The three great shackles

Never can you dance to the tunes of the world and also reach out to the higher. The lower rungs of the ladder have to be discarded if you want to climb higher. One has to let go of the gravitational pull of earthbound desires. The trick is to let go of the heavy weight of desires that keep lashing the body mind and intellect to madly run after objects, emotions and thoughts. We keep waiting to fulfil one desire or the other to be completely happy. This suspends happiness and holds it in abeyance. We lose happiness because we ‘seek’ happiness! We never stop to think that we ARE happiness. Longing for desire fulfilment makes us unhappy.
The desire called “Lokavasana” is the primary shackle. This is a blind aping of what others in society are doing, and the desire to achieve what society terms as success in any field. Thus every unmindful person spends his whole life trying to achieve happiness through different combinations of food ,clothes, cars, houses and spouses. Yet, each time, the joy of acquisition dies in his own embrace.
The second shackle is “Dehavasana”. This is a body oriented desire. We spend a major part of our lives in struggling to feed , clothe, bathe, comfort, cure , polish and preserve the body. The hungers of the body make us dance. The third shackle is “Shastravasana’”. Collecting literature, books, opinions and interpretations of others , but missing out on inculcating them into our lives . Reading ,yet not understanding the full import.
The guru can only open the prison house door, but if you are grounded by these three shackles you can never soar to higher realms. The ridiculousness of it all is that these shackles are mind manufactured and can be cut asunder by the mind alone!!
Prarthna Saran, President Chinmaya Mission New Delhi.
Email: prarthnasaran@gmail.com
This first appeared on 28 April, 2019. The writer is not writing due to unavoidable circumstances.