An Enlightening Story

There was a small family of husband, wife and a child. The child was very sharp in observing the habits of their parents. Everyday she was observing that her parents were going to bathroom and lock the door from inside. After a while they were coming back. She did not know what they were doing inside but she noticed that they lock the door when they go inside. One fine day she went to bathroom and locked the door from inside. She played with water for a while. Her mother was busy in doing some other work. She did not notice that her child is inside bathroom. After a while, the child started to shout that someone has locked the door. Her mother came and told the child that she had locked the door from inside and asked her to open but the child did not understand that. She started to cry louder. Her mother was helpless. She did not know what should be done. She called her husband, her neighbors and they broke the door and helped the child to come out.

Now relating the same story to our life: We are in the same state as that of the child. We have closed the door of the ultimate truth. We have locked ourselves in this materialistic world and everyday we think that we have many problems. We think that someone is forcing us to stay in this locked state. There are many books which tell us to open the door, many saints advice us to do the same but we don't understand that. We don't know how to control ourselves. We are always in the search of happiness but we forget that happiness is within ourselves.

This Kannada quote describes our state more clearly : ಅಂಗೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬೆಣ್ಣೆ ಇಟ್ಕೊಂಡು ಊರೆಲ್ಲ ತುಪ್ಪಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಹುಡುಕಾಡಿದ ಹಾಗೆ ಆಯ್ತು. "ಆತ್ಮಾರಾಮಾ ಆನಂದ ರಾಮಣ" - We get the real happiness when we look within ourselves.

I have started reading "Mankutimmana Kagga" and I am very much inspired by the way it is written. It is written in such a way that we can easily relate to our current state. I will be posting few more thoughts in the coming days. Your thoughts are welcome.