Bondage and Freedom

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

Page 10

1. BONDAGE AND FREEDOM
TODAY is a day of deep reflection for me, too, for I have come to a place which provokes serious thoughts. There are some places, some occasions, that lead men to deep and serious reflections on life.
Environment has a far-reaching influence on the mind. When one is present at a place of merriment and festivity, laughter and music, one feels gay. But when one passes through a hospital hearing the groans of suffering patients, their sighs of despair or their shrieks of agony, one wonders, “Is this life? Is it worth living?"
Even a man who is norinally healthy, happy, full of the joy and vigour of life, feels depressed at the sight of physical and mental pain. He has an uneasy feeling that the body can be a source of strength and vitality only so far as it is in a healthy condition. As soon as it falls a prey to sickness, and disease it becomes a source of pain and sorrow. The rich and the poor, the high and the low, the strong and the weak—all seem equally helpless before the devastating power of sickness and disease.
If an old man happens to pass by a house where a wedding is being celebrated, where guests are feasting and singing, the old man forgets for a while his age and feebleness. Perhaps he thinks of the time when he, too, was a young and happy bridegroom and inadvertently, he, too, joins in the merry din.