Restlessness and Hidden Truth

 

Photo Credit: LonerWolf

Restlessness and Hidden Truth

We attach a lot of value to ourselves; and the more value we attach to our little selves, the more restless we become; and the more we suffer and the possibility of realising the Truth keeps reducing.

A person who is an ocean of calm, tranquil and filled with peace, can realise the Truth. The first rule that we must follow to lead such a tranquil life is not believe in the illusory life that we lead. Until then it is well nigh impossible, as we attach such great importance to the most trivial of things. We take even dreams to be real and suffer on account of them. A man sees a ghost in his dream and gets up with a fright, his chest pounding; his sleep is broken, the dream is no more, yet it has seemed so real that the heart is still beating fast even after waking up!

When we visit the theatre we even get carried away by those performances. We will see many people wiping their eyes in cinema-houses, whereas in reality the screen is nothing but an electrical projection of images with sound. Even though we know this, we still laugh or cry or get frightened by whatever we see in the different scenes! The drama becomes a reality for us whereas the life we live itself is a drama – so we envisage a drama within a drama as reality – we are that far away removed from the Truth. The first rule in the quest for Truth is to consider the ‘reality of life’ that we live to be a play. Once we accept that, the Truth begins to reveal itself slowly.

There was a great thinker in Bengal by the name of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. He went to see a play. In the play, the hero is after the heroine. He does everything to harass and trouble her. Then one day, in the dead of night, he jumps into her bedroom and catches hold of her.

Vidyasagar could no longer bear it. He jumped on to the stage, took out his shoe and beat up the hero – completely forgetting it was a play on the stage! Everybody was shocked but the hero took the shoe and holding it to his chest, bowed reverently to Vidyasagar. He turned to the audience and said, “Never have I received so great an honour. That anyone should be so carried away by my acting and that too, a great thinker like Vidyasagar! It is the biggest award I have ever received. I shall always cherish this shoe.”

Vidyasagar felt ashamed. He went quietly back to his seat. Later on, he told his friends that the play appeared so real that he completely forgot it was a drama!

If a play looks real, man gets disturbed but if life appears a play, man becomes tranquil. Where is the need to be agitated by a dream? Then if poverty comes, it is a dream; even riches are a dream. Then sickness and health, honour and dishonour, are all dreams. As this truth becomes clearer to us, the mind starts to get restful. This simple Truth is hidden because of our restlessness.