Human Devotion

See the mother walking in the park behind her infant son, so interested in his every movement, in his discovery of the world. Her heartbeat follows his. She feels pleasure in his amusement and happiness. In keeping him secure, she finds a sense of security for herself. In him, she has found a purpose. She will strive to care for him with the same enthusiasm with which she nourishes her own body.

This is the elegant societal system through which humans are raised, conditioned, and perpetuated. The mother's emotions are the hands by which it executes its task. Until today, she had lived a life of self-servitude, as us all, but with the entry of this newly created human, who himself is an independent agent, as she had been, a slumbering altruism awakens in her, and she lives only to serve him. She has never been so motivated to maintain the livelihood of any other single human, but this one, this particularly special one, captivates and monopolises her working energy to an extent she has never experienced and doesn't really understand. She feels no need to understand it, she only derives pleasure from this new devotion.

Though of greater magnitude, this devotion is reminiscent of a young man's devotion to a successfull career, an older man's devotion to a hobby, a sportsman's devotion to the game, an artist's devotion to his painting, a dancer's to her dance, and maybe even a drunkard's to his drink. Indeed each of these procures a personal livelihood, in some sense, from the occupation, but still there is a sort of romance that the doer has with that which he does. The sportsman plays with a passion that at times may injure his material progression in the game, the young man may, at times, take steps in his career that hurt his quality of life, but chase a high position in his industry, and surely the mother's devotion to her child is in-congruent with self-servitude.

Stop.

Meditate on this devotion for a moment, free from the objects of it's operation. Why does it happen? What is the source of it? Why is it there in every facet of our human existence? It surely is, is it not?

Spend some time thinking on this thing, and then spend some time thinking whether it may be possible to live a life without it. Would it be possible to live a life without a romantic devotion to anything? In what would such a life result?

Let us think of the nature of this devotion. It creates a purpose in the mind, an objective, a goal. Without it, our lives would be devoid of a purpose. We wouldn't know what we are supposed to do as humans, what we are supposed to want, for what we are supposed to strive.

As a solution to this lack of purpose, we say 'to each his own reality', 'to each his own purpose'. To the sportsman, the game is the ultimate reality, and to the mother, her child's well-being. So many different realities.

Can there be such a multitude of realities? What is the reality for him who seeks only It? What is the reality for him who seeks to discover his own nature, the nature of humans?

Let us take a step back, and think about how each of these realities are created, so differently, for each of these participants in this drama of existence. Here we must think about a goal, a purpose, that is held by a human and how they affect his mind. A discussion on that will follow shortly.

I know, I need to get better at finishing my thoughts.

Beauty