On Living Simply

A man's years have grown, but the usefulness of his life keeps shrinking. He wastes his time on show more than on substance — living little and displaying much. He forgets what he ought to eat, but knows exactly how to eat it; he has the manners and neglects the health. He spends his hours arranging his hair and none shaping his life; he gives little attention to the body and much to buying the ornaments to hang on it. He learns to make speeches, and forgets where, to whom, and how to speak.

Everything has become a performance — the performance of studying, the performance of living, all of it done not for oneself but to be shown to the world. Every relationship, too, is now a show. A man on his way to be married was asked his salary. Well, he said, my salary is really a crore — but after tax and the rest, I get only ten thousand. Even the truth no longer comes straight; it arrives by a roundabout road.

A man was praising his father's bold generosity. What did he do, someone asked. On his deathbed, he said, my father gave away his four daughters and his one son to an orphanage — such a great giver was my father.

We must learn to live simply, and in full truth. Only then will we understand life at all — otherwise we will go on mistaking the shadow for the real, and the alien for our own.