Why ‘settling down’ is sinful

It is to live dangerously that we have been created!

Ever since senior journalist and TV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai asked Tennis ace Sania Mirza that question about ‘settling down and motherhood’ a couple of days ago, the question itself is being seen as an affront to gender equality. I believe going forward this question will be categorized as one among those that we must never ask a woman. I don’t disagree.

Further, while I believe that the entire argument in favor of ‘settling down’, if at all, must be gender neutral, I prefer to campaign for avoiding the very argument.

Anxious parents and a ‘holier-than-thou’ society define ‘settling down’ as ‘having an income, saving money, creating material assets, raising a family and begetting children’. It’s a simple thumb rule that the world expects you to conform to – “if you have attained adulthood, necessarily, you shall earn money, marry, buy a house and procreate”. If you notice, in the popular notion or context of ‘settling down’, no one talks about ‘being happy’. Which is why I find this ‘settling down’ discourse sinful.

I believe we are missing the moot point here. The reason we have been created – to be sure, each of us has been born without our asking to be born; that’s incontrovertible evidence that we have been created – is not to merely ‘earn a living’. We have been created human so that we can experience the beauty and magic of this ‘uncertain, inscrutable’ Life and be happy. Osho, the Master, says we have ruined this experience by building a social framework, partly financial, partly material, and wholesomely driven by our wants and expectations, around something that can never be boxed or contained. Life is free-flowing, it has a mind of its own. It is unpredictable. And every moment of living is like a bungee jump, a deep dive into the unknown. Into this deep dive, by introducing a pay check, we think we have stemmed the uncertainty and made the whole experience predictable. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Financial security is an illusion – it is human-made and so doesn’t conform to Life’s free spirit. Which is why, despite all the money you may have, you still can’t fix some quirky health situations, you can’t unentangle complex relationship issues, you can’t buy happiness, you can’t find inner peace or you just can’t get a good night’s sleep!

Osho encouraged us to dump the false comfort that financial security gave us. He invited us to embrace uncertainty and live dangerously. He called his point of view ‘the joy of living dangerously’. He championed for a Life beyond ‘earning a living’, beyond the ‘slaving-earning-saving-procreating’ paradigm. He invited people to be happy, doing whatever gave them happiness. Alan Watts, the British philosopher, invited us to choose the Life we want to live by first imagining what we would be doing in a world where money was not an object. Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist and author, beseeched us to follow our bliss. All their clarion calls asked of us to choose to be happy even if it meant being unsettled. Happiness above all else, was their mantra. I completely agree with all of them.

For reasons that I can never understand or explain beyond what I share daily, here on this Blog, or what I have shared in my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ (Westland), Vaani and I have been ‘living dangerously’ for years now. We have no money and we have ceased to seek financial security. Yet we are not insecure, we are not unhappy and we are not spending all our time – or sleepless nights – worrying. In a purely worldly sense we have still not “settled down” – we have no income, no savings, no assets, no health or Life insurance and a mountain of debt to repay – yet Life goes on for us. Just as it goes on for so, so many “unsettled” people around us, all over the world. The common thread that links all of us “unsettled folks” is that perhaps through discovering the “joy of living dangerously” we have learnt the art of “living in the now, in the present moment”. Let me hasten to add that living “unsettled” is very, very challenging no doubt, but it is the adventure that is the reward here! Which is why, having tasted that adventure, and enjoyed the reward, we find that “settling down” is perhaps sinful – if ever anything is sinful!

There is great joy in living dangerously

Don’t ever fear living dangerously. Simply focus on the living, for you can do nothing about the danger!

Neerja Malik Picture Courtesy: Facebook

The other day we were at an event to launch a book based on the Life of Neerja Malik, a two-time cancer survivor. Titled ‘I Inspire’ (Jaico, written by Megha Bajaj), the book tells Neerja’s story – of grit, of letting go, of acceptance and of being happy despite the circumstances. At the launch, Neerja, just as the way she always is, was beaming and radiating abundance. She personified being joyful! Without any prior notice, finding me and Vaani in the audience, Nina Reddy, of Savera Hotels, who was the chief guest at the event, invited me to share some perspective (perhaps given our own experience with dealing with a Life-changing crisis) on how “it is possible turn a crisis into an opportunity”.

I talked about how ancient Chinese philosophy and literature support this belief that the word “crisis”, when written in the Chinese language, is actually the sum of two other words. One meaning ‘danger’ and the other meaning ‘opportunity’. So to the Chinese, crisis always means danger + opportunity. The import for us is this – whenever you see crisis, don’t get overwhelmed by its inherent dangerous nature. See the opportunity. To be sure, there is opportunity all around, everywhere, and every step of the way.

Osho, the Master, takes the Chinese argument one step further. He says Life is intrinsically fraught with dangers. Each moment is an encounter with the unknown. He says our academic education, social conditioning and the availability of economic resources makes us believe, actually kids us, that we know what outcomes can occur each time all necessary and sufficient conditions are fulfilled. But every now and then – when an MH 370 disappears into thin air, when you are faced with a debilitating ailment with no cure, when a close relationship sours irrevocably because you have stopped relating to that person – you realize that you are controlling nothing. That only Life was, is, and will be, in control. You discover then that you are a mere pawn. So, when this realization strikes you it can be very unsettling. You thought you were the boss, the king. But now, Life’s telling you are that you are just a cog in the wheel, a nobody who controls nothing. Osho says that instead of feeling depressed and powerless, celebrate the joy of living dangerously. Since you can’t do anything about what happens to you in Life, since you have no idea or control over what dangers lie on your journey ahead, simply let go and be happy!

Neerja epitomizes that spirit. It’s her joie de vivre that’s helped her conquer cancer not once – but twice! It’s her zest to live that spreads so much positivity and cheer among all those she touches. She doesn’t make living this way seem easy. Living this way iseasy because she lives each moment fully – with awareness, with joy! There’s indeed great joy in living dangerously. If you can find some time from your worrying and fearing and fretting and fuming about the ‘dangers’ you are currently dealing with, believe me, you too can feel – and be – that joy!