Lessons from a baby

Isn't it amazing to see a baby learning to walk and talk? They fall down so many times while learning to walk, yet they are not tired of trying. They speak so many words wrongly while trying to talk, yet they keep trying. Surprisingly (some will say routinely) they learn to walk and talk. 

If we step into the shoes of a baby who does not know how to walk and talk, how difficult the task would look. What an immense learning it is. The baby is not scared. On the contrary, when the same baby grows into an adult, he gets frightened by little difficult assignments at the office, a little difficulty in life, or slightest of the possibility of loss or damage. What converts that bold baby into a timid adult? 

The baby does not know what God is. He does not pray to any God. He is just hell-bent on exploring how to walk and talk. He is free from all inhibitions. He wants to try everything new. As he grows, he explores many more things. He forms friendships with many other kids and explores the world along with them. In the process, he gets continuous feedback from society about the fun offered by different things such as the fun of being a topper in the class, getting a good job, roaming around the world, getting a life partner, having kids, and so on. The explorative nature of the baby wants to explore all these things. 

A baby learns whatever comes his way. He does not distinguish between Japanese and Hindi while he is learning to talk. He a baby learns Japanese and then comes to Hindi land, he will not shy away from learning Hindi. He will not hold on to Japanese. However, in the process of growth, something very significant happens. As we grow old, we still wish to explore but are unable to let go. We wish to hold on to what we get.

We wish to travel to new cities but at the same time fear transfers. We wish to explore new subjects but wish to hold on to our past knowledge. We wish to explore new works but want job security. I wonder what makes us hold on to our possessions. Probably the root cause lies in the ignorance with which we make efforts to acquire these things. We make efforts to get a job, money, property, and power with an understanding that getting these things will make us secure. 

I wonder why the question of security does not come to the mind of the baby and how security takes over exploration in the case of an adult. Probably that is an outcome of a limited perspective of life. A baby does not think. He is not aware of the mental concepts of life, death, and pain. If he falls, he cries as an automatic reaction of the body and then moves on. On the contrary, a grown-up develops many mental concepts about life, death, and pain. These mental concepts are generally learned from society without any verification. If society says that we need a secure job to be happy, we just consider it to be true without examination. We give a similar premium to money and power. 

We never examine all these concepts independently. We run so fast that we hardly have any time for such an examination. We keep evaluating every new situation and outcome in the background of these unexamined mental concepts of security. Society very cleverly hides the pain of riches, the death of the health freaks, the insecurities of the most powerful, and the stupidities of the most intelligent. Probably there is a mass conspiracy to hide these realities so that those who have spent all their lives in the pursuit of these money, power, and positions do not prove stupid and they are not looked down on by the ones who do not waste their life in these shallow pursuits.

As one decides to be a little aware, one immediately sees that death is an eternal truth and security is overpriced. One sees clearly how he has been cheated by the society. I remember the story of a Baba who slaps everybody who comes to meet him and when the slapped person goes out of the cave, where the Baba resides, he tells everybody all good things about the Baba so that he is not made fun of. Thus, everybody gets slapped in the process. Isn't we also doing the same thing to our younger generation? Telling them all rubbish. I don't see many of us contended and happy. Many of us are depressed or on the verge of depression. Anxiety and stress and there in every family. Yet, we tell our younger generation to carry the same shopping list for life, as we carried. Are we afraid to tell our kids that we have been slapped by the Baba?

All these mental constructs of security are just a creation of ignorance. Only awareness and observation can reveal the truth. The moment one starts observing the reality, one sees clearly the limited functional use of the security and one keeps security then and there. One gets free of many fixations and starts exploring again like a baby. As the consciousness grows, one sees that the life of a being is not disconnected from the whole and that connection with the whole is the biggest security. As that connection is established, one no longer wastes time unnecessarily in the pursuit of security and lives a contended life full of exploration.