A young woman has just graduated from university and is about to embark on a prosperous and successful career. She\u2019s sporty, interested in literature and theatre and has a close family and circle of friends. <\/p>\n
But her teenage years weren\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
One day, leafing through a volume of Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets, she comes across a few lines:<\/p>\n
\nYet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
\u2013 William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
She wonders about \u2018haply I think on thee.\u2019 Is it God, a lover, a teacher? A desire arises in her heart to find such a \u2018thee\u2019 and she signs up for a course of self-enquiry which she has been meaning to join for years.<\/p>\n
Case study two <\/h2>\n 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 \u2018career.\u2019 It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Case study three<\/h2>\n 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.<\/p>\n
Shubhech-cha<\/h2>\n 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.<\/p>\n
These three stories illustrate the first step on the way to freedom. The Sanskrit name for this step is shubhech-cha<\/em> (pronounced shoob hech ch\u2019ha<\/em>). Shubha<\/em> means good or pure; and ich-cha<\/em> means wish, desire or inclination. The English word ask<\/em> is derived from the root form of ich-cha<\/em>. <\/p>\nAccording to the Vedic sage Vasishtha, this compound word means a pure wish or intention, and is translated as Good Impulse.<\/p>\n
We need to ask<\/h2>\n\n
To be receptive to this good impulse we have to feel an inner need to move beyond our present condition. If we don\u2019t have a question, a sense of dissatisfaction or loss, all the wisdom of the ages won\u2019t help us. <\/p>\n
You may have met a wise man or woman\u2014you may even have spoken to him or her. But the wise don\u2019t 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\u2014a rather graphic and unflattering image of those whose ears aren\u2019t yet ready to hear.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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\u2014it\u2019s the tears which are the call for help. <\/p>\n
Many of us don\u2019t have the appropriate vocabulary to ask for assistance. The wise don\u2019t initiate action, but they\u2019re vigilant to help those in need, and those who are ready to follow their advice.<\/p>\n
Arjuna\u2019s plight on the battlefield [in The Bhagavad Gita<\/em>] is the same as ours: we\u2019re caught between the forces of good and evil and are unsure what to do, and we don\u2019t appear to have access to our life\u2019s 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.<\/p>\nStanding at the crossroads<\/h2>\n 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. <\/p>\n
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<\/em>, act 5, scene 5, Shakespeare describes the emptiness and ultimate futility of such a life:<\/p>\n\nTomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Such a life is reactive: something happens\u2014a pay rise, a harsh word, a chance meeting; and there is a matching response\u2014momentary 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.<\/p>\n
The road less travelled to spiritual freedom<\/h2>\n\n
At a crossroads, we can choose a different path in life which leads to freedom. In The Ten Principal Upanishads<\/em>, the Katha Upanishad speaks of \u2018diverging roads: one called ignorance, the other wisdom\u2019; one leading to death and the other to eternal life. John Bunyan wrote the whole of The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em> to illustrate the many opportunities, traps and pitfalls on the path to salvation.<\/p>\nIn Matthew 7: 13-14, the Bible tells us:<\/p>\n
\nEnter 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Although this path to freedom is for the few, there is no reason why you shouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t look back!<\/h2>\n 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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Orpheus looked back and lost Eurydice; Lot\u2019s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt; Odysseus\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
And all these stories are our<\/em> stories.<\/p>\nThe city of seven gates<\/h2>\n\n
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. <\/p>\n
To some suspicious souls this seemed too good to be true. Others weren\u2019t interested in becoming king. Some didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t resist the lure of a short rest\u2014after all, there was still plenty of time before the appointed hour.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He walked into the king\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The need for action<\/h2>\n Couldn\u2019t all the others resist temptation? Why couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t be so foolish. Hmm, possibly.<\/p>\n
If we feel keen to set out on the way to freedom, we\u2019ll soon have the opportunity to find out if we\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n
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Gilbert Mane<\/strong>, 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<\/em>. In 2012, he delivered a TEDx talk on Education and Unity. Gilbert has also authored three thriller-adventure novels; and, with his wife, he\u2019s a keen ballroom dancer.<\/p>\nExcerpted from the book\u00a07 Steps to Freedom: A Systematic Guide to What Everyone Wants<\/strong><\/em>. Copyright \u00a9 2023 by Gilbert Mane. Reprinted with permission from Delphian Books. www.delphianbooks.com.au\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\nimages: Depositphotos<\/p>\n
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