A little child that had just learned to crawl saw his shadow. The shadow moved and crawled very near him, and the child thought it to be something strange and fascinating. So, just as all children do, he wanted to catch it. To clutch and then put it in our mouth is an instinct we are all born with. Give a child your finger, a piece of cloth or the arm of a soft doll, he will quickly clutch it, and then try to put it in his mouth. Wanting to clutch the head of the shadow the child lunged forward, but so did the shadow. This he tried repeatedly. When he failed to catch the shadow he started to show frustration and began to cry helplessly. The intelligent mother soon saw his dilemma and came to his aid. She made the child catch his head, and lo, the head of the shadow was also caught.
The Greek myth of Narcissus is a similar example. This very handsome youth went about spurning all maidens who fell in love with his good looks as he thought he was too good for anyone. One day while roaming in the woods he bent down on a pool of water to drink. He saw his reflection on the placid surface of the water and was besotted with admiration and love. The image captured him totally and he thereafter was so enamoured of his beauty that he could not take his eyes off. So he remained there continuously fixed and chained to his reflection, pining away to possess that handsome reflection and thus he slowly wasted away and died. A powerful myth revealing the same truth, that we are shackled by our mind’s attraction to objects. We become willing slaves to our desires and then cry helplessly and suffer.
We are looking for happiness and satisfaction where it is not. The outer world itself is powerless to provide what we want. None of the objects situations people or relationships have inherent joy. We however have an illusion that they do. Swami Chinmayananda Ji used to say “ No matter how hard and how long you churn desert sand to get butter, you will never get it because the sand does not have it! You are looking for butter in the wrong place”
This is the nature of Maya( the power of delusion). When anything ‘seems’ fascinating, it makes you run after it and possess it. The more you run the more it runs from you ( shadow like). It is an airy nothing, intangible, yet very powerful! Strangely, it is you that lend the fascination to that object. Each one hunts for different objects, situations, relationships according to ones likes and dislikes. A thing gains value only if you put a value on it. A rare diamond is very precious for you, but a child will throw away the same diamond to grasp a brightly coloured toy. Why is it that every mother thinks that her child is the sweetest child on earth, but the neighbours little fellow is the devil incarnate? You shed lustre on an object, fall in love with it, then pine away day and night to possess it. It holds you in its grip tightly. Isn’t this the same as the child trying to catch the shadow? Swami Ram says, “Go within you… all objects of love, all the bewitching and fascinating things, are simply your reflection or shadow.” Heavenly joy arises only from within you, no object is capable of granting it. How unreasonable it seems then, to hunt your shadow!
Whether it is a church, mosque, temple or gurdwara, we all kneel or prostrate with our forehead touching the ground, an act of humbling ourselves before our mighty father the lord. When we humble our ego thus, the lesser is the shadow. The shadow is the tallest when you stand tall in arrogance! In (sashtaang pranam) when you prostrate with your whole body level with Mother Earth, there is no shadow.
Prarthna Saran is the president of Chinmaya Mission Delhi.