Circumstances :

If we cannot be free, we regard our bondage itself as a kind of freedom. Submission is freedom. We go on submitting ourselves to any kind of thing that takes place, anything that is told and anything that happens, and that submission itself gives us a kind of vicarious satisfaction. This stupidity in which the human mind is involved, and out of which it tries to extract a little happiness, is what traditionally goes by the name of samsara, or earthly entanglement. We are somehow able to get on in life, though we are miserable. Notwithstanding the fact that we have not a ray of hope of achieving ultimate freedom in our life, we try to find some profit in this subjection to circumstance.

All this is because we have no background in our lives. We are drifting like a straw in a violent wind. A dry leaf that is tossed hither and thither by the gale of wind outside has nothing to say about itself. Wherever we are tossed, we move in that direction. Because we are in this condition, we do not know what will happen to us tomorrow – what change will take place in our own lives tomorrow, or even after a few hours. Because of this difficulty, we are in a perpetual state of anxiety. Anxiety gnaws into our hearts on account of not being certain as to what would be our fate the next moment of our life. I do not necessarily refer to death, which is our very fierce guest that may confront us at any moment; but even not taking into consideration this ultimate difficulty of death, there are other circumstances which are also wholly unpredictable.


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