““A man once fed a peacock with a pill of opium at four o’clock in the afternoon. The next day, exactly at that time, the peacock came back. It had felt the intoxication of the drug and returned just in time to have another dose.””
When we like something, we want more of it. Mahendra Nath Gupta discovered life-transforming wisdom in his very first visit to Sri Ramakrishna. He was so captivated that he went there a second time, and then a third time. When he came again for his fourth visit, Sri Ramakrishna welcomed him with, “There! He has come again.” Then he narrated the story of the peacock, sending everyone into peals of laughter.
Mahendra enjoyed the analogy. He later wrote in his diary that “even at home he had been unable to banish the thought of Sri Ramakrishna for a moment. His mind was constantly at Dakshineswar and he had counted the minutes until he should go again” (Gospel, p. 90). M, as Mahendra became better known, continued his visits until, and beyond, Sri Ramakrishna’s mahāsamādhi (1886), tirelessly took notes of everything he heard, and meditated for hours, re-living his moments with Sri Ramakrishna.
M turned to Ramakrishna, it transformed his life and, years later, also the lives of the readers of his diary, which took the form of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. A question for you and me is: what are the kind of things to which we turn again and again? Like the opium did to the peacock, what is it that we are drawn to? What takes the place of opium for us?
It is difficult to speak of opium these days and not think of what is now known as “the opioid crisis,” which has claimed thousands of American lives and has several millions suffering from opioid use disorders. The crisis began in the late 1990s when pharmaceutical companies assured the medical community that opioid pain relievers were not addictive and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. The result was an addiction epidemic. It is still raging but not being talked about much, because the covid pandemic has been drawing all the attention in the past few months.
The truth is that everything, not just opioids, can be addictive. Some addictions destroy physical health and may lead to even death. Other addictions can affect the mind in multifarious ways. Addictions are frowned upon only when their effects become tangible and are found to be destructive in some way. Many addictions work silently, under cover, and it may be months or years before their effects become noticeable. We may not even recognize these as addictions.
There is nothing terribly awful in having a cup of coffee every morning. In fact, it seems just the perfect thing to do! Or reading the New York Times. Or listening to NPR or BBC every now and then. Or following a favorite team’s games. Or surfing the net. Or shopping. Or checking the social media (perhaps too) often. Or enjoying delicious food a bit too much. Or doing the crossword. Or being a movie buff. All apparently harmless activities—until we realize the investment we are making in them in terms of time and energy. At some point, hopefully not too late, we may have to ask, is it really worth it?
When I depend on anything outside of myself, I am—whether I like it or not, whether I know it or not—compromising my freedom in some way. If the source of my happiness is outside, there is always the possibility that I will be separated from it sooner or later. Whatever I consider to be “mine” can be taken away from me. That is the law of life—what comes, also goes. Things come together only to be separated. When separation occurs, misery is the result. Ask longtime smokers what happens when they run out of their stock of cigarettes—or worse, when they are told by their doctor that they should quit.
Not every disappointment at separation from what we depend on is huge, but since we depend on many things, all these minor disappointments, regrets, annoyances, and sorrows eventually add up. We may try to overcome them or ignore them by constantly hunting for ways to distract us and to keep us happy. But it’s a losing battle. Eventually most people give up and waddle through life helplessly, pretending to be happy, but living with little to hope for and much to regret.
Since we cannot but get attached to things that make us happy and usually get addicted to them, why not at least try to acquire good addictions? A “good addiction” may seem like an oxymoron, but may be it is not. Some addictions can, in fact, be good for me—the kind of addictions that will eliminate other addictions and—this is important—eliminate themselves as well when the time comes.
Consider the addiction to spiritual life. (You knew this was coming, didn’t you?) Reading about or seeing the joy experienced by spiritual seekers—especially by those we recognize as saints and mystics—it is natural to aspire for that kind of joy for oneself. To get that joy I’ll need both study and practice. My attachment to scriptural study, prayer, worship, meditation, and selfless service will involve investing my time and energy in them. This would mean less time and energy available to give to my present addictions. When I begin to experience real joy in my spiritual practice, I’ll naturally invest even more time and energy into it, getting “addicted” to spiritual life. In a natural sort of way, my other addictions will suffocate and disappear.
The deepening of spiritual life is a graded process of discovering that God is no longer as distant a figure as was once imagined. The deeper my spiritual life becomes, the closer God and I get—until at last we cannot get any closer without the “we” vanishing. If my approach to spiritual life is primarily subjective, I’ll aspire to find my true self. In that case, spiritual life for me will mean my present ego-centered self searching for my true self (ātman), the two eventually coming so perilously close that they can no longer be “two.”
What remains when the “we” or the “two” disappears? It is impossible to express it in words. At that stage, says the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (2.4.14):
यत्र वा अस्य सर्वमात्मैवाभूत्तत्केन कं जिघ्रेत्, तत्केन कं पश्येत्, तत्केन कं श्रुणुयात्, तत्केन कमभिवदेत्, तत्केन कं मन्वीत, तत्केन कं विजानीयात् ?
Yatra vā asya sarvam ātmaiva abhūt tat kena kaṁ jighret, tat kena kaṁ paśyet, tat kena kaṁ śruṇuyāt, tat kena kaṁ abhivadet, tat kena kaṁ manvīta, tat kena kaṁ vijānīyāt?
But when to him (the knower of Brahman) everything has become the self, then what should one smell and through what, what should one see and through what, what should one hear and through what, what should one speak and through what, what should one think and through what, what should one know and through what?
When only the one remains, it matters little whether the one is called God or the Self. There is nothing to smell, nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to speak, nothing to think, and nothing to know, and most importantly, there is no need to do any of these things because I am—yes, I am the one!—immersed in ineffable bliss and infinite freedom. In that state, there is neither any reason nor any possibility to be addicted. There is no longer any “opium” and the peacock is no longer the peacock. Its form (rūpa) and name (nāma) disappear, leaving behind only infinite being (sat), consciousnesss (cit), and bliss (ānanda).
At present, though, we are in the realm of the “we” and the “two”—and there are things around to smell, to see, to hear, to speak, to think, and to know. Whatever and whoever bring me happiness, I am going to get attached to them and, no matter how hard I try, I am going to get addicted to them. It is possible, of course, to not get addicted at all, but that is superdifficult. Unbeknownst to us some addictions will creep in subtly even if we are able to keep many other addictions at bay.
What we can do is examine our present addictions, assess how much time and energy they consume, and ask if they are worth the trouble—while remembering that every day we move a day closer to death. The clock is ticking, we are aging, and the clock can (and will) stop abruptly without warning. Wisdom consists in diverting as much time and energy as possible to something that has no downside and is guaranteed to bring both freedom and happiness—in other words, a robust spiritual life. That’s the “opium” we need.