The Debts We Owe
Imagine you have a big debt to pay back at home, failing which you would be punished by the law of your homeland. All of a sudden, you get a chance to migrate to the US for a limited duration, and you grab the golden opportunity. You are told about the conditions of migration: on completion of the fixed period, you won’t be able to move anything from the US back to your home country — not a single dollar, not a single thing you own, and not any relationships developed in this new country. You have to leave everything behind. You say you understand and move on to take the opportunity.
You get a good job and earn in dollars. You get a big home, all the paraphernalia, get married to a US citizen, and have kids. You live the proverbial good life, having forgotten all about the debt you owe in your homeland. You even forget that you didn’t belong to the US. And then, one day, the duration of your migration gets over, and the immigration authorities knock at your door, ready to deport you back to where you came from. This hits you like a lightning bolt — you have to leave everything behind. And once you land in your homeland, you are taken into custody for not having paid the debt you owed.
We are all wise enough to quickly label the actions of this person as foolish. For the person knew beforehand what he was getting into and couldn’t blame anyone for being unjust. At some level, this story is a metaphor for most of us and our lives. We all are carrying big debts and come into this body with an opportunity to try and pay all our debts and be free. But what do we spend our lives on? Living the good life, as we call it. Earning money, acquiring things, making relationships — all the while being fully aware that our time in this body is limited, and none of this will go with us when it is time to leave. And we completely forget the one thing we were sent here to do: to repay our debts and become free and pure.
It’s time to come out of this amnesia and start working towards the reason we came here. If we are able to repay even a little of the long-carried-forward debts, if we are able to learn even a little of the lessons we came here to learn, it would be a life well-lived.
