Mary is a volunteer at a shelter, handing out free prepared food to the homeless who come asking.
One day, a fancy car drives up to where she has set up her table and a man, obviously foreign, steps out of it.
He looks at the neatly packed stacks of sandwiches and points at the sign nearby: Free food. Please take ONE.
“This free reely?” he asks.
Mary smiles and nods.
The man proceeds to pick up several sandwiches, many more than he needs.
“For wife, kids, relatives. They hungry.” He grins an insincerely self-effacing grin.
He then puts them in the back seat of his car and comes back to the table.
“Too many relatives… all hungry.” He laughs, vainly trying to disguise his greed with false humor.
And reaches for more sandwiches.
He’s well dressed, drives a fancy car, and it’s hard to imagine this man or his family would ever want for anything, let alone food!
So Mary stops him.
“I’m sorry Sir.” she says. “I respect your culture and tradition. But this kind of thing is not ok here. We’re only handing out one sandwich per person today.”
“Oh!” says the man in feigned surprise. “Vokay then.”
He returns to his car. But not before turning around and taking ONE last sandwich.
Let’s take a look at Mary’s response. The one that went “I respect your culture and tradition…”
Is that really what Mary meant? Maybe she wanted to say:
“I know you and your countrymen are all a bunch of fucking thieves. But out here don’t even think about it.”
But clearly, that’s not the kind of thing one would actually say.
Not if we want to enjoy the greater good that comes from a harmonious society in today’s world.
Not if we want to minimize the amount of disruption in our own personal journeys.
This is an example of a situation in which not speaking one’s mind has helped to defuse a potentially overt conflict and resentment all around. The strategy has both social and personal utility.
But the problem is that this tendency overruns itself. Unless one is mindful and aware of one’s own intentions clearly, it’s harder to have the tendency operate on others and not have it operate on ourselves.
Like it’s either all or nothing.
This makes us generally cautious in everything we do or say. Everything has to be “filtered”. We learn to never speak our minds.
So much that we even don’t tell ourselves what we feel.
And we tell ourselves what we don’t feel.
Or ought to feel.
All that is dictated by society. It’s a harmful byproduct.
Non-maliciously lying to others may be good in a socially utilitarian way although bad in principle.
But lying to one’s own self is always bad. Unforgivably so.
The attitude prevents us from seeing the truth. The very first step in our spiritual path is to understand our own selves. The self that is hidden behind the countless veils and filters imposed on us from without.
Being true and honest to oneself is what it takes.
Suppose you delight in some socially frowned-upon action — The acceptable thing to do, of course, is to desist from doing it due to all the problems such an action will create for others, and for you in the long term.
But the right thing to do is to recognize and acknowledge your urge to do it.
Knowing what you really want is the first step. Once you identify it, you can formulate safe steps to achieve your desire in a way that harms no one…
… perhaps, if nothing else, in a permanently “Total Recall” way. So you can enjoy your most intense innermost desires without affecting anyone at all. Isn’t that socially acceptable?
If you confide to someone that you want to do something, and that person judges you for having an intention or desire, that’s a very shallow kind of person. Not a good friend at all.
In an adult conversation with another person we’re really exchanging our true views and opinions without cloaking them or distorting them. We honestly acknowledge the way things are. The way the world is. The way the universe is.
But denying that we really feel what we feel or want what we really want isn’t going to get us anywhere. It does not even set the stage for reformation if we should want it.
“This above all: to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man”— Polonius in Act I, Scene III, of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The only seeking is earnest seeking. Everything else is just wanting to seek.
When I wrote about detachment I quoted a passage from the magnificent Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:
न वा अरे सर्वस्य कामाय सर्वं प्रियं भवति
आत्मनस्तु कामाय सर्वं प्रियं भवति
What does it mean?
The English translation is this:
It is not for the sake of a thing that the thing is loved.
It is for the sake of the Self that the thing is loved.
That’s why I admire that fragment. It marks the beginning of a truly honest quest for the truth.
Admitting to oneself what one actually wants is not only the first step. It is the critical requirement.
Do not think “I ought to be this. Or I ought to like this, or I ought to want this.”
Think “I am this. I like this. I want this.”
Don’t love just because you’ve been told it’s a virtue to love. Love because it feels good to love. The first kind of love is not a virtue. It’s actually a vice. The second is true love.
In a forthcoming article, I’ll talk about how even compassion, that most altruistic of virtues, is also rooted in self-interest. I don’t mean self-interest in a crass utilitarian way or Ayn Randian way.
I mean it in the sense of the immediate gratification you get from the juices of compassion coursing your veins.
Being true to ourselves is what sets us up to clearly see what it is within us that does the wanting and why.
Everything else flows naturally from it.
.oOo.
