The Prisoner Who Imprisoned Himself

I was born free full of love and peace. I cried only when there was discomfort or I was hungry. I would sleep peacefully to my mother’s lullaby. And wake up with a smile.

Later, at the age when the youth is passing the baton to the middle age, I discovered, I was bound in a prison, which I built assiduously, down the cyclic flow of time. This prison has walls made up of my wants and needs- they are so high I am frightened to even look, leave alone cross over them. The roofs are made up of my desires, innumerable desires that enclose the walls of my wants. There are very few windows, the windows of my longing for joy and freedom from where a fleeting puff of wind and shower of rain occasionally comes and cools me. The doors are made up of my actions that give me hope that one day I will be out of this prison.

But, soon, that hope is dashed to the ground when another room with high walls and high roof comes in front but no way to the outside road. My attachments and aversions are the beds of thorns on which I sleep with a hope in the heart for joy and freedom but with the pain of the thorns bleeding wounds in the body. This prison has many rooms, an endless succession of rooms connected in a circle without a way out. They are the rooms I put around myself thinking I was building a great palace for my living. The palace became so big and I missed building the doors to walk out that it has actually become a prison and I am caught in it.

Each brick and bar of this “palace” was put in place by me that even though it is a prison now, I refuse to take them out because I do not want to break the “palace” I so assiduously built. And continue to suffer the prisoner’s life. The loneliness of the high wall rooms is the pain that has become my constant companion. This pain I inflict on myself for the dreams of happiness I weave in the myriad desires( the walls), day in and day out.

I look for help and cry loudly but in that prison that I have built around myself no one can reach as I have built this prison’s walls so high. I can hear others’ cry in the neighbouring prisons which people all around me have also built for themselves.

Who will save me and others? Who will take me and others out of this prison? When I look at the birds above in the sky, I envy its freedom and want to fly that high unfettered by the walls of my prison and my inability to fly. How will I get the wings to fly so high?

Suddenly I realise that the walls and bars that I made can not stop me from flying out of my prison Like the X-rays that cross all the walls. I can fly with these two wings I always had but were hidden from my sight. The third eye of wisdom has made me see these wings of discrimination and detachment. And I also am inspired when I see others like me who are flying high above in the sky with these wings that they developed in themselves. I can develop these wings strong and sturdy with regular practice and energy of my attention.

I knew that day is not far when I will fly so high and inspire others below in their small prisons that they have built for themselves.

Hey friends below! Just come out in the open and see. You too can fly, you too can have these wings. Look they are there in all of us, give the focus of your energy in building the wings and not the walls and bars of your golden cages.

Can you see that the “palace” you are building is a golden cage? This vision comes to you with the opening of your third eye! Open your Third eye and see the truth of your existence. Convert the pain of your existence in this cage into the birth pangs of your wings of discrimination and detachment. This is the alchemy of conversion of pain into freedom and joy.

Be the mother of your joy and freedom rather than the builder of your own cage. Shift the direction of your energies from building the bars of cage to the development of wings of discrimination and detachment. Your reward is the flights high above the sky.

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