It's strange to see how different human beings make so many different meanings of life, and how everybody is so convinced of their own. As children, we try to fathom the depth of reality and find ourselves grossly incapable. We find none around us who can answer the most fundamental questions: "Where have we come from?", "What is the meaning of death?", "What happens after death?", "What is happiness?", "Why is there so much inequality in this world?", "Why are there so many fights among nations?", "Why am I born in this family?" The young minds have so many questions. I believe that each one of us would have had all these questions. But where did they disappear? Why are we so convinced about our own understanding of the meaning of life?
Probably, that's a defence mechanism of the human mind. Each one of us has two options. First, to keep seeking the meaning of reality, which is a difficult and unsure option. Somebody may set it as the mission of his life, like Buddha, and may or may not be able to understand that. Second, society offers an attractive alternative. Each society has its own story about the meaning of life. You may believe in that and may live accordingly. If you stay in the same society all throughout your life, chances are good that you will be so busy all through your life in the "pursuit of happiness". Why? Because society has "intelligently" written all these stories about happiness to ensure that the pursuit never ends. If somebody makes a meaning around money, there is no outer limit to earning money. You may keep earning money till you get tired. If somebody sets the meaning of life around power, there is no end to that. If somebody seeks the meaning of life around family, there is no end again. You may first be concerned about the children, then grandchildren, and then grand-grandchildren.
Sometimes I get surprised to see how the most intelligent minds get trapped in this matrix. Probably because this has nothing to do with "intelligence". The way we define intelligence is actually very deceptive. Intelligence is not about computational power. A laptop may have the best RAM, processor, and hard disk. It may have everything best, and yet it may be dumb. Because it does not know what to do. If a terrorist uses the same laptop, it will destroy the world. The same thing applies to AI. AI is not intelligent. It just provides a summary of what is already available on the web. Intelligence is all about awareness of the whole and then living in any frame with that awareness. An intelligent actor is not the one who loses awareness of being an actor while acting and gets so immersed in the role. Rather, an intelligent actor is the one who retains awareness of being an actor and then performs the role to the best of his capacity as per the demands of the script.
Until we are aware of the reality of the matrix, we will never be able to break free of it. But then we have a hard problem to resolve. We get trapped in the matrix while we are young and unaware. We form many relationships, and most of the people we associate with may not have any inclination to get out of the matrix. They consider it to be real and may like to live therein. That's obviously easy. But somehow we want to break free of this matrix. We want to abide by the rules of the matrix to survive and, at the same time, make efforts to come out of the matrix, and that becomes quite challenging. We feel like Abhimanyu, who has somehow got into the Chakravyuh but is somehow unable to come out of it. At the same time, the "well-wishers" advise us to accept this matrix as reality. But there is something within us that has understood the reality of the matrix and can't seek happiness in that limited frame anymore, and I feel that once it is clearly understood by that "intelligence" that the matrix is a very limited frame, there is no going back, and it's just a matter of time before we get free of this matrix.
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