| | | Why
do we forget things? We forget things because we are careless. Carelessness is
called pramada. Knowledge, reason and sense of purpose become dormant or disappear
in a state of pramada.
Freedom from pramada is a necessary condition of human
life. Sometimes we try to forget things. Man is liable to be careless sometimes.
Alcoholic drinks, hemp etc are not tasteful, but some people have to use them
because it is necessary for them to forget the worries of the world and to feel
that they have been left alone.
There are some who would like to lead a social
life either in the family or among friends or people of their own profession.
The society they seek may be based on culture, religion, common political sympathies
etc. Then there are bigger societies like the village or the town and above all
the nation. Moreover, we like to live in the company of ideas also.
Man is
not a solitary individual, but a complex of relations. His associations with men
and things cause anxiety and misery. As a matter of fact, all kinds of associations
are a misery. There will be no misery, if we did not associate ourselves with
men and things other than ourselves. Miseries produce all kinds of anxieties which,
when prolonged, make us frantic. The restlessness thus produced is a call to us
to retire into the world of loneliness so that we may get rid of the worries and
anxieties born of our associations with men and things other than ourselves.
Use
of intoxicants is an attempt to forget worries and anxieties and to experience
loneliness for the time being. Intoxicants are a means of entering into a state
of temporary loneliness. Intoxicants, by themselves, do not give any pleasure.
They serve as a means to experience loneliness.
It is impossible for man to
extricate himself from the network of relationships he has entered into. He does
not know the procedure and value of meditation, because he has never practised
it. The only substitute for meditation available to him is intoxicants. They enable
him to forget the world and enter into a state of solitariness. In this respect
meditation and intoxicants have a common purpose and function. Both produce a
feeling of solitariness. No body can be happy without this feeling. Recreations
like the films, theatre, picnics or a plain walk attracts us for the same reason.
They enable us to forget the worries of life.
Associations and the worries
they produce have become a great problem for mankind. All the relations we have
entered into with things and men outside us have created a chasm in our souls.
We have grown to be self-forgetful. The world of relations and a life of the self
cannot go together. We have, therefore, to prefer one of them. It should, however,
be remembered that self-forgetfulness or atma-vismruti is a state of sleep or
negligence. Let me illustrate this point by an anecdote from the life of Socrates.
Socrates
was going somewhere. On the way he met a man who was drunk. Socrates warned him
to be careful lest he should fall into a pit. The drunken man retorted: "Don't
worry about me. The entire world knows that I am a drunkard. It won't matter whether
people found me on the road or in a pit. Take care of yourself, my dear philosopher.
If from sheer negligence you fall into a pit, you will become an object of mockery."
The drunkard's remark was very meaningful.
If a practitioner of sadhana lost
his senses and falls into a pit out of sheer negligence, it would certainly matter
much. Once a sadhaka slips, he would never recover. He cannot afford to be negligent
and self-forgetful. The secret of sadhana lies in self-awareness and complete
self-watchfulness. This is apramada. Sadhana consists in the feeling of solitariness.
Once this attitude has been developed, all the worries of life will disappear.
One will enter into the world of his own self. One who does not feel so will always
remain entangled in all kinds of problems.
Apramada or freedom from negligence
is a powerful instrument of self-knowledge. The attempt to know the self has a
great practical value also. One cannot feel joy in this world unless one feels
oneself alone. Many parents in their old age feel that they are being neglected
by their children. They become unduly critical of their children. This is because
they are not accustomed to remain alone. If they were, they would not feel offended.
There
are two kinds of men: those who feel that the external world is full of diversity
and those who feel that there is unity in the world within. If we pay exclusive
attention to the external world we feel that it is full of diversity. This feeling
produces worries. We live in two environments, the external and the internal.
The
external world is a world of diversity and we feel worried because we connect
ourselves with it. If we cut ourselves off from it and enter into the world within,
we will feel a sense of unity. It is only when we mix the two that we feel diversity
in the internal world also. The world of the self is a world of unity. This unity
can be experienced only when we renounce all kinds of relations with men and things. |
