Inner Life

There is an Aesop fable about a man and his son taking a donkey to sell it in the market. In order to keep it fresh for sale, they decide that they will not ride it. As they go some distance, some bystanders comment that a donkey is for riding over and they are fools if they are not riding it. So, the son decides to ride it to avoid being laughed at. As they go further, they meet some people who criticize the son for riding the donkey and not allowing his old father to ride it. They swap places to avoid the criticism. They have only passed a little distance when they come across a few women who criticize the father for riding the donkey and not letting his feeble son ride it. This leads them to decide that they should both ride the donkey which is not appreciated by some women whom they meet along their way to the market. They decide that they will not ride the donkey. They tie it to a pole and carry it to the market. They are laughed at by people for their entire journey. Eventually, the donkey frees itself from the pole and, unfortunately, drowns in a river. 

The moral of the story is that the father and the son, do not have the conscience to distinguish right from wrong, which finally leads to the death of the donkey. And as Amiel put in his timeless words ‘a man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings.’ Rotter, a renowned psychologist in personality theories, says men without inner life have a strong external locus of control. Their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors. They believe that they cannot influence these circumstances. Their life is like a straw in the river. They go wherever the river takes them. It is a very simplistic description when we use this analogy as the river flows in one direction only. However, the environment of modern contemporary men is subjected to thousands of influences from social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus etc. to print media like newspapers, magazines, books, to broadcasting media like television, radio, YouTube. It is easy to get lost amidst so many things and become the sport of the circumstances, if we do not have an inner life. 

We lead two lives at the same time- the outer life which we are constantly aware of and the other unconscious inner life. The pounding heart, the breathing lungs, the five senses and the other wonderful mechanisms of the body constitute our outer life. It is our outer life which interacts with the physical world around us. Whereas the inner life is something inside us which thinks, feels, imagines, loves, wills, desires. To put it in different words, the inner life is what thinks and decides while the outer life acts. Thus, to have inner life means to be able to take decisions based on higher principles. The importance of having higher principles is obvious. If we do not base our decisions on higher principles, we will most certainly base our decisions on conflicting and contradictory beliefs. We will be always under constant dissonance between the conflicting views and actions frustrating us and making us feel under the siege. 
The inner life is unharmed, untouched by the physical world. No matter how difficult the situations the inner life guides us through it. This message was beautifully conveyed in the movie '12 years a Slave'. The protagonist of the story can get through his twelve most difficult years as a slave only because he has a strong inner life. His belief keeps him alive and finally leads to the reunion with his family. A person who has no inner life enjoys in pleasure and suffers in pain. However, one who has an inner life stays the same in both the situations. The inner life is like a control system which keeps us balanced all the time. It, like roots of the trees, nourishes us. It is not like the situations have changed. Inner life only provides a different pair of lenses which let us see the whole situation from a completely different perspective. A person who has an inner life is like a person who is at the top of the mountain while a person without it stays at the bottom. Both have the same set of eyes, but they have different horizons. The inner life allows us to be amidst the world and worldly affairs and yet stand above them. 
In this materialistic world, Amiel’s quote has become even more important. These days, we are putting so much importance in material pleasures. We identify happiness with beautiful houses, expensive cars and luxurious lifestyles. Paradoxically, we are not happy even after we get all these things. Because when we get what we desire, we want more. Today’s world thrives on this behaviour of masses. No matter how rich we are, we are continuously sad. The reason is that we are trying to find happiness and peace outside us, which should rather come from within. Inner life allows us to get into the touch with the real us. It helps us discover the truth about why we are here, what we are here for, the meaning of life. Once we know what our life-purpose is, everything falls in the right place because we know what we ought to do. 
Before we conclude, outer life is as important as the inner spirit as it is only through outer conscious life that one comes in touch with one’s unconscious inner life. For all round development, one should neither be the slave of the impulses and sensations at the moment nor to the general and abstract plan. One should be open to what life brings from within and without. Being at the mercy of randomness is a scary way to live, and the only way out is to discover our inner self.