27. Are You Paralyzed?

A small story:

A few friends sat to chat over a cup of coffee. The first man said, 'Good we could all come! I know a man who spends his evenings, every evening, at home. He has been doing it for the last 30 years since his marriage.' The other man replied, 'Oh! This is what I call love, real love for your wife.' The third man said, 'You call that love? Doctor says it is paralysis.'

Understand the word 'paralysis.' We are not referring here to a medical condition where a person is unable to move. We are examining the habits that paralyze us. Most of us, although healthy and wealthy, are actually paralyzed. We are unable to move in the direction we want at our will. We are incapable of determining the path and purpose of our lives.

We live in paralysis when we cannot make a conscious decision. Only when we choose and if choose consciously, deliberately, with our discrimination, are we making a conscious decision. When we make a conscious decision we take responsibility for our actions. We choose the direction of our life. We attract the best purpose that suits our nature and work towards it. It is only when we decide to live consciously we have a 'life.'

By saying conscious choices, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM does not say that we should be adamant, attached and fixated on a purpose. Let us say that we decide to smoke. Let us do it consciously. If we become deeply aware of breathing the smoke in and breathing it out, and the pleasure it give us, then we are in a position to make a conscious decision about our smoking habit. This is the same with drinking, gambling, food addiction, and other addictions. When we become deeply aware of the purpose of doing an act- understand how our mind interprets it- then we are living consciously.

A vast majority of us do not live in this manner. We do not make conscious decisions. We let incidents happen on their own. If incidents happen in our lives on its own, not by our choice, we are paralyzed. Our lives are nothing but a state of paralysis. Living without conscious choice can never be called life. Until the moment we decide to live and live consciously it cannot be called 'life.'

Wake up! Live and get a life. Direct the life events consciously. This is the only way to shake the paralysis that has gripped us.