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# The Train We Cannot Get Off§

Today (*Ashadh Chaudas*) marks the beginning of four-month monsoon retreat, known in Jain tradition as *Varshayog*. Traditionally, *Sadhus* and *Sadhvis* stop traveling during these months to avoid stepping on and harming the microscopic life forms that thrive in the rains. Normally, Jain ascetics must keep moving and cannot stay in one town for long. Their standard rules limit stays so they do not form local attachments.

For the rest of us, it serves as an annual pause button: a built-in seasonal reminder to slow down, drop the endless rush of daily life and turn our attention inward. It is the ideal time to ask ourselves what we are actually running toward.

## The Ticket§

Picture this: You are a taveler on a train.

You do not remember buying the ticket. You have no clue why you boarded the train. And you certainly do not know where the engine is heading. Yet, here you are hurtling down the tracks.

Now, add a little everyday drama. You step away from your seat for a minute, and when you come back, some absolute menace of a passenger has taken your designated seat. You point to your ticket and tell them to move. They look right at you and flatly refuse.

You essentially have two options:

  1. 1. Walk away and stand quietly in the aisle.
  2. 2. Stand your ground and fight for what is yours. After all, you own the ticket.

The seat belongs to you. Fighting for justice feels like the logical thing to do. Naturally, you may pick the second option. You get into a full-blown argument.

Right in the middle of this heated battle, you completely forget a much larger question: **Why are you even on this train?** Are you even supposed to be on it?

## The Trap§

It is easy to think, "Fine, if this whole trip is a mess, I will jump off".

Except, you cannot just jump off a moving train!

In life, those invisible tracks and locked doors are your karma. The survival instincts, the responsibilities and the cycle of cause and effect keep you locked inside the train. You cannot just quit the economy, abandon your family and wander off into the woods.

Theoretically, you can; but atleast not without creating a whole new set of problems. One lifetime rolls into the next, one train after another. And before you know it, you are back onboard arguing over another seat.

## The Ticket Checker§

If the seat is the problem, it would make sense to look for someone in charge. You would hope for a ticket checker to walk down the aisle. Someone who could help us regain our seat. And more importantly, tell us where this train is actually headed. Or which train should you be boarding if not this one.

In this story, the ticket checker plays the role of a *Tirthankar*. Or a God. Whichever you fancy.

But here is the catch, there is no one (in the current era), of course, subject to the degree of your belief and skepticism.

## The Gamble§

So, if we are stuck here and there is no ticket checker to help us, What are our real options?

When we look closer, those two choices we started with - submitting or fighting, are not actually solutions. They are two sides of the same trap.

Option 1 (standing in the aisle): This is **Pramad**. Or spiritual negligence. You are essentially ignoring your ticket and your purpose. You have become so passive that you have forgotten you even have a destination.

Option 2 (fighting for the seat): This is **Kasay**. Or passions like anger, ego, greed et cetera. You are so consumed by the need to win the pretty argument that you have chained yourself even tighter to the train's drama. First you fight to regain seat, then you fight to retain it.

Both options keep you blind. And neither solves the real problem.

## The Silent Passenger§

If you cannot jump off the train, cannot rely on ticket checker, cannot ignore, cannot fight, what is left?

You become the silent passenger who is aware of the train.

You stay in the train because you have to. You pay your bills, do your work and fulfill your obligations. You are not outside the system. But you also stop participating in the drama.

When the menace tries to take your seat, you do not fight and you do not shrink away. You simply recognize the situation for what it is: a temporary meaningless friction in a temporary moving carriage. You do **just enough** to function.

You remain on the train. But you are no longer **in** the train.

## What is the ticket?§

In case it is not clear by now: the trains and the stations are the endless time and cycle of *Samsar*, and **the ticket is your birth as a human**. You are on the train to get somewhere. Not to spend the whole ride fighting over the seat (materialistic desires).

Use the **ticket** wisely.

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