Futility of our lives

No Indian would have passed his childhood without hearing the story of Shabari in Ramayana. The lady who waited years for Sri Rama.

I remember reading these lines in Kannada:

ಕಾದಿರುವಳು ಶಬರಿ, ಶ್ರೀ ರಾಮ ಬರಲೆಂದು
(Shabari has been waiting for Sri Rama to arrive)

This story is so popular and common that the moral of the story is long forgotten (my opinion). Recently I got to hear this story again and it added a new perspective.

Young Shabari's guru before dying calls her and tells her that SriRama would take that route on his way to Lanka in the future and asks Shabari to receive him and take care of him. Shabari takes it as an order, with no questions asked. From that day, it becomes her daily ritual to collect fruits and flowers from the forest, select the best fruits by tasting each of them and using flowers to decorate the place as though Rama would come any time.

Time passes by, but no signs of Rama. I don't know how long people lived in those days. Seeing in them through our mind's eye, probably decades pass by, probably 80 years pass by (or say more than 80% of her life). Whenever somebody asks her whether she is not getting bored or frustrated waiting for Rama who may or may not come in her life time, she always replies saying that she is not bothered about the result (whether Rama arrives or not). What gives her pleasure is the process of waiting for the moment. That she will never gets bored as she always looks forward to decorate the place in a much better way and collect tastier fruits the next day.

One day Rama arrives, accepts her hospitality. But, all these are immaterial, or rather secondary. What's more important to take from the story is Shabari's attitude towards life.

Probably the story can be ignored outright taking it to be another banal story on personality development where all talks about looking at everything in positive frame of mind. But, a closer look says it is not. Let us leave things such as her devotion to her guru, her determination, etc.

Shabari spent all her life just waiting for Rama to come. "All her life". She never thought that she was wasting her life. Forget our entire life; we can not even think of spending even a single day the way Shabari spent! We are always running behind success; achievements; rewards. We always tend to think that we have already wasted so many years in our life "without" doing anything much, and make every effort to make resolutions every new year.

It probably happens because we think that the real happiness is external to us; never realising that it is within us. That we need to look within. And we call it "progress" / "development".

Another example that can be quoted from the recent past is Ramana Maharshi.