Rewards of burning like a star

I watched an old classic Bollywood movie "Aaradhana" once again. I would have watched the movie a number of times. It's a movie about pure love. Love of a woman with a man who dies before marriage in an accident and also love with their son. She faces and conquers the most fundamental fear: the fear of social disapproval. In society, thinking of giving birth to a baby without marriage is not acceptable even today. She goes to jail in self-defense which is such a big stigma in any society. She conquers this fear as well to take care of her child. Her child is adopted by a different couple and she never lets him know that he is her son. That is the ultimate sacrifice. Not letting know the person for whom you have sacrificed your life.

Every time I watch the movie, I wonder what gives a person so much courage to sacrifice the whole of her life and face and conquer the biggest fears such as losing freedom while going to jail and facing the severest of social disapproval. Whether love give that much strength? If it does, why do we have so much hatred in the society of the day?

It's a very delicate question. We all have a "self" around which our whole life revolves. We try to protect and promote this "self" almost all of our lives. We try to protect and promote our body, family, wealth, community, positions and almost everything else, we identify "ourselves" with. However, the center of our "self" always remains to be our body. Most of the time, we pretend to be in love, while in reality, it's nothing more than "like". We like something and want to possess that person or thing because we feel that person or thing will give us pleasure. Like a black hole, we want to possess and gulp that other person. Very rarely, human beings experience love wherein one is ready to let go of one's identity.

Probably, an insecure and incomplete human being is so obsessed with his insecurities and incompletion that he can not look beyond those. Whatever amount of water we pour into a pot, water can not come out of the same unless it is full. Similarly, whatever amount of light a black hole absorbs, it can not start shining like a star. Insecurities have an infinite hunger. No amount of light or matter satiates a black hole. A star on the other hand burns itself to its death by giving light to the others. 

There are two choices available all the time with each one of us. We may become more and more self-obsessed by making the center of our existence heavier. As the gravity of the center increases, it starts accumulating the material possessions around it. As the center becomes heavier and heavier, it starts sucking even light and turns into a black hole, which gulps even the stars and planets. In the end, it causes loss of life.

Often people feel themselves to be quite selfless while, they are actually very selfish. The reason for this confusion is the "Maya". Our intellect is very level and it is able to disguise selfishness in the guise of selflessness. For example, a politician may be quite selfish in helping people which has been centered around the desire to get votes. However, his intellect may create a story convincing him that he is very helpful to others and conveniently hides his inner drive. Similarly, one may be taking care of a wife and kids for the sake of getting the tag of being a good husband and a parent from society, while the intellect may disguise it as love and hide the inner drive to get social approval.  The moment we gather the courage to see ourselves naked, we see reality very clearly. Till that time, we continue to live under hallucination. 

I strongly feel that there is only one measure of spiritual growth i.e. end of conflict between the inner and the outer. That's not easy because we do not have the courage to take even the first step in that direction. We have to learn to observe the inner self. Then not run away from the image we see in the mirror and rather take it as a challenge and work on that. 

This entire exercise seems to be a very painful exercise. In reality, it is the other way around. The black hole has a far greater weight than the star. Star burns itself to give light to others and in the process loses all its mass. If we notice carefully, in the process, the entire mass of the star has been converted into energy. Star gets its mass from the energy and by burning, it gets converted into the same energy back. On the other hand, the black hole becomes heavier each day accumulating more and more. This weight of accumulation makes the black hole more and more restless, hungry to eat more and more. The process of burning makes a star shed all its weight to merge back with the source of its creation to regain freedom and be free of all restlessness. Thus, it's all about the perspective where we see it from. When we leave the obsession with the form, we immediately get to understand how the process of giving selflessly is actually the most rewarding process. 

Once a person moves along the spiritual path, it starts acting like that selfless star giving light to everybody around. It also starts acting like a selfless potmaker applying just the right pressure on the pot to give it the right shape. A potmaker, while making the pot, keeps one hand inside the pot and the other hand on the outer side giving shape to the pot. If the inner hand is full of anger and hatred, it will apply excessive pressure on the pot, giving a convex bulge to the pot. If the inner hand is possessive and clingy towards the pot, it will create a concave bulge to the pot. Only when the inner hand is interested in the well-being of the pot, it will support the pot taking the right shape.