The real Independence…

 

The word ‘Independence’ literally means freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others . However , the real Independence comes to you when you attain freedom from the ‘negative you’ , which your consicence doesn’t identify with , but the mind does. It is that voice in you which makes you think – how each and every person on earth has wronged you in some way or the other , how situations have always been averse for you , how you were denied a promotion by your boss , how your neighbour disturbs you with his loud music and a gamut of such situations .

This concept of ‘negative thoughts’ reminds me of a story I read a few days back – Once there was a man who had two dogs – one called ‘Optimism’ and the other called ‘Pessimism’ . The man had ‘Pessimism’ as his personal favourite and used to feed him much more than was necessary while the other dog received too less food each day. As a result ‘Pessimism’ grew bulkier by the day whereas ‘Optimism’ became leaner and leaner. As luck would have it, the man became so poor one day that he had nothing to feed to the dogs. As ‘Pessimism’ had grown very huge indeed, he could not control his insatiable hunger and ate up his master !

From the above story it is clear that – we are what we feed to our own mind . We keep on worrying about problems day in and day out without really getting anywhere. What we fail to understand in such situations is that – it is not the problem that matters , it is the solution which does and that person who rises above the problem to think about its solution is the one who has attained freedom from the negative thoughts of the mind – the real independence.