Eric Erikson’s in his psycho social stages describer
this dilemma of, ‘Integrity versus despair’. We either get our act together, or
we spend the rest of our life in mental anguish.
Is this what life is all about?
Will self interest ever bring happiness or inner
peace? Many people we know have problems in their lives and often it is because
they go to places, where they find problems. For some reason they are attracted
to them.
This is why lifestyle is so important.
“Possession of material riches, without inner peace
is like dying of thirst while bathing in a lake. If material poverty is to be
avoided, spiritual poverty is to be abhorred! It is Spiritual poverty, not
material lack that lies at the core of all human suffering.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
“The egoist and the materialist busily planning for
fulfillment of selfish desires remain entangled in selfishly ambitious and
cannot get away from troubles and disillusionment. He is attached to his small
family, and excludes the world from his love. The egoist thinking himself as
the doer of all actions isolates himself from the Divine; he is in fact
opposing universal law, pitting his puny strength against truth”
This reminds me of Plato’s cave as part of his
dissertation on Plato’s republic.
People in the cave hanging on to the shadow, they
are afraid of the light they see outside the cave; the light which embraces the
unknown. They chose the darkness over the light for they think that if they go
to the light, they may not find their way back to this secure, known place.
Hence they remain in darkness.
Before anything our life can change, we must adopt a
new way of thinking. We need a philosophy that encompasses both our outer and
the inner world.
A way to achieve this is through the philosophy of
yoga.
We start by expanding our consciousness by asking,
who or what is my real nature? And then go from there.
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