw the face of horror – innumerous terrifying cobras on the surface of the well swaying their hoods waiting for their prey.
As the king looked towards the trunk, he could see two rats gnawing at the base of the trunk Mindful of his imminent horrible death, the eyes of the king oscillated between the cobras, the rat and the wild elephant eager to playfully crush him to death.
Just then, like a whiff of breeze on a hot day, a drop of honey from the hive on the tree growing out of the well trickled into the mouth of the king. As more drops trickled into the king’s mouth, he started relishing the honey and became oblivious of his life sandwiched in dangers. He forgot about the cobras, the two rats, and the elephant and, quaintly, about his own precariously dangling upside-down posture. The moment the trunk was to break, the king realized his situation and repented in waste of being engrossed in relishing the honey. But there was no time for him to do anything to save his life. While the king fell from the trunk into the well with cobras waiting to relish him, he continuously repented about wasting the precious moments he could have used to save his life.
Drawing some parallels to this story we can learn that the advisors of the king are the saints and prophets. The king is the man who is moving heaven and earth to amass worldly wealth and is, therefore, enslaved by the satanic forces like pride, ego and guile. But the man is constantly and selectively deaf towards the advice and teachings of the saints and rides the mad elephant of pride. Man tries his best to chase the worldly treasures enticing him to fall in the ditch of forgetfulness. His state is like the aware but unmindful king precariously dangling in the well. The cobras represent his death while the honey is the taste of the glamour and temptations of the world that are fatally engrossing. The two rats (one black and the other white) gnawing at the trunk represent the day and the night and as the trunk of life is consumed ultimately the death approaching man with the swift passage of time in the form of breathing (inhalation and exhalation). The time taken to cut the trunk is symbolic of the time between birth and death. And what effort could the king make? Perhaps the only thing he could do was to remember God and pray for His mercy.
The moral, unmistakably, is our constant obliviousness towards the advice and teachings of the saints who have counseled man since times immemorial about not wasting the precious moments of one’s life in chasing the material possessions.
One aspect that scriptures converge upon is that if we want to save our life from being wasted away, we must pay heed towards the Divine-Knowledge bestowed by the True Master to awaken ourselves to Eternity, and free ourselves from the temptations of this world while remaining associated with it (a magic in itself!).
It is the body, mind and our material possessions that suffer from the effects of satanic forces. If a man meets a seer, he realizes that he is not a body. His true identity is in the image of God i.e. our soul.
EH SAREER BRAHM NAHIN EY BRAHM JO EHDE VICH BOLE.
- Avtar Bani (316)
(This human body is not God, God is what speaks within)
The seer enlightens the man that he is a part and parcel of the omnipresent consciousness that is incapable of being touched by the satanic forces. A drop of consciousness dropped into the ocean of consciousness is, therefore, freed from the shackles of the world, and the circle of birth, death and rebirth. The soul, therefore, becomes unfettered and emancipated.
His Holiness, Nirankari Baba Hardev Singh Ji Maharaj has been cautioning the man to pay attention towards the Ultimate Reality of life by listening to saints. Sant Nirankari Mission is dedicated to carry the message of His Holiness far and wide and is giving a clarion call to people to break the shackles of life by taking the refuge of Gyan (Divine-Word) His Holiness is bestowing the world with.
TAN MAN DHAN DA MAAN TYAAGO SHARAN GURU DI AA JAO
JIS RAB DI HAI BHAAL TUHANU IK CHIN UNDER PA JAO
- Avtar Bani (280)
(Shed the pride of body mind, and wealth and seek the shelter of the True Master; You will realize, in a moment, God whom you have been searching for.)
And this is the only way to free oneself from evils as also from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The liberation of the soul never came so easily. Believe me…
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