Importance of Being Aware

(12 th July 2005)

We see people sitting on the sea beach making patterns on the sand. If the sand happens to be wet,they make small temples, domes and images of gods,goddesses, men and beasts. After making those sand sculptures, they inscribe their own names and the names of people they love. Then a bigger than usual wave comes and levels those architectural designs,leaving not a trace behind. The makers of those designs see their carefully made sand sculptures being washed away. But they are not greatly affected by that“cataclysm”. They know that their works of art would be washed away by the waves or blown away by the wind or trampled upon by inattentive walkers sooner or later. Even if none of these hazards befalls these sand sculptures, they would disintegrate automatically when sand gets dry. The sitters need not be great philosophers to realize such a simple truth and to take the demolition of their sand sculptures easy.Their commonsense and their knowledge about the material they use to make their sculptures and the place where they have erected them are enough to make them aware of the transience of their works of art. In other words, their knowledge prepares them to face the casual insensitivity of the sea and treat it as anon-event. Let’s stretch the situation a little further. We make beautiful things, give concrete shape to our dreams and relate ourselves to others with passionate sincerity. Then a moment comes when the beautiful things we have made with so much of love, hard work and attention get erased due to a variety of reasons;the emotional relationships we have nurtured with so much care and affection become cool or even break. We are unable to take these occurrences easy, because we have never considered them evanescent. On the contrary, we use choicest synonyms of permanence to describe and glorify them. We always wish that our beautiful creations and our much-cherished relationships would continue forever. Our expression of adoration for some body or something will not be complete unless we garnish it with “for ever.” The French philosopher and litterateur Albert Camus makes a classic case out of such a situation. Once upon a time there was a king called Sisyphus in Ancient Greece. Like all earthlings, he had a great love for life. He did not like to die. But he died.When he came to the underworld after his death, he requested the king of the Hades, Pluto to permit him to return to earth to finish some incomplete works. He promised to return voluntarily to the world of death after completing his works. Pluto believed him and permitted him to return to his earthly kingdom.Sisyphus finished the works he had left incomplete,but refused to return to the kingdom of death. Many reminders and warnings from Pluto were wasted on him. Finally, Mercury had to drag him to the underworld by force. For his betrayal of trust and lust for life,Zeus condemned him to push a rock to the summit of Hill and keep on doing it until the rock stays put there. But the rock would roll down to its original place every time. For months, years and eons, Sisyphus must be doing that job of pushing the rock to the top of the hill without any chance of fixing it there.Albert Camus found an allegory for the condition of man on this earth in the struggle of Sisyphus. Zeus wanted to educate Sisyphus about the ultimate futility of all human struggles. Sisyphus has not only learnt the harsh lesson which Zeus wanted to hammer home, he has also scored a point over his tormentor by being forewarned by his own experience about the futile nature of his struggle. In other words, he has become conscious of the final futility and does not entertain any illusion about the success of his struggle. As a result of such awareness, he is no more unhappy and heart-broken. He has transformed his struggle into a kind of game that children play in the village streets at being man and wife, king and queen,winner and loser, hero and villain. And as the twilight descends and domestic animals return from the grasslands, children abandon their games and repair to their respective homes. Blissfully devoid of any illusion of success, Sisyphus pushes the rock uphill using all his might always chuckling at his divine tormentor with: O Zeus, the futility of my struggles does not fill me with despair any longer, because I do not hope. I have learnt the lesson that you wanted to teach me. Even in my slavery, I am free.This awareness is important, because it liberates human beings from the expectation of success, thereby preparing him to cope with the fleetingness of life.Like Sisyphus, each man is capable of acquiring such awareness, such an insight into his many obsession sand struggles. Now we may ask: Do people want to possess such an insight? Will they gladly take it if it is offered to them? Will they be interested to learn this lesson if is taught to them? In all probability, they won’t,because such an insight will reduce the amount and intensity of their pleasure along with the amount and intensity of their pain. If we train ourselves not to feel any grief when misfortunes befall us, we will be incapable of feeling any pleasure when good fortunes visit us. While sincerely desiring a reduction of our pain, we are chary of reducing an iota of our pleasure. We even tend to extol the pain, because it not only intensifies our pleasure, but also prevents pleasure from getting atrophied and becoming monotonous. Is Sisyphus happy or sad after realizing the futility of his struggle? Such a question is out of context,because he is left with no choice, like a man condemned by the court to be imprisoned has no choice in the matter. If we deign to look at our life on earth a bit closely, we may find that we are not much different from Sisyphus and the convict condemned to prison. We are not forced by Zeus or by a court of law, but by our own sense organs, gunas (the modes of Prakruti) and mind. They discourage us to acquire the lucid awareness and penetrating insight of Sisyphus,because their power and control over us will weaken if we peer through the veil of illusion and know our true condition. They tell us: “Life has to be lived to the fullest degree. Fear of pain should not deter you from pleasures with which the world abounds. By being indifferent to both, you throw away the baby with bathwater. So don’t accept the so-called lucidity or insight even though it is offered to you on a platter.As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” This warning sinks into us as we have weakness for pleasure and do not want to lose it by lessening our appetite for it.At the same time, we should know that the senses, the modes of Prakruti and the mind advocate their own cause. The terms like transcendence and equanimity are not found in their dictionary. One-dimensionality of their nature prevents them from seeing higher dimensions man is capable of entering. That same fable of Sisyphus contains the proof of higher dimension sand possibilities. Why does Sisyphus keep on struggling with his rock after being wised up to the futility of his struggle? We know he has a history of willfulness and disobedience. He can very well call ita day, and chill out. But he wouldn’t do that. His suffering has taught him a thing or two. He has come to realize that his sense of duty and the unavoidable nature of the assignment leave no room for personal emotions. This proletariat of the gods (as Camus calls Sisyphus) has to descend the hill at a leisurely pace with a knowing smile writ large on his face to star this work once again. The descending Sisyphus is the thinking man. He is the man endowed with awareness and the lucidity of visions that penetrates the veil of illusion. His sense of meaning of life is inseparable from his sense of duty. The fear of failure and the pleasure of success pale into insignificance before his radiant awareness. Like the sand sculptors on the sea beach and the playful children in the village street, he transforms the assigned task into are creation, least bothered about its permanence and teleological significance. Though a captive of a divine curse, he liberates himself through his knowledge and awareness.Getting down to the brass tacks, it is simply an attitude, that is, the way we think and feel about things, which imprisons us or liberates us from captivity. An attitude is a state of mind. It is a way of looking at an event. That is to say, an attitude offers an angle through which we look at events,things and relationships. The manner in which we look at them determines the nature and amount of our suffering on this earth. In a few cases, this attitude is a given, but in most cases it is slowly formed in us, as the pearl in an oyster, through our study of scriptures and philosophies, through our contact with the enlightened persons, through our contemplation on the nature of things and through our thoughtful suffering. Once formed, this attitude enables us to see the same old incident in a new way, in a lucid way. Like the sunshine it clears the dense fog of illusion. Our old habit of seeing is replaced by our fresh insight. The boon companions of this attitude are dispassion or non-attachment and a natural disinterestedness in the fruit of action. If we know the inevitability of an occurrence, we take that occurrence as natural and are not greatly affected by it. The sand sculptors in the beach have no illusions about the nature of their artistic creations. Their attitudes have already been formed to enable them to cope with that event.Sisyphus has acquired this attitude through his own experiences. Viewed from this angle, we may suppose that the artistic efforts of the sand sculptors and the toils of Sisyphus are not totally wasted. They, at least,reward them with the ability to take the futility and wastage of their labour easy. That is one of the noblest abilities man can hope to acquire.