While driving a car, we stay focused on the road. We hardly notice the buildings, parks, and gardens on the side of the roads. Especially, when driving at a high speed, we need to stay more focussed on the road and observe further less on the side of the road. Similarly, most of the time, we keep moving with our thoughts at a very high speed, and in the process, we stay focused on our desires and ambitions. We hardly have time to look at the life, which just passes unattended on the side of the road.
We happen to meet life, only when our vehicle slows down or stops for some reason. Sometimes, we get some disease that forces us to slow down the pace. We stay back at home and see our own home like a stranger. We notice the things at home, which we generally didn't notice due to the fast pace of life. Sometimes, we meet with an accident that forces us to slow down and observe life. Sometimes, we do not get the desired results and become sad. In that state of sadness, we slow down and start examining life.
However, many times, such diseases, undesired results, and accidents result in just a change of the track or acceleration of the speed. Sometimes, in a hurry to get the desired results, we accelerate the speed of the car. Sometimes, we just change the track with a greater focus on the track. It appears quite risky to slow down on the highway because so many high-speed vehicles are coming on the highway and slowing down may result in an accident.
That is an irony of life. We take the highways and drive fast to live a beautiful life and in the process, we forget to live life. Life becomes unidimensinal. We tend to miss life on the side of the highway. Though we reach fast the other end of the highway with all the comforts of life, safety, and security, we have a feeling of missing something. Life appears to be often meaningless. We miss our childhood. A childhood with no highway and yet so fulfilling life, in the small streets of the town and village. Playing with friends and having fun with the smallest of the possessions we had. At the other end of the highway, we have so many things, yet very few friends to have fun with.
I feel that life is a big puzzle. The highway attracts almost all of us and almost all of us at some point in time in our lives realize the futility of the highway and yet do not gather the courage to tell our kids the futility thereof. Probably, the realization comes a little late, and by that time, kids have already taken their own highway. There appears a fundamental problem with with way we live life. We always live life in the past or the future. Either we miss our past or run away from that. Or we keep driving fast to reach the future of our dreams. However, life is none of these two. Life is living in the present moment. At any moment, half of our attention is taken over by the past and half by the future.
We are never in the present moment because of a faulty understanding of life. We always define life in terms of certain possessions, such as wealth or power, and keep driving fast on the highway of life in a hurry to get there. Every end of the highway is the starting point of a new one. Every life tries to connect to us, but we ignore that life for our ambitions. The most fulfilling things in life are all free. Spending time with friends. Enjoying the beauty of nature. The good taste of water, talking to the stars in the night sky. Exploring nature to understand its mysteries. Almost all these things require little or no resources. Yet, we keep running after material possessions.
Probably, we just need to take a detour from the highway and observe life. As we observe life in the present moment, the past and the future lose their grip on our attention. Probably, we just need to learn to discriminate. Generally, we are not able to dissect the experiences, and that results in the formation of false correlations. We mistake money and power for happiness. Once we bring attention to the present moment, we will be able to dissect the experiences and see clearly that happiness lies inside. We don't need to rush on the highway to get it. It is then and there.
Probably, there may be three ways of living. First one to fight the battle like Duryodhana to become the ruler. That happens when we mistakenly form a correlation between our ambitions and happiness. Duryodhana was the ruler of Hastinapur for quite a number of years but was never happy and at peace. Happiness comes with contentment and contentment comes with inner connection.
The second way of living may be to live the life of a seeker where we spend our entire life seeking the divine and in the process run away from life. A seeker observes life and understands the temporariness of all material possessions. He becomes disinterested in these possessions and aims for higher goals. He makes active efforts to find the divine connection, by reading books, Satsang, and meditation. There is a constant hollowness within which gives rise to forceful efforts to meet the divine.
The third way of living comes with dissecting life further. When we see that the divine exists in each of the aspects of life. We realize that the moment complete attention is brought to the present moment, we can experience the divine in each moment. We can experience his presence in the pumping of the heart, digestion of food, working of the brain and hormonal system, perfect coordination between the Earth and the Sun, the arrival of monsoon each year, growing of crops, emotions, and the intellect. We understand how the divine intelligence is guiding each aspect of daily life. We get the wisdom to connect to the divine through all these things and stay always connected. Like Arjuna connected to the divine, we go out to fight the battle of Kurukshetra of our lives.
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