When we watch a child playing joyfully, incessantly and with a magical innocence, without any sense of ego-self, it feels like they are eternal beings of infinite bliss. They do not have the vicious traits of an Adult Human, which includes Jealousy, Greed, False Pride, and Narcissism etc. They are still free, not bound by the atrocities of this world. They enjoy a sense of selflessness, enjoying each moment fully and just the way it comes. They play wholly, sing without the impression that someone is looking at them, cry and shout brazenly, giving a damn to this civilized world. They speak out things, which, in normal circumstances, would be termed as socially unacceptable. They are born Free.
And then they grow up! Maturity grabs their necks and they feel exhausted and suffocated. Social Conditioning, comparison and competition with others take first hand, with our schools and colleges and the education system, as a whole, adding fuel to fire. Their creativity is quashed and they are grilled deep into the system, where greed, money and power are glorified and amplified.
Eventually, they create an inflated image of themselves, a mask of a false ego-self, to be shown and displayed to others. Their true selves take a back seat. They get so engrossed in maintaining that false image that they tend to get enraged at any attempt to destroy that distorted portrait of them. They become like Hyenas, demoralizing and annihilating anyone or any circumstance that creep up to damage their delusional cloud palaces. They do not spare anyone, not even their near and dear ones.
Furthermore, another big fault of this society we live in, is that this Society builds benchmarks or standards of acceptance and behavioural patterns that the people have to follow or at least pretend to follow, and going against these standards will spell our doom and we will be branded as anti-socials. Society, as a whole, lays down some illusory rules and manners of conducting oneself and the slightest deviation from these commandments are futile. It creates an image for each and every one of us and expects us to follow that image, like slaves following a Master.
And what if we refuse to follow!? What then?
We are rebuked, we are assaulted, and we are branded with various crooked names and pushed vehemently into the sidelines of anonymity and solitude.
Subsequently, many of us, unable to bear the same and fearing societal backlash, finally succumb to its Dominion Status and etch our faces with the mask prepared by it, forever trying to adjust our lives to the tag given to us. Thereafter, we guard this artificial image with such intensity that even the Devil shall roll in his Grave!
However, we are not made like this. Our essence is freedom and liberty. We all are born free like the birds and the small children mentioned earlier. No one, I repeat… No one has the right to tell us what to do and what not to do! None has the authority to advise us on what is right and what is wrong, on what should be done and what shouldn’t be. We make our own choices, we create our own destinies and shape our own future; we learn from our own mistakes and we attain wisdom through self-discovery and self-repentance. We are an abundant and infinite creature, a being having a limitless soul and boundless spirit. Our soul always thrives to grow beyond and cross all horizons. And it is due to this enthusiasm; we have attained such lovely discoveries and made amazing inventions. This boundless energy within us craves for freedom and an opportunity to raise above all hurdles and race towards enlightenment.
Thereby, knowing our true self, how can we let this everlasting conscience be tied down by the finite barriers of the ego-self!? How can we let societal confines rob us from our basic nature of being free-spirited? We cannot let ourselves become slaves of the society and of our own ego-negative self, which is after all a product of years of social conditioning.
Therefore, just as Buddha phrased-“No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become Free.”
-RONJOY BORDOLOI