Freedom, suffering and bondage - Astavakra Gita Chapter 2
🍁 Chapter 2: THE FIVE PRINCIPLES (Part 1 - Freedom, suffering and bondage)
King Janaka wanted freedom immediately.
🌸 What restricted him? Why did he want freedom? He was living like us but not many of us want freedom!
🌸 One who is asleep doesn't feel bondage. Janaka has started feeling the bondage. *DO WE FEEL BONDAGE!!! ARE WE ASLEEP OR AWAKE!!*
What is this freedom?
🌸 *Freedom from fixed pattern in life* . One can go into these patterns infinite times without even being aware of them. E.g.: getting angry or being fearful and then later realizing situation could have been handled in a better way, committing same mistake again but may be with different people. Here our pattern is same, only people/events are changing but we behave in the same manner.(say today I got angry on my brother and later in a day I got angry on my boss but then realized may be I could have handled it properly, here people have changed but my pattern of getting angry is same).
🌸 Now that we know this pattern and we often get bored from these patterns but we don’t know how to get out of them. *THIS IS BONDAGE* . (e.g.: I will say I am so frustrated because I get so much angry and it has become my nature only and now this thing has become bondage for me as I know the cause but don't know how to come out of it.)
🌸 *SUFFERING* : it is rotating in these patterns, getting caught up in a pattern and unable to come out of it.
🌸 What imposes a pattern on us? These are our *habits* . E.g.: habit of drinking tea/coffee in the morning, that doesn't gives us any joy but lack of it gives headache. *Again this is a bondage.*
🌷 *Activity* : Let us find out what are our sufferings? And then figure out patterns that are causing those sufferings and the habits behind those patterns. Hint to identify pattern: Checkout the things/incidents from past few months/years that are repeating in our life.(e.g. : Suffering could be - people don’t listen to me, pattern - getting angry over this again and again, habit - I want things to work as per me OR Suffering - poor physical health , pattern - I am not adhering to proper routine, habit- again and again eating unhealthy food and not exercising)
🌷 *PURPOSE OF THIS ACTIVITY* : So that we become aware of our habits/patterns. First step is to become aware, only if we know something then we can come out of it. As most of the people are grumbling about their sufferings but they are unaware of the underlying patterns/habits.
🌸 *So, what I understood is sufferings are caused by certain patterns and patterns are formed by certain habits.*
🌸 We often hear people saying I want mukti but have they ever pondered mukti from what? What is mukti? Mukti from this world? What is binding us then in this world? And this again comes back to our patterns/habits (which are the cause of our cravings and aversions i.e. our bondages)
....Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji