Monday, April 5, 2010

My pursuit to know LIFE

Sitting in the side upper birth of a train, I realise how similar is this journey and my journey of life are. For many days I was having some questions about life and I was unable to comprehend the purpose of life. I read Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta but still I could understand very little. If I believed that there was a supreme power called God, and that He created the Universe and life and everything we can perceive or can’t, then also I could not understand His purpose of creating everything. If He is so great He won’t just go on showing off His power just to see His followers, worshippers and to see how a man becomes weak and finally kneels down to Him and asks for help. I found the whole philosophy presented in Bhagwad Geeta lacking one critical point which I give utmost importance and that is PURPOSE. I talked to many wise men, and ended up finding myself even more puzzled. Throughout my life I have believed that a theory, a fact or an answer to a question can be taken as correct if and only if it’s simple and to the point. Well, at some point during my pursuit for truth, I forced myself to change my belief and make myself understand that few things are intrinsically complex or they are such that they get complex if we try to bind them with our beliefs. I stared believing in own form of God. I stared believing that there is some higher form of knowledge and there is some higher form of understanding that I need to develop through belief and patience. I started meditating and pondering over few points for hours. It was painful at times and was very enlightening at the very next moments. By now I have gained some insight about life. I feel Life is a game and we are the players. It has a simple rule one needs to know: DON’T ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT IT. Till the time you keep the rule in your mind, you are the player and life is the game. The day to start questioning it becomes the other way round. Life starts playing games with you. Bhagwad Geeta stresses on collectivism and its importance. It says that a man should work for the welfare of the society without any vested interest of his own and should not have the sense of the doer of his actions. He should not fear death as the spirit never dies. A man should work only because he is born and he should not take recluse in inaction (the first words from the Lotus lips of the lord Himself: ‘klambam ma sad gamyah parth......’). If I don’t ask question about who is God and how to seek Him and know Him. If I stop questioning my purpose of life and start living a of a man who works till he can and sleep when he is tired and never lets himself feel that he is the doer of the actions he does; and if I, while doing any action, ask myself just one question: is this action of mine going to be of any good to the society?, then will I be doing justice to this life? Well, yes. That’s what I feel. I am not going to lose anything here and am not going to take anything away from here, why should I bother about what else life could have been. Well, at this point you may be thinking what exactly I mean by “I”. If ‘I’ am not going to take anything from here, then this puts up two questions: what do I mean by ‘I’ and do I believe that the death of this physical body is different from the death of ‘I’. Do I believe that the soul is different from the body? This is a point where I am still speculative and it’s probably one of the last questions I need to get a concrete answer. I know I am breaking the rule I stated above of not questioning anything, I know that I am knowingly letting the life to play with me but then let me see how it feels to be a peg on a chess board and fight a battle rather than sit on a garden chair and take sips of coffee and play lazily. I am very cautious as I am going ahead. I know there’s a trap waiting for me some where here but I also believe that the trap won’t be strong enough to hold me helpless for long. The rule to break that trap is to stop questioning. No matter how complex life may look but in the end it’s very simple.

ऐसे भी तो दिन आयेंगे

 ऐसे भी तो दिन आयेंगे, बिलकुल तनहा कर जाएँगे रोयेंगे हम गिर जाएँगे, ख़ामोशी में पछतायेंगे याद करेंगे बीती बातें ख़ुशियों के दिन  हँसती रातें...