goldenboy

Its amazing how Khushboo worked up a fury amongst the Dravidan populace, by advocating pre-marital sex, when the populace at one time had itself branded chastity as an Aryan idea for enslavement! Times change, and so does the rules of proper behavior. The only thing that has remained constant though is Mind and its fear, and its desperate clinging to the Known.

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I’m amazed to see how our minds work against us.

When our land gives us plenty, we try to hide our passions in modesty. For modesty by popular standards is a virtue. I have nothing against modesty as a virtue, but everything against a virtue that’s hammered into our hearts by fear. Fear of God, fear of the devil, fear of Hell, fear of Societal reprisal.

So as women are asked to wear longer skirts and bigger veils to keep a check on the “sins” of the flesh, people try to seek comfort in the popular virtues of yore- modesty, and the modern virtues of career and money… yet find guilt and fear following them everywhere.

Just like our minds love security of the familiar things around us, it sorts to reinforce that sense of security by enforcing laws of Uniformity. Uniformity finds many expressions, in the form of decrees and rules of conduct and lifestyle… virtues, culture, religion, etiquettes. All leading to intolerance, prejudice, discrimination, dishonesty… also to what society terms as decadence- a society rebelling against itself, in a kind of self-indulgent reckless binge, a disoriented ill-guided rebellion to the extremes.

Fear defines virtually everything in our ways of living. This fear for the Unknown forms and defines our social lifestyles.

We get so very caught up in the web of rules of conduct & the standards of right and wrong, that we lose touch with our inner-self, the core that connects us to Earth. We end up playing either the roles of the victim or the rebel. And roles are all that we play, never to find our true self.

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In fear we take flights of fancy to the after-life, heaven and even Nothingness (Moksha), all the time scared of the passions that tempt our hearts and rouse our bodies. So much so, we find the perfect excuses to refuse our bodies the indulgence of touch (sex), taste (food and drink), smell (natural body scents), sight (beauty of the naked human body), and hearing (sounds of nature, the sound of silence).

Yes, we are the lost sons and daughters of Mother Earth, wandering Her plains and valleys and mountains in search of that one thing that would redeem us, redeem us of the fear that haunts our human hearts and the dullness that disfigure our human lives.

The “Wise” amongst us, the “Enlightened” often guide us to tougher austerities, to escape into a land that our minds carve out for itself, as a final refuge… a delusional land where the temptations of life and the earth has ceased to exist. We find solace in this “perfect land”, to ignore the callings of a wishful heart. To die a martyr, a saint. The Moslems embrace their graves to Paradise. Hindus practise austerities to gain Moksha. Christians suffer for an after-life. We are a people who live death each day of our lives.

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But perhaps the virgin land of true Realization can be reached only through the dark “sinful” forests of Mother Earth… And the only guide we have on our journey would be our own Core, which we better listen to, than to fear-stricken Evangelists speaking of a Heaven on the other side.

For fear can get ghosts talking to us, in the guise of angels… ghosts that are just our fears personified in delusions, and we are led to write holy books and term those as revelations from God? It is fear that perhaps dictates our religious texts. Fear of our own body, fear of mother Earth. The fear that separates our Core from Her Body. The fear that separates us from Nature.

How do you regain back this connection with the Earth? How do you gain freedom from fear? How do you reclaim your life?

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A few of us find the task of finding our true selves quite necessary, and set out in search of the True Living…beckoned by something quite extra ordinary… call it the Call of Life, but am sure it is an arduous journey. One finds fellow travelers, people before you who are familiar with the terrains, however you got your own learning to do and you may lose your way. Things learnt all our lives have to be unlearnt as we find nuggets of Truth. Relationships, habits and attachments of a lifetime have to be overhauled. And the pain of growing-up endured.

In a bag of useless pens, I search for one with which I could pen down a few words, beckoned by inspiration to travel into an alien land. I find one, and proceed to look for words, with which I could paint the most perfect picture of this land on paper. A land of Joyous Plenty, a land of native people rejoicing and working hard in merriment. A land far-away beside a sea.

And as my pen puts the final touches of colour to this picture of heaven on earth, it gropes in the empty white to find if it had realized it in these last two years of my seeking. But finds on most occasions I was just groping in the darkness… in search of light… the light that lights up that far-away alien land.

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I remember those beauteous Sunday mornings from my childhood… bathed in morning winter light. I’d rejoice with other beautiful children. There was something about the morning winter light that sparkled my spirit, as it also lighted up inside every child the spontaneous joy of life.

We would sing and play and set up our own lands full of laughter, joy and the Morning Winter Light.

And somehow it seems like I belonged to this alien land. A far-away land lit by the same morning winter light; its people laughing and rejoicing in the winter light, working in joy and merriment calling out to each other like us little children; sharing in the bounties of Nature, the produce and plenty of their land.

That one ray of Winter morning light defined to me the meaning of true freedom.