A JOURNEY CALLED LIFE
What is the necessity of finding God? Why should we let go of our ego? Some people even ask the question, 'Why should we live?' Life is a gift and instinctively, most people value it. We count our blessings for being born as a human being and we try to enjoy this journey called life. Every human being seeks to be happy, just like each one of us hates to experience pain. We live and die with this 'Pleasure-pain principle'.
Why do we go to God? Most of the time, it is because we have problems that we can't solve, or we have desires we want to be fulfilled. That is the reason we fold our hands and appeal to God through prayer. Unfortunately, we don't realize God. We keep searching for God and we don't find God. It's a pity that it is our own ego that stops us from understanding and realizing God. But we don't know this.
To realize how ego and God are connected, we must go further and evolve on the spiritual journey. We must ask questions and investigate life. Then, we will realize the truth.
While life is that journey between birth and death, when were we actually born? We celebrate our birthday the day we were delivered on planet earth but were we not alive in our mother's womb before that? Our mother will endorse that we were kicking in her stomach. At that time, we were still evolving as a foetus, as an embryo that started its journey as a zygote, the first sign of existence as a living human cell. Nobody can deny this as it is scientifically true. Can science deny death, that every human being must die? What is death? Is it like sleeping wherein every morning we wake up after a dream? We realize that the dream was just a dream but we awaken to experience a continuation of life that was before the sleep and the dream. Sleep is thus very different and is only a process for the restoration of body- energy. At death, there is no breath, there is no waking up. It is the end of the journey called life.
Throughout this journey, we are seeking happiness. In the beginning, we want achievement, pleasure, and success. Most people think that success is happiness, but even after achieving success, they are unhappy. Isn't this a paradox? If happiness belonged to the rich, then they should be glad.
Why is it that many of them are sad? They even commit suicide. Unless we contemplate life, we will never understand all this and the relationship between the Ego and God.
As a normal ego, what does a person think? We think we are a human being that wants to live and be happy. We know that ultimately, we will die, but we want to build beautiful relationships, enjoy loving, and being loved. Any normal person wants a good house, a good car, a good job, and decent money in the bank. Anything wrong? Absolutely not! While there is nothing wrong in living like a normal human being, the problem is that we suffer. We desire and then experience disappointment. Our heart loves and then it breaks. We marry, and then sometimes we divorce. Why? Because we are seeking happiness in whatever we are doing.
Every human being in essence wants to be happy. We want success, achievement, and money because we believe it will make us happy. We want love, marriage, and kids because we dream of bliss. We go through a divorce, we break a friendship, we shut a business because we are fed up with the pain and the misery these are causing us. It is normal for human beings to do things that make them happy and to stay away from whatever causes misery, pain, and suffering.
We don't realize what is the cause of the suffering and who is the one who is suffering because we don't realize this truth. We live as the ego 'I' and we die. Life becomes a merry-go-round and we go round and round, passing pleasure and pain, experiencing loss and gain. This happens again and again and then one day, we die.
In this journey called life, we go to God. We visit temples, mosques, and churches and even go on several pilgrimages to please God, to pray to God, even to thank God and express our gratitude to Him with offerings and tithes, with charitable donations with the hope that God doesn't take away this beautiful life he has given us.
We don't realize that life is a cosmic drama. We are just actors. We come and we go. Everything that happens is a show. Although we know we come without anything, and we will go without anything, we say, 'This is mine' and 'That is mine.' The ego makes us ignorant, just as it makes us suffer. We live and we die. The drama goes on. Death is not the end. It is just one act finishing in the drama of life, with a new act to begin. In the first act, we had a different role, and in the next act, we will come back as another actor, to live and to die. We will be commanded by ME – the Mind and the Ego, and in every role in the life drama, we will seek happiness. Very few of us stop and contemplate. A small minority evolves beyond seeking pleasure to seeking purpose. The ego makes us blind to the reality that life is just like a puppet show. In the end, all the puppets will be packed in a box. Along with the mind, the ME stops us from realizing our life's purpose. It stops us from going on a quest to realize the truth.
Over 8 billion people live in the world today. There are different nationalities, Indians, Chinese and Japanese, Americans, and Europeans; we classify ourselves by our religions - Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. As life evolves and becomes faster and faster, we only get zapped by this fast-paced life. We zoom from the womb to the tomb, without even understanding the meaning of life. Thus, we are born again and again, only to suffer. Those who think they are the body, live without morals and values. The Law of Karma gets at them and they are born in circumstances where they will experience suffering. It may be health or wealth, but Karma decides what our next role in the life stage is going to be.
This humongous stage, with over 8 billion human beings and trillions of other living organisms, is managed by Universal Laws, Laws that make the earth go round causing day and night, laws that create seasons, that create male and female, so that this world is preserved. Laws, like the Law of Karma, are instituted to unfold on behalf of the Creator. But do most of us realize this? We seem to live, but in reality, we just exist till we die. When will we wake up and ask questions? When will we stop chasing pleasures and live a life of contentment and fulfilment with tranquillity and peace? It is in these moments that we can contemplate and go on a quest to realize the truth.