WE ARE ALL ACTORS

In the world we live, we are all actors! We are born equipped with talents and abilities but as we grow up and learn to act, we lose our real self. We are taught many things that seem good to others ignoring our own wishes and desires. The things we do should ‘look good’ to the world and its people; doesn’t matter if we really wish for it or not. At every stage of our life, the people we meet teach us to be formal, not loyal. And if they want us to be loyal, they never mean it in reality; they want us to act like we really want to be loyal. Try remembering any recent decision you made in the past. Just recall the factors you considered while making your past decisions. What was the major factor responsible for making that particular decision? I bet it was “If I do it this way, how will the people look to it or react to it!”
In trying to show others what you possess or what you do, I would say that you never really made any decision for yourself. You made decisions just to ensure that it looks fine when others look at you making that decision. Don’t you think that’s quite unfair to you and unjust to your life! Every system that we have created, teaches us to be an ACTOR; an actor who acts exactly as asked by the system. The rules of this system become our script; the work we do to earn money becomes our dialogue; the formal life we live becomes our story; and just another person like us becomes our director. We are just actors who play various roles in one life story. But even after this busy life, what do we get? Money? Fame? Identity? Is this what we were longing for? Nothing among these is real. Money, fame, identity, these are just illusions; these are our own creations.
In today’s world, we are told not to believe in just anything or trust just anyone; even our own blood relations. By the time we become independent, we don’t even hesitate to act in front of our own reflection. In order to survive in this fake world, we have to disguise ourselves. We have to tell the world what we are not really inside; just to gain acceptance. But in trying to be the best actor of life, we gradually lose ourselves. We distance our true self from our own conscious; where actually they are one. Right from birth we have been told that we need to act in order to survive and succeed. Diplomacy and formalities become our life.
You may wish for many things that you actually desire, but you can’t have it; because it may look odd or strange to others. You are bound by rules, laws, principles, guidelines and restrictions. You wish for freedom but you can’t actually have it; because you have to pretend that you are fine with what you have. Just for a minute, stop and reflect your past. What have you gained? What have you lost? And what haven’t you explored yet? It seems like we are all actors and in our whole lifetime we learn to perfect this art of acting. We are living a life with multiple roles and none of them is our real one!
For just once, think and reflect where have you been? What were you searching for? All this time you were living in a dream. You were acting on someone’s commands. You were following someone’s orders. You were not YOU! Now it’s time to be what you always wanted to be! It is my belief that we are what we believe ourselves to be. Our physical bodies are just an illusion. It’s just a vessel that we have created by our own imagination and the wonderful power of perception. We mould our physical bodies with our thoughts and efforts. In reality, we are not even inside our physical bodies at all. We actually reside in an unknown dimension where we all are ONE. The absolute world to which we belong knows no dualities; it stands entirely on ONENESS. We don’t have to pretend to be someone else; we don’t have to impress anyone; we don’t have to live in disguise anymore; we don’t have to hide our true faces. We have to be what we really are – our real self; away from these world’s formalities and restrictions.
To conclude, I would say, “If you want to be an actor, better be the one whose character reflects your true style. Every one of us has a different story to live but many common roles to play; doesn’t matter who plays them well, what really matters is how well you stood on your expectations and how balanced were you on the grounds of self-satisfaction.”

©Varun K. Sharma