Samsara* is the world; not the world of nature, but the world of human beings who torment themselves by going against their true nature.
This world is filled with people who are caught up in self-love and self-hate. This surreal duality is projected as attraction and repulsion, infatuation and disgust, and loving and hating others, superficially. The world of Samsara is superficial; it is not real. Samsaric love is impermanent and painful. Samsaric relationships are relationships of convenience and connivance.
A man or woman who is in love with their small self (ego) is very small-hearted. Their world revolves around themselves. People who move in lockstep with their ego are driven mad. This madness manifests in the form of anger, grudges, greed, despair and desperation. Everyone in Samsara is a desperado. They are anxious to ‘go somewhere’, meet ‘somebody’, get ‘something’, and be ‘someone’. But they never find what they are looking for, because what they are really looking for what they really want is to be FREE.
We cannot find freedom by living in our mind ruled by the tyrant ego. We need to kick our ego out and ‘put our house in order.’ The problem is, many of us have become complacent; we have been accommodating our ego for many, many years. We have learned how to live with our ego even though it is a tyrant. We follow the dictates of our ego and the whims of our mind, and we never know real freedom.
We say we are free, but are we really free? One who is a slave of their mind and ego cannot be called free. One who is bound by their selfish desires and petty preferences is always on edge, always ready to explode in anger when their wants are not met. And how can our wants ever be met when we keep on increasing them?
It is time to simplify, verify, and rectify our lives. If we don’t, we are never going to find peace; we are never going to be at peace with ourselves or be able to live peacefully with others. We have to make time for inner reflection and quietude. If we are constantly thinking and worrying and looking for ‘something new’ we are going to get old very quickly.
We need to take time for inner renewal. This means we have to do our ‘homework.’ We have to stop going out and looking for excitement, and instead we need to conserve our energies and direct them for self-improvement. Self-improvement means making ourselves less selfish than yesterday. The less selfish we are, the less of a liability we will be to ourselves and others. If we become completely unselfish, we will no longer be in our own way, nor will we be a burden to others. On the other hand, if we are undisciplined and careless, we will become unfit for happiness.
This world does not have to be an ugly place. It can be a beautiful experience in our eternal journey, but only if we keep our eternal nature always in view. We have to stay focused on what is important and real, otherwise we will spend our life remembering what is unimportant and trivial. We need to stay connected to our real nature, otherwise we will get caught up in unreality and find ourselves stuck in the madness of Samsara. OM
*pronunciation: sam (son) sar (rhymes with ‘far’) a (like the ‘a’ in ‘about’)