pretending to be what we are not

[Guest guest]

namaste.

 

The basic difficulty with humans is: they pretend to be what they

are not. This leads to difficulties not only in the day-to-day

life but also in our quest to realize brahman. If only we have

jnAnam or wisdom to be what we are rather than pretending what

we are not.

 

In the day-to-day life, at work-place, at social functions or

in general with our interactions with society, we have a tendency

to act (or pretend) as someone which our inner-self says we are not.

We have encountered this in our lives everyday: an average professor

pretending to be a Nobel-laurate; a selfish spouse covering his/her

inner feelings and pretending to be a compassionate one; a socially-

uncomfortable person pretending to be a social magnate; a financially-

constrained teenager pretending to be an affluent big-spender on

dates; and so on. I am sure you get the picture. This pretention

(to be what we are not) landed us in difficulties many times. If

only we do not pretend to be what we are not, more than ninety

percent of the social problems of the society will not be there.

The individual can come out clear with him/herself and the mental

tensions of the society will be much reduced. This pretension is

due to the ignorance of even the small-s self. This is not a

commentary on self-effort for improvement. This is a commentary

on our outer facade being different from the inner self.

 

We can extrapolate this to our spiritual activities as well and to

our search for knowing the Absolute SELF. We are the SELF, but we

pretend to be the self. And the whole set of problems arise because

of this. Because of this pretension to act as self rather than be

the SELF (this pretending either wilful or forced on us from our

birth), we ignore our natural state and go through the misery of

saMsAra (of the pairs of opposites). Some of us do it knowingly,

not having enough courage to explore something out of the ordinary,

some of us do it unknowingly, even without a pretence that we are

acting as someone which we are not.

 

 

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

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