Moksha myth

Op-ed ”“ Pioneer (Indian Newspaper)

   

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                                           Moksha myth

AP Malhotra    
In our scriptures, there is a proposition outlining the parametres of a person’s conduct as he ages. One is expected to gradually dissociate oneself from the miasma of human life and move towards renunciation. To progressively withdraw from activities that bind the soul to things material and carnal, and focus on life’s spiritual aspects. To manoeuvre the bodily vehicle on this path and aspire to achieve the ultimate destination, where the soul is perceived to attain final liberation from an unending cycle – what is called Moksha.    

     
That withdrawal will lift the fear of death, which pervades the human psyche as an all-encompassing apparition throughout life, and prepare him for the inevitable union with the superior force must have been the essential idea behind this thought. But is this the way it works? My own experience is that it cannot.    
     
After what would undoubtedly entail monumental will power, a person may eventually manage to evade the worries on account of carnal and material desires, but the renunciation of relationships seems out of the realm of an individual’s power. As the old adage goes, if children are an investment, then their children are the interest element, and the interest is better than the actual.    
     
I am seeing this unfold in the life of my parents. Uprooted like millions of others with Partition, they managed to do well, more so in terms of securing good education in their separate lives before marriage. History burdened my father with liabilities, which truncated the dividends fate had charted for him, despite his impeccable nature. But he rose to the occasion, sacrificing the sheen of his future for the sake of familial lustre.    
     
These, my mother took as her own after matrimony and together they displayed immense fortitude. When it was time for self-gratification, they were busy rearing their sons, foregoing personal comforts, to ensure for them the best education of those times, to put them on a steady wicket from where the only limitation to the extent of their leap will be their own destiny. After settling them into matrimony, one might think that life would slow down a little.    
     
Being blessed with three grandchildren, in the range of eight to 13 years, I find them comprehensively engaged in their lives as well; the attachment is now stronger than ever. While still maintaining an austere lifestyle for themselves, they demonstrate a high degree of panache while shopping for their grandchildren, be it clothes, which are occasion specific, be it toys or generally pampering them. They exult in their success and comfort them in despair, making their small issues look as if they are the most important things in the universe, although when viewed in isolation they will be deemed trivial. A deep rooted sense of satisfaction is visible in their misty eyes, as they see their grandchildren flower into good human beings.    
     
I see no renunciation in them, at least in terms of love for their children. I only discern a re-dedication for the family; a willingness to do a second innings for their sake, a prayer for their prosperity. They move on tirelessly, defying age and its manifestations, oblivious to what they have already achieved in what has truly been a remarkable life.