Case study one
A young woman has just graduated from university and is about to embark on a prosperous and successful career. She’s sporty, interested in literature and theatre and has a close family and circle of friends.
But her teenage years weren’t easy. Throughout that gawky, awkward time everyone else seemed more confident, able and attractive. And despite her present popularity, academic success and professional achievements, a sense of inadequacy haunts her.
All her accomplishments never seem enough. As she compares her life, her looks, her intelligence to others, in her own mind, she comes off second best.
One day, leafing through a volume of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, she comes across a few lines:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, — and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate.– William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
She wonders about ‘haply I think on thee.’ Is it God, a lover, a teacher? A desire arises in her heart to find such a ‘thee’ and she signs up for a course of self-enquiry which she has been meaning to join for years.
Case study two
A young man without much formal education is hitchhiking with his girlfriend around the country, surfing and sleeping on the beach. He works in cafes and bars, washing dishes to fund this ‘career.’ It’s an apparently idyllic life for a young man. But satisfaction eludes him. He has a niggling feeling that there has to be more to life.
One day he is cleaning the kitchen floor when his eye is caught by a scrap of newspaper advertising a course in self-awareness. A light switches on inside him. He and his girlfriend enroll in the course.
Case study three
Tragedy strikes a young couple when their baby dies of cot death. Consumed by grief, they question the meaning and purpose of life. The mother calls a friend of her sister whom she has hardly ever spoken to beyond mere pleasantries. But there was something about her which was somehow different and the mother knows she is into some form of Yoga or meditation. Wanting to talk to someone steady, on impulse she gets in touch with her.
Shubhech-cha
What do these stories have in common? First, our young graduate, the surfer and the grieving mother all have a sense that there is something missing in their lives. Secondly, they desire to find out more; and thirdly, they come across someone who may be able to provide an answer.
These three stories illustrate the first step on the way to freedom. The Sanskrit name for this step is shubhech-cha (pronounced shoob hech ch’ha). Shubha means good or pure; and ich-cha means wish, desire or inclination. The English word ask is derived from the root form of ich-cha.
According to the Vedic sage Vasishtha, this compound word means a pure wish or intention, and is translated as Good Impulse.
We need to ask
To be receptive to this good impulse we have to feel an inner need to move beyond our present condition. If we don’t have a question, a sense of dissatisfaction or loss, all the wisdom of the ages won’t help us.
You may have met a wise man or woman—you may even have spoken to him or her. But the wise don’t generally proclaim themselves, or initiate action or intervene in our lives unless there is a need or an openness or a question. Jesus warned his followers not to throw pearls before swine—a rather graphic and unflattering image of those whose ears aren’t yet ready to hear.
Rather than trying to wake us up, the wise wait for us to stir in our sleep and ask for help. This asking, however, doesn’t need to be particularly skillful or erudite. There are many stories where a wise person is wandering along and finds someone lost in misery and tears, and they offer a helping hand—it’s the tears which are the call for help.
Many of us don’t have the appropriate vocabulary to ask for assistance. The wise don’t initiate action, but they’re vigilant to help those in need, and those who are ready to follow their advice.
Arjuna’s plight on the battlefield [in The Bhagavad Gita] is the same as ours: we’re caught between the forces of good and evil and are unsure what to do, and we don’t appear to have access to our life’s charioteer, nor do we have the words to ask for help. But asking is a necessary precondition to the first step on the way to ultimate freedom. And humility is a great help.
Standing at the crossroads
The people in the case studies were standing at a crossroads in their lives. They could keep going in the direction that life had laid out for them: family, career, money, success; or failure, loneliness, isolation and poverty; or some mix of the two.
This sort of life is essentially governed by the past, where we try, often unconsciously, to make each day as similar to yesterday as possible. In Macbeth, act 5, scene 5, Shakespeare describes the emptiness and ultimate futility of such a life:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Such a life is reactive: something happens—a pay rise, a harsh word, a chance meeting; and there is a matching response—momentary happiness, an even harsher criticism, a new friendship. And life goes on: a successful career, a divorce, a widening circle of acquaintance. And we wait for the next external event to delight or dismay us.
The road less travelled to spiritual freedom
At a crossroads, we can choose a different path in life which leads to freedom. In The Ten Principal Upanishads, the Katha Upanishad speaks of ‘diverging roads: one called ignorance, the other wisdom’; one leading to death and the other to eternal life. John Bunyan wrote the whole of The Pilgrim’s Progress to illustrate the many opportunities, traps and pitfalls on the path to salvation.
