Why a Thought of Death Should Awaken You to the Life?
During the last month, I attended two funerals. Two people known to me suddenly left the world. People were discussing about the suddenness of the death.
But isn’t the death sudden in most of the cases?
We all spend our lives as if we are born only to earn money and acquire things. We spend our life in fulfilling the desire for material things, satisfying the craving of our senses, longing for social acceptance and status.
What is the point of using this precious life in earning things which we keep here and die? Shouldn’t a smarter person do things which she can carry with the self wherever she goes?
The last message of King Alexander should be taught to us as the first message of life. The profound wisdom the King is timeless and more relevant in today’s time. The following video of Alexander’s last Message is in the Gujarati language. Worth listening.
The irony is we are totally oblivion of the real purpose of human life. The race is going on around us and we join the race without exploring the other options. There are some (sages, spiritual gurus) who tries to awaken us but like a horse blinded from both the sides, we do not heed them.
Finally, the day comes, and we think we have fooled ourselves by joining the race mindlessly. We repent not heeding to the Alexander. But there is no 2nd chance.
We humans have a specific objective to attain which is different from the other species.
There are three ways one can look at human life.
- Acquire Inclined — Earn, Acquire, and Die
- Explore Inclined — Earn, Explore, and Enrich
- Spiritually Inclined — Know, Experience, and Attain
Let’s examine in brief what each class of people do in their life.
- Acquire Inclined — Earn, Acquire, and Die.
They earn money, acquire things, and die.
Most of us who live as if earning money is the sole purpose of life.
If you are spiritually inclined, your purpose is quite different and won’t match with the people around.
But even if you are not spiritually inclined, there are more to life than just earning money.
Many rich people can’t enjoy and experience different aspects of life. Their days and years just go in earning money, thinking about money. Their social talks are also about business, money, and career. They don’t enjoy their Sundays and vacations.
There is nothing in their mind other than money and how to earn more money. With money, they wish to pamper their senses and acquire more material things.
They might offer help for a social cause but only with the money not with their time. Life can offer enriching experience when you help others with your time. Monetary help is necessary but it neither enrich your life nor offers a different perspective to look at the things.
“Happiness is not about getting all you want, it is about enjoying all you have.”
They have everything in life but time. They forget that life is about the time. The number of years we live is the sum total of our time.
Poors are not who have less, poor are those who can’t enjoy what they have in a quest to earn more. What they barter for the time they spend on more money is their precious time as a human.
Most of the people fall in this precarious category.
Experience the life they live in the following video.
- Explore Inclined — Earn, Explore, and Enrich
These people are amazed at the things around them. They earn money as a survival need. But their focus and interest are varied. They wish to explore a different aspect of life around them.
They love art, they love to travel, they love learning new things. They work without expectations for others, they enrich their lives with the various facet of life. They are enthusiastic about new things. Money for them is just a means not an end.
They know life is limited and time is short. They do not wait to explore different aspect till their financial goals are over. They find time to do what they love to do. Their priorities are different. They spend their lives in;
- Exploring the new Places
- Pursuing Art;
- Drawing
- Music
- Singing
- Dancing
- Writing
- Knowing the History
- Reading Scriptures/ Literature/ Good books
- Learning Languages
- Pursuing a social cause — Not only with the money but with the time
People who talk about their personal interest other than money are the lucky ones who have escaped the glaring and magnetic rat race for money.
Handpicked related post: You can’t ignore 27 year old dying woman’s advice. Read it NOW post
- Spirituality Inclined — Know, Experience, and Attain
When you think beyond your immediate concerns and insatiable greed, you develop an interest in other things in life than money. These other aspects expand your thinking. This expanded thinking makes you ask the basic question about your existence.
Who you are? Why of your pain and pleasures? How does life operate in this universe? Laws of Karma operative for every soul. This is how one becomes spiritually inclined.
Why people become saint, sage, and take Diksha? Everyone around them is after money and these people just don’t care about it. Their goal in life is different.
“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.” Swami Vivekananda
Their life purpose can be divided into 3 parts.
- Know who you are — Soul not body,
- Experience what you know — Soul, spiritual being different from the material body
- Attain — Make your soul lighter by shedding Karmas and finally attaining Moksha. (The physical bodyless state of the Soul — free from all pain and pleasure). This is the end of the cycle of life and death.
The basic question everyone needs to ask is: How different our life from Animals is?
The first category of life is even lived by the animals. Hunt for food, consume food, have sex, and die. There is no other activity.
Once you recognize this and realise the higher purpose of human life, you will start to move from the 1st category to the 2nd and 3rd.
What category of life do you live?
You may also like to read: How Forgiving Can Uplift Your Spirit & Makes You Healthy
This was originally published on this Blog.
