It is difficult to understand the meaning of life unless we contemplate death. Death is the end of this body. What happens after that? The first category of people believes that there is nothing after death and so one should maximize the pleasures in this life. The second category of people believes that depending upon our karma in this life, we go to heaven or hell and therefore we should do good deeds and then there is a whole lot of debate over what is good and what is bad. The third category of people believes that the soul never dies and is not affected by the Karmas. We have made different meanings of death depending upon our own philosophies and belief systems.
Our meaning of life also changes significantly depending upon our meaning of death. The first category of people wants to have fun and pleasure from everything in life and invest a lot of time in acquiring and accumulating the ways and means to perpetuate these pleasures. That includes material possessions as well as relationships. In the process, they get fixated on their possessions and desires. The moment circumstances force them into some unpleasant situation or some of their possessions are lost, they become quite sad, and depending upon their dependency on the lost possessions or shattered dreams, they become stressed, anxious, and at times depressed. They appear to be very bubbly and full of life till the situations turn out to be in their favor and allow them to have fun and pleasure.
The second category of people make their life a mission to get the heaven after death. They will religiously participate in different rituals that are believed to be the key to going to heaven. However, in most of the cases, there are two fundamental problems. First: the desire to go to heaven turns out to be greed to perpetuate the worldly pleasures in heaven. Every time it is quite painful to let go of the visible pleasures for something that is not visible and they are always in two minds. For example, having tasty food or fasting, going on a fun vacation, or going on to pilgrimage. Thus, these people are always full of a lot of conflicts. Second: these people often get trapped in the net of astrologers, babas, and fake preachers and waste their hard-earned money to reserve their seats in heaven. Sometimes they get hypnotized to the extent of getting involved in terrorist activities.
The third category of people believe that the soul is immortal and what dies is this body. This brings a lot of confusion to begin with. If the soul is immortal and what dies is this body, why do we enter into this mortal body in the very first instance? Why don't we remain happy without taking the birth and be in a blissful state? Why this world is created, which is full of suffering? Why do we feel pain? The list of questions would be endless. Different people, who we believe to be realized, have answered these questions in quite different ways. Some make sense to us while some do not make sense to us, probably due to the limitations of the brain or fixation on the world.
I have read some texts written by the realized souls such as Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Paramhansa Yogananda, Sri Aurobindo, J Krishnamurti, and the classic texts written by saints such as Upanishads. I also practice Vipassana and meditate to experience the inner reality. I have not gone through any out-of-the-world experience so far. However, my understanding as of date is that we really do not know the purpose of this creation and death. However, an intelligent guess may be made. To the best of my understanding, life is evolving as a whole, and in the process of evolution, individuals do not matter much. However, what matters is the overall movement. From single cellular beings to complex human beings who have built AI. It seems that consciousness has immense possibilities which are in a latent form within us and human beings are evolving to manifest the potential of consciousness and explore the same through their lives.
I see it as if we all have been given some Lego blocks (body and mind). There is no fixed design and we are free to choose what we want to make out of these blocks. We make different structures and get fixated on those structures. We know that we can make many more structures out of the blocks but due to our fixation on the structures we have built, the blocks get blocked and our possibilities of making new structures get confined. That is where death comes as a blessing to free us from these fixations. With new life, we get freed of our beliefs, and fixations and start exploring life afresh. However, the study of astrology, made me understand that probably some of our fixations are quite deep and they carry with us in the form of Sanchit karmas to the next life and reflect in the natal horscope. Foolishly we take that as our destiny while that is just a reminder of our past life fixations.
While making different structures out of the blocks of life, we keep some designs in mind and start working on the same. Life is not about letting blocks lie idle. It is making the best use of the same. I feel that sannyasa is quite overrated in the spiritual world. Sanyasa does not mean wasting the blocks, rather it simply means taking a break from the routine so that one can do some intensive research on the blocks to guide humanity to make the best use of the blocks. Similarly, when we live life, we start using the blocks and make different structures out of the blocks. What matters is our understanding of life. If we feel that senses have been given to us to have more and more food, comforts, and other sensory inputs that we like, that means we have got fixated on some structures not utilizing the full potential of the blocks. On the other hand, if we can just see death as a reality, then we would not mind again and again experimenting with the blocks. It is not the structure we create out of the blocks, but the process of creation that makes life fulfilled. While making some structure, there would definitely be a vision and target, but not a fixation on the result, and that is what Krishna told in Geeta.
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