Why Live?

We are born. We die. We don't have control over the former. We can choose to control the latter. We can choose our death. We can kill ourselves.

Why Live? When life is random, without a concrete meaning. If pain is as pointless as pleasure, if there is no real happiness or sadness, if nothing that we do or not do will make any difference, then why not just die and be out of the misery of living. Who defines that taking one's own life is not correct? Aren't all the viewpoints on suicide just as invalid as all viewpoints on meaning of life?

I was confounded by these questions. I'll attempt to think though the answers.

Life, with its constant transience, can appear as a concept to be reveled in, or as a concept to be miserable in. The instinctive intellectual response is - choose to revel and not to be miserable. But this is not valid - for judging one better than other (revelry better than misery), without adequate reasoning, is just believing what is the popular notion. In fact going back to the concept of transient life, both revelry and misery are of same nature. 

So, if one feels that life is a misery, and should be ended, is it not the right thing to do? No - because, then we are responding to the feeling of misery and trying to end the misery by - so to say - chickening out! We are basically concluding that life is going to continue to be miserable so lets just escape from it. 

Such reasoning is similar to the reasons given in favor of giving in to worldly pleasure and pursuing it with complete steadfastness. There we respond to physical or mental pleasure and try to achieve it by mad pursuit. 

A drunkard, a sex maniac, a compulsive eater, the suicidal - all are in the same boat.

I had always encountered the pleasure side - where the argument is that since everything is pointless, why not revel in all pleasures that are there. Today for the first time I came to face with the misery side - where the argument is that since everything is pointless, why not just die. The answer to both arguments is same - that "pointlessness" of life is being used as a shield to actually either yearn for pleasure or repel the pain. It is actually not looking at pointlessness as it is. It is qualified - made to suit the current state of mind.

If indeed there is no difference between pain and pleasure, misery and revelry, then we should be in a state of indifference towards either ends of spectrum. If we are indifferent and then we say that life is pointless, then we will be equally predisposed towards living and dying. In which state, we will just be. Neither wanting to live to achieve some grand meaning, not wanting to die to shut out the world. We will just be. 

Perhaps that state of being - the state of nothingness. Unqualified, without any attributes - is brahman. For there we are ever present to the moment but not judgmental about how it should be. If we really move to saying that life is pointless without attaching judgement, feelings or meaning to it, then we are closer to truth than we are when we align ourselves with either side of the spectrum.

Life

We accept happiness and joy with open arms. We never question why life is being kind to us, why we are living with peace contentment and joy. We just keep enjoying it. There is nothing wrong in doing so.

But, similarly one has to accept grief, discomfort and pain as it comes one's way. There is no point in questioning why we are going through it. For there is no reason, just like there is no reason why happiness comes our way. 

Happiness and Grief, Joy and Pain, Peace and Turmoil - they don't come in equal measures. They don't cancel each other out in long run. Nor does doing good leads one to Happiness and doing evil leads one to pain. These are just explanations that we build for ourselves. So that we feel life is predictable, controllable and with a set order.

There is no order, there are no rules. Life is uncertain, and we must accept with grace every curve and turn of life. We may find meadows on the way or tumble over some sharp rock, but we must continue the walk, with grace and dignity, absorbing all experiences that life has to offer. 

Whether it is joy or pain, we must live life. We must accept and experience both ends of the spectrum. 

And we must attempt to rise beyond this spectrum. To an arena where there are no differences between good and bad, happiness and grief, joy and pain. For spectrum is nothing but our own creation. It is a blindfold that we have put, and that we alone can take off our eyes. 

True bliss can not be happiness. It can not be pain. It is the state which is beyond these emotions. Where we see the futility of all the emotions, all attachments and attain our true selves. Where we rise and become what we really are. Where we become one. With God, or whatever term we may want to use for perfection.

It is within us, it is just a matter of time & will when we uncover it. Just a matter of time & will.

[From an earlier post dated 11 Aug 2008]

Duty

What is duty? Dictionary defines it as "Moral or Legal obligation". This may be the definition in english, but in the spiritual sense Duty has a different meaning.

There is perhaps only one duty. That of listening to our inner voice.  The courage to actually listen to the inner voice when so many societal and situational influences cloud our thinking. To have the courage to act on what we actually believe in. 

I have strong conviction that we always know what needs to be done in any situation. What needs to be said. What should not be said. What should be called out. What should be ignored. When to fight. When to let go. If only we have the courage to listen to our inner voice and act on it, we will be following our duty.

Dharma is duty. Karma is also duty. Duty is the way to brahman.

Transience

I was listening to one of the modern Gurus talk about how one should not detach, but engage with life. He drew distinction between engagement and entanglement - the former being full active involvement and latter being partial involvement with what happens in life.


I think it is very important to be fully involved with life - but with constant remembrance of the transience of everything around us. There are two aspects here - involvement and transience. Here is what I mean by transience.


Transience
Life is transient. Relationships are transient. Things, people, emotions, pain, pleasure - everything is transient. I cant think of a single thing that is not transient. No single moment is like another. The relationships that we have - continuously change, and sometimes abruptly end. People, even those who we are closest to, come and go. Live and Die. Food Perishes. And new seeds sprout. Trees are cut. Paper is created. And so on. Transience and impermanence is very overt and stark in our face.


Yet, we have a tendency to hang on to a certain current state of being. Or pine for certain time gone by. Or pin hopes on a certain bright, happy future. We always define our lives in a certain point of time - past, present or future. We work very hard to earn a lot of money so that we can buy our objects of desire - a house, a car or the like - in future. We drink ourselves silly to numb our senses and see the present become a pleasant haze. We spend hours together thinking about the great times that have gone by and invent ways to recreate the old magic.


We are so keen to have a safe haven of permanence, that we try to overlook the transience all around us. It seems to be our basic need to seek security and predictability. We invest most of our time and energy in further enhancing the predictability of life - make it more safe, secure and planned. And we think we are happy and we have a purpose in life. Sometimes, life jolts us out of this delusion. Sometime, we refuse to be jolted out. But transience remains an essential feature of life - whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.


One way to look at life is to say that if everything is transient then why involve oneself with anything at all.  Why to have relationships, play the householder, work for living and so on. Why not just be in careless abandon and let the roller coaster of life take you along.


Another way to look would be to internalize transience as basic building block of life and then live life with full involvement - engaging fully with each moment yet remembering that whatever is happening is transient and that the way it is supposed to be. To stop yearning for any one moment - and to be involved and immersed in every moment.

Pain

Pain - physical or emotional - can be either experienced in one's own body and mind OR it can be experienced in form of helplessness that one feels when a loved one is undergoing pain. 

Pain and Pleasure, like any other duality, are bound to happen at some point or other in our lives. A large part of our lives is not controllable by self - so both pain and pleasure may come unexpected, uninvited. While we are always excited to embrace any pleasure, we are almost always reluctant to embrace pain. 

Both - pain and pleasure - are transient in nature, Hence, rejoicing in pleasure or whining in pain does not make sense. 

I have so far found it easier to adopt this when the pain or pleasure, bodily or emotional, are directly experienced by myself. I find it more difficult to remain tranquil when another person is going through pain (not pleasure) and I can not do anything to alleviate it. 

I am no one to inflict upon or alleviate any one's pain. So the matter is not about pain at all. It is about loving someone, but remaining cognizant that experiencing pain and pleasure are as much a part of that person's life (and growth?) as such experiences are part of my life.

Perhaps the trick is to break down the sense of narrow self, and enlarge it to include all beings and things. And apply the same thought as one applies to narrow self to everyone/everything else in the world.

Universal Love is the only path.