Pegs and Ropes of the Mind

 The night was falling. A camel caravan was passing through a desert. The caravan-head decided to spend the night at a serai. There were hundred camels and the store wagon had pegs and ropes for each one of them to keep them safely tied though the night. Ninety-nine camels had been safely tethered in front of the inn. But they had lost one pair of rope and peg.

The caravan-head was much worried. If the remaining camel was left untied, it will surely run away and claim its freedom. He asked the inn-keeper for a rope and a peg. The old man had none. But he had a solution in his experienced mind. He asked the traveller to playact the whole process of setting the peg and tying the rope in the dark to the camel. The middle aged weather-beaten, tough traveller laughed at the joke. Still he decided to take it as a comedy even at the cost of losing a camel.

They made a false show of the process, made sounds of hammering a peg into the ground, then one of them fiddled around the camel’s neck, making it feel that it is being tied with a rope. They went to sleep and the night passed the baton to a pleasant dawn.

Much to everyone’s relief, and surprise, the camel was found sitting comfortably next morning. It was almost a miracle. The camel had allowed himself to be tied to a non-existing peg with the invisible rope.

The caravan prepared to leave. They untied the ninety-nine camels. These camels got up to move onto the journey. Thinking that the hundredth camel will also get up of its own to join the rest, since it was already free, they didn’t approach it. The camels moved. The hundredth camel didn’t. They kicked it to get up, but it won’t move. Much worried, the caravan leader went to the old man and told him about the camel.

“What have you done to it? I know you performed a magic but please now set it free. We have to move. We are getting late. It will be a very hot day,” he was almost folding his hands before the old serai-keeper.

The old man smiled. “You had tied him in the dark. Now you have to untie him in the light. Do you think pegs and ropes exist only in reality? They exist in minds as well. And the latter are even stronger,” the old man chuckled.

The caravan-head understood. Thanking the old man, he asked his men to playact the whole process of taking out the peg and untying the rope. They did it and the camel, taking it to be free to move, got up and joined the others waiting to march ahead.

Pegs and ropes exist in minds also. What else are our false assumptions, fears, anxieties and worries? They tame and condition the mind to a basic level, a very small level given the unlimited potential of the human brain. They literally make one human almost a carbon copy of others in settling for smallness, in being labelled like any other, like they do in factories, just labelling for small, convenient sameness.

It is very convenient for the religio-political ruling class to tame the minds with pegs and ropes of fear, ignorance, assumptions and apprehensions. Brahamanical Hinduism does the same. It is an elaborate system of putting the peg and tying the rope in the form of rituals, taboos, do’s and don’ts. The priestly class was ever apprehensive of the capacity of free minds.

A huge effort was put over the centuries to instil fear in minds, to cut them to smallness, to be less daring, more obedient, and less creative. It was a systematic effort to create meek followers and stifle any trait of confidence and leadership. The Brahamanical orthodoxy hammered down pegs and tied ropes around meekly accepting necks. 

Religiosity was kept limited to the skin of mankind. A check-dam created to tame the free flow of the rivers of human spirit. No inward looking and self-realisation to reach the light of an enlightened, aware soul. Elaborate system of pegs and ropes. So you just get conditioned to your inherited miseries, your caste status, your untouchability, your bad karma and the mirage of getting better luck in future births through meek following of the skin-deep religiosity. So that you just keep sitting, accepting your fate, like the camel with a false peg and rope. So that you don’t look deep within and beyond the narrow confines of your outer world. So that your spirit doesn’t roam free, breaking the barriers of false fears and exploiting rituals.

We had a chance of practicing mindfulness, of breaking the shackles, of melting the fears, of realising the potential, of being the leaders. It was Buddhism. Buddha taught nothing but mindfulness so that you become aware of your potential irrespective of your low caste. When you go beyond mere rituals and meditate, most of the false ropes and pegs burn away. You roam free as per the vast horizons of your free-roaming, liberated mind.           

Unfortunately, Buddhism was bundled out from the land of its origin. The shrewd Brahamanical connivance packed it off to faraway lands. It thrives in East Asian countries. You can very well compare the chained and liberated minds. Buddhism cuts the chains through training the mind. Brahamanical Hinduism chains the mind through fatal conditioning with the help of fear and meek acceptance.

Look at Japan. Such a small country. But look at their technological excellence. It is nothing but the fruits of centuries of setting the mind free through training the brain.

Meditation helps you reach the top of awareness, to know more, to dissipate ignorance, to be more of a human being, to become different and daring.

Blind rituals are just the first step leading to the endless flight of stairs to evolution and freedom. Unfortunately, Brahamanical Hinduism just kept the people grounded at the first level, to keep them the prisoners of their minds, their selves chained to false pegs and ropes of fears and taboos.