HOW ARE WE TRAVELLING?

Worry, anxiety, depression etc. are the marks of the present day world. It is a paradox to note that the above emotions attack the affluent than the economically weak people. They are so much worried and preoccupied  to carry the load of their achievements in the form of wealth and possessions that they forget to live in full.  Their thoughts always are on how to 'maintain' and 'increase' what they have. The world tends to call them achievers and enterprising persons.  The burden on them is such that they cannot sleep well and have a calm life. They are not willing to let go.  It is thoughtful to note that the Indian philosophy divides the life cycle into 4 ashrams (the human life was divided into four periods. The goal of each period was the ideal fulfillment of each of the four consecutive stages of life.) :  Brahmacharya (student life), Grihastha  (household life), Vanaprastha (retired life) and Sannyasa (renounced life). Earlier days, once a person is retired, he/she was having a leisurely life.  Now they search for new avenues to 'get engaged'.  Executives go for consultancies, Bank employees go for private banking, teachers go for teaching in private Schools and Colleges... the list goes on.  I know a person who is above eighty five years, known as enterprising,  still working on 'new projects'; but the worst thing is that his sons are least interested to take up any of his projects (they are busy in foreign countries trying to build 'empires' there!)  

Here is a thoughtful anecdote: A wealthy man was sitting in his balcony  when a little ant caught his eye. It was carrying a big leaf several times more than its size. The man watched it for more than an hour. He saw that the ant faced many impediments during its journey, paused, took a diversion and then continued towards destination.

At one point the tiny creature came across a crack in the floor. It paused for a little while, analyzed and then laid the huge leaf over the crack, walked over the leaf, picked the leaf on the other side then continued its journey.

The man was captivated by the cleverness of the ant, one of God’s tiniest creatures. The incident left the man in awe and forced him to contemplate over the miracle of Creation. It showed the greatness of the Creator. In front of his eyes there was this tiny creature of God, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to analyze, contemplate, reason, explore, discover and overcome. Along with all these capabilities, the man also noticed that this tiny creature shared some human shortcomings.

The man saw about an hour later the creature had reached its destination – a tiny hole in the floor which was entrance to its underground dwelling. And it was at this point that the ant’s shortcoming that it shared with the man was revealed. How could the ant carry into the tiny hole the large leaf that it had managed to carefully bring to the destination? It simply couldn't!

So the tiny creature, after all the painstaking and hard work and exercising great skills, overcoming all the difficulties along the way, just left behind the large leaf and went home empty-handed.

The ant had not thought about the end before it began its challenging journey and in the end the large leaf was nothing more than a burden to it. The creature had no option, but to leave it behind to reach its destination. The man learned a great lesson that day.

There is a famous malayalam song "Samayamaam radhathil njaan" (For the non-malayaali readers: I travel in the chariot of time) in which a stanza is thus: 

  

   Bhaarangal koodunnathinu onnum venda yaathrayil

     Alpamappam vishapinnu, swalpam vellam daahikkil

(Do not carry unnecessary load which hinders your journey;  For hunger some food, for thirst a little water)

I am reminded of the writing in the train compartments in the earlier days: "Less luggage, more comfort".

Isn't that the truth about our lives?

We worry about our family, we worry about our job, we worry about how to earn more money, we worry about where we should live – 5 bedroom or 6 bedroom house, what kind of vehicle to buy – a Mercedes or BMW or a Porsche, what kind of dresses to wear, all sorts of things, only to abandon all these things when we reach our destination – The Grave. We don’t realize in our life’s journey that these are just burdens that we are carrying with utmost care and fear of losing them, only to find that at the end they are useless and we can’t take them with us.