In Matthew 7: 13-14, the Bible tells us:
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Although this path to freedom is for the few, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be one of them. Someone has to be. The decision is there for any individual to grasp the opportunity to go free, to respond to the good impulse and take the first of the seven steps on the way to freedom and happiness.
And how do we take the first step on this road less travelled? First we need the desire: to be free, to know more, to be more alive, to have control and autonomy. Secondly we need to meet someone who can give us direction. And thirdly, we need to be willing to follow their guidance.
Don’t look back!
But first: a cautionary note. Traditional stories and legends tell of heroes or heroines pursuing their quest along dark and dangerous paths where they meet, sometimes in surprising or unattractive guise, a helper who warns them to stick to the path, avoid the food, not to talk to strangers, not to fall asleep, not to unlock the door and not to look back.
And what do they do? Despite all our cries of frustration, they leave the path, eat the food and talk to the first stranger to appear, they lie down just to close their eyes for a few minutes, they unlock the door to take a quick peek or look back just to make sure.
Orpheus looked back and lost Eurydice; Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt; Odysseus’s crew slew the sheep of the Sun God when they were specifically told not to; they opened the sack of the wind god Aeoleus thinking it was treasure and were blown away from their home when it was in sight; the pilgrim Christian took shortcuts or failed to heed the advice of those sent to help him, and ended up in the Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle in the clutches of the Giant Despair.
And all these stories are our stories.
The city of seven gates
There is a tale of a king who lived in a city of seven walls with seven gates. One day he sent out a proclamation saying that he would give his kingdom to the one who came to his throne room at a certain time on a certain day to claim it. He said, further, that the gates would be open and the guards instructed to allow anyone through.
To some suspicious souls this seemed too good to be true. Others weren’t interested in becoming king. Some didn’t hear or understand the announcement, while others just ignored it. And some were too infirm or too distant or too lazy to make the journey.
But, as the day approached, thousands did come to claim the kingdom. As they approached the city they saw, at the first gate, refreshments laid out for all those who had made the journey and were thirsty. Many thought that they would lose nothing by stopping to have something to drink. Others. however, were eager to get to the throne room at the appointed hour, so they pressed on.
At the second gate, food in abundance was set out on tables, freely available to all who were hungry. While many continued on, some stopped to have a quick snack. At the third gate there were amusements, games and entertainments. Some thought that no harm could come of watching the jugglers and the dancing girls.
At the fourth gate there were basins with water and soap and towels for the dusty travellers to wash and clean themselves. Some thought, after all, it would be unfitting to take over the kingdom all travel-stained and dusty from the journey, so they stopped at this gate to wash.
At the fifth gate there was money by the sack load. Some thought of the expense of their journey and thought it only fair that they should be reimbursed. A few made it to the sixth gate where jewels were spilling out of chests. Their eyes lit up as they began to fill their pockets with sapphires, rubies, emeralds and diamonds.
Very few made it to the seventh gate where shaded canopies covered comfortable beds with fresh linen sheets and down-filled pillows, and they couldn’t resist the lure of a short rest—after all, there was still plenty of time before the appointed hour.
Just before the time expired, however, a determined young man appeared at the first gate. Without a sideways glance, he walked past the drink, the food, the entertainment, the bathing facilities, the money and the jewels, and shut his ears to the sounds of snoring coming from the canopied beds.
He walked into the king’s throne room and asked for the kingdom, which was freely given to him. He took his place on the throne and then ordered his guards to arrest and imprison all those who were drinking his wine and eating his food, watching his entertainment without paying, taking his money and jewels and sleeping in his beds.
The need for action
Couldn’t all the others resist temptation? Why couldn’t Orpheus, Christian and the others stick to the instructions? If they wanted the kingdom, why were they beguiled by food and drink? If it were us, we wouldn’t be so foolish. Hmm, possibly.
If we feel keen to set out on the way to freedom, we’ll soon have the opportunity to find out if we’ll succumb to temptation and distraction rather than keep walking the path. At this stage of Good Impulse we have to act, we have to do something, we have to embark on our journey and this brings tests and temptations.
Gilbert Mane, from Sydney, Australia, was a lawyer and a teacher and is an entrepreneur and a writer. In 1975, Gilbert discovered a school of practical wisdom. He captured what he learned there in his book 7 Steps to Freedom. In 2012, he delivered a TEDx talk on Education and Unity. Gilbert has also authored three thriller-adventure novels; and, with his wife, he’s a keen ballroom dancer.
Excerpted from the book 7 Steps to Freedom: A Systematic Guide to What Everyone Wants. Copyright © 2023 by Gilbert Mane. Reprinted with permission from Delphian Books. www.delphianbooks.com.au
images: Depositphotos