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Posts: 4397 · Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:15 am

Thought for the Day

Haven't we taken our toys too seriously?

Most of us have our lives centered around our family, career, money, house, friends, spouse, children, their education, our health, parents' health etc. If we just peek into a gathering of friends or relatives anywhere in the world, you will find them all talking about these same things with minor variations. Our inner space is like a tape recorder that continuously plays thoughts related to one of these in a fixed pattern, day in and day out.

But there are times when all this seems meaningless! This could happen when we enter into places with high spiritual energy like temples or quiet ashrams. Something deep down tells us that this deep peace which we experience in those places is where we actually came from, and where we should be. Suddenly the whole life seems to be a drama. We start to see the insignificance of our so called problems, our so called worries.

Recently my aunt after visiting the ashram at Bidadi said to me 'It was such an amazing experience! I have now realized how I have been wasting my time and energy all these years. From now I have decided I will put in my entire life into spiritual upliftment etc.' Then what happens after we go back home? We cling back to our old routine, old thought patterns, old sources of pleasure and what not.

Why does this happen? Ramakrishna says beautifully: When a child is engrossed in the toys given to it, the mother is relaxed doing her chores in the kitchen, because she knows the child is alright, enjoying. But after a while when the child gets bored of the toys, it starts to look this side and that side. It suddenly wants the mother beside it. Then it starts to cry - first softly. Then begins to wail. Now, the mother cannot bear to see the child crying. So she comes running to puts the child in her arms.

Does this sound familiar? This is exactly the game we play in our lives with our toys. Till such time we are busily playing with our toys, the cosmic mother Parashakti waits patiently. Only when we realize the futility of the whole thing and cry for her earnestly, she responds!

Swamiji quotes this beautiful story that will further throw light on this. There were two little boys building sand castles at the beach. In the process, one of them got into a quarrel with the other and kicked the sand castle of the other in anger. Now this other boy went and complained to the king, for which the king laughed and said "Why are you crying for such a trivial thing? After all they are just sand castles". For this the minister said "Dear king, how different is this from you crying over your stone castles?"

So, when we are young, we cry for toy cars. When we grow up we cry for bigger toy cars! That's all. No difference!

There is nothing wrong with playing with the toys as long as we know we are only playing with toys! The problem is that we start to take the toys too seriously and forget that we have our mother waiting for us. All we need to do is to cry for her, she will come running to embrace us!

Thanks for the beautiful article, Prabakaran.