The Child Beneath the Shields

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I see people, but more than the people, I see the heavy shields they keep on carrying. The shields are of ideas, beliefs, notions, concepts and identities. The person sitting behind those heavy shields, I have observed, is always an innocent little child. Atrophied, a little scared, caged inside the shields like an animal.

It wants to come out. It wants to enjoy life but shields pose as if there is some danger outside. They give a different picture of the world. The child wants to touch the flowers, it wants to slide on the rainbows, it wants to walk on the clouds. But all that the child beneath the shield is made to see is competition - cut throat competition, enemies, ready to stab you. Its all a rat race towards nothing where one does not even bother to stop and look around at the whole absurdity; where one is caught in the "supposed to's" and imitation.

All that the child wants is food and love. When I get to walk by Rose garden or by Sukhna Lake or any other park at that, I see some real children. They have enough trust to keep their defenses down. They sit embracing each other, some of them even kissing. Neither future nor past exists for them. They are in the moment.

But when they separate, truth surfaces. Their shields are up again. All that had been happening was a trade - "You keep your shield down and I mine; I give you love and you me." It's not that shields get down on their own, its all a means to an end. To seek a gratification. To seek gratification and then to revert back to the cut throat competition with enemies who are ready to stab you. Even that love becomes like sex - a momentary escape from the monotonous struggle of life.

This 'competition' and 'enemies', all seems like an over exaggeration. It does because we are living blindly. We our-self are not aware where our actions spring from. To see how the mind works - as a means to an end- makes us see the whole trade that is going in around us in the names of Love, in the name of religion, in the name of spirituality, in the name of humanity and what not; to see that it leads to misery no matter how noble it may seem on the surface.

We tend to get caught in the word and all the junk that has been conditioned into us with that word. To see the reality as it is often painful but it is also liberating in the long run. But our shells of beliefs and concepts are so precious to us that we would rather spend our whole life in them, defending them. To look beyond the shell is to embrace the open sky that is there for you. To have the courage to look beneath at the hollowness is to take the path to true freedom.

But we just want to build a bigger and stronger shell. No matter how big your shell is, its not match for the sky. NO matter how strong it is, it will still keep you busy all your life. When you are busy with trivialities, you miss life. You sacrifice life at the altar of your notions. You end up spending your life maintaining your shell. To have the courage to go through the PAIN of understanding your misery is to end the game. End the game and start living.