Powerplay

Today I saw Prakash Jha's film Rajneeti. At the outset, its a political thriller, reminding you of the movies such as "Kalyug" or "Sinhasan" from yesteryear.

But what it really underlines is an absolute and insatiable quest for"Power" in the human beings. Do we see this greed only in politics? No sir, its in business, its in education, its in social work, its in social circles and friends and it exists very much in the family life as well.

It exists everywhere in the Universe and in the mother nature as well. The"survival of the fittest" has been a fundamental rule in this world. Human being is gifted with very high intelligent and innovative mind, which does not remain content with what we have. We need constant recognition, attention, care, love and power to rule others.

We may outwardly say that we would like to do "karma" without expecting the returns but each one of us craves for good words of encouragement and some or the other form of return. The sense of achievement is like a slow poison such as arsenic. It gives us a high, a productive one, to start with. We get engaged and motivated and start building on this for moving towards higher purpose. Then we start making sacrifices, again a good thing to do initially. Slowly but surely, the journey, which was fun and enjoyment, becomes a compulsion. Sacrifices becomes compromises. We have to give out in order to bring in. Negotiations become inevitable. We have to always forge ahead at any cost, because if we don't, we will fall behind. The high of Power sets in and we start seeing the world through the lenses that we have chosen to wear.

This happens in every walk of life. We will do everything to get good marks, to get admissions, to get job, to get business, to get wealthy, to get social status and to protect the image. This "everything" compels us to do more sacrifices, more compromises and in the way, we lose the basic purpose behind all this. As we keep shifting in the power circles, the scales of compromises and unpleasant deeds keeping changing.

What does this Power give us finally? That too when we all know that each one has to meet the final destination at some point or another and we can not carry any of our material belongings over there. Well, no easy answers to this. Human being is desperately trying to find the answers for ages through spirituality and adhyatma. But more often than not, the spiritual sources become power centers themselves.

The nature creates and destructs, only to recreate. Power play, thus is very natural. Our ancient histories and mythologies are testimony to this. If we really have to ride on this without being unhappy and regretful, we need to become one with every other individual and the universe, which perhaps will lead us to enlightenment and moksha. Till then, this Power game is our learning ground.