People will find out. Your partners will know that you’re giving them to your son, so you’re not stealing them. They didn’t let me go to sell them; they just said they’ll give me whatever profit they make. I’m not interested in this kind of work where everything is made so difficult, and in which I have no contribution. I went there with the feeling that I want to strengthen my inner sense of serving my mother with selfless, equal, and equanimity, and not own them [conti]
I’ve been going to our family business, the marble mines, for the past five days. One day, my father gave me some blocks with a friend so I could earn some money. But since giving them to me, my younger brother, my father, and my mother have told me four times each not to tell anyone that they’ve given you these blocks. Your partner will see them and sell them. But this is stifling me. How are you complicating such a simple matter so much? People will find out. Your partners will know that you’re giving them to your son, so you’re not stealing them. They didn’t let me go to sell them; they just said they’ll give me whatever profit they make. I’m not interested in this kind of work where everything is made so difficult, and in which I have no contribution. I went there with the feeling that I want to strengthen my inner sense of serving my mother with selfless, equal, and equanimity, and not own them. So, is my feeling stifled by religion or my own? Is it a weakness? Apart from this, I can see a hollowness in the family and society, how everyone considers themselves so smart and lives a life of pretense in which there is no truth, the roots of all relationships are tied with selfishness and now I feel like coming out of all this lie, because I want to live my life only for my mother and I neither want to live in a place where there is anyone else except my mother and there is no discussion of God and only random talks and complete show-off, is it right for me to think like this?
You are quite right in understanding the truth behind society and all the hypocrisy it involves. Any inwardly developed and sensitive individual would feel stifled. Some however adjust to it, mainly due to financial compulsions or family obligations. Others revolt and discover their own life independent of the circumstances of their birth. Still others, especially if they are successful, return back and impose a new norm and new way on the society. But overall the social and family pressures are, generally speaking as individual cases differ, not very conducive to man’s inner spiritual growth.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
