THE GAME WE ARE PLAYING
A gang of monkeys once sat in discussion, "Man is so powerful. He has subjugated all species on land, water and has even conquered the moon. We need to find the secret of his power."
One monkey said, "Well, I think I know what the secret is. They fast on the sacred day of Ekadasi and at the end ask for a boon from their favourite deity, who then grants them the boon. That is their secret." Everyone was thrilled at the prospect of acquiring new powers and decided to go on a fast until the next day. The chief monkey forewarned the rest of them. "Remember the rule: no one should look at the fruits, lest you may be tempted to eat them. Keep your eyes fixed to the ground." Everyone followed the orders.
After few minutes a monkey said, "How long can we stare at the barren grounds? We should not look at the fruits, but surely we could enjoy the beauty of the vast sky, waterfall and nature." All of them agreed and began admiring the beauty around, trying to shun their vision from the fruits alone.
"What is the harm in looking at the3 fruits? After all, we are not going to eat them," said another one. It made sense and the fruit was also included in their nature watching list. "Hey, what if we don't have enough strength to get to those fruits by tomorrow when we complete our fast? Why don't we just sit at the beginning of a fruit branch?" The brilliant suggestion was given by another fellow monkey was immediately executed. Al the monkeys rushed to the nearest fruit branch and there the nature watching continued.
Hunger slowly started creeping in their empty stomachs. "What if these branches do not have ripe fruits? Then we would have to go in search of another tree, when all our energy is drained. Why don't we select the ripe fruits and sit near those branches?" All of them patted the little monkey for his thoughtfulness and scurried in search of ripe fruits and occupied those branches.
By now their stomach had begun noises. "What if the fruits are not tasty or have worms? Even then we would have to search for other ones," shouted another young monkey. After a short contemplating pause the chief monkey said, "OK, Probably we could just taste the fruits, but remember, no one should swallow it! All of you should spit it out immediately." All monkeys excitedly ran to the end of their branches, plucked a fruit and took a bite. Some spat it out and some swallowed 'unknowingly'. With the fruits in their hands all of them looked at each other with the eyes swaying end-to-end expecting someone to say something. Then one monkey declared, "Why take a risk? Let's eat enough today so that we could fast the whole day tomorrow effortlessly." They all agreed unanimously and pounced on the fruits.
While the fact remained that the monkeys wanted to eat the fruits, not able to confront this truth, they cooked up various theories and explanations to believe that it is not so, drowning once again in their self-complacency.
We too, are involved in a similar task. Out of 100 lies spoken by us, 90 of them we speak to ourselves. We have fewer values in life, which, due to variety of reasons we are not able to follow. We have created an ideal 'me' and are constantly trying to fit our actions and thoughts into those self created images, not being able to accept it, we create lies and began to believe them to be true. This is the game we are playing.
