The Meaning of Life 1

Updated: Jul 31

Life...a great irony, being one of the shortest, yet profound words of the English
language. Embraced within its four letters are such varied events of our existence:
birth, childhood, youth, middle-age, old age and finally death. In between these stages
themselves, we encounter a complex amalgam of experiences: learning and ignorance,
profession and unemployment, friendship and enmity, single then spouse, childless
then parent, wealth and lack, good health and disease, births and deaths...an endless
list of opposites. This is life; every individual’s life.

I also seem to have certain irking questions. However hard I try to eradicate them
from my thinking, they haunt me incessantly – arising and subsiding like waves in a
stormy ocean. I know I exist but who gave me life? I don’t remember choosing to be
here. Did my parents decide? Then who gave them life? My grandparents? Why am I
here? What happens after I die? Universal doubts with responses that fade into infinite
regression.

An age-old Sanskrit verse states;

आहार-निद्रा-भय-मैथुिंच समािमेतत-्पशभु भिनराणाम्...

āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithunaṁ ca samānametat-paśubhirnarānām ...

Natural to both human beings and animals are four factors: food, sleep, fear and
procreation. But is this really the purpose of my life? Am I only born to eat, sleep, fear
the ‘other-than-me’, reproduce and finally die? Am I just another species of animal?
Can there really be definitive answers to such and other queries?

An ancient series of scripts available to mankind seem to hold so. The Vedas have
meticulously analysed life and the human condition. Their sentences explicate the
meaning of the phenomenon we call ‘life’. Questions surrounding our existential
dilemma are logically handled, with not a stone left unturned.

The Vedas initially discuss the common ends available to every human being,
regardless of caste, colour, creed and other differences. All of us are driven by the
need for security, be it financial, relational or material; ‘If I have money, possessions,
certain people and particular situations in my life, I am happy’, implying that,
‘Without these, I am unhappy.’ So, this need for any form of security in order to be
happy, is known as ‘artha’ in Sanskrit. We also want to fulfil our every desire and
derive as much pleasure as possible. Whether we enjoy a wild night out on the town
or appreciate the subtle beauties of art and literature; whether unrefined or refined
pleasure, we humans love pleasurable experiences. We love to be happy! The gain of
any form of security, then, is expressed through the fulfilment of desires, known as
‘kāma’.

‘Hey, hang on a minute...I am not satisfied by living this way anymore. I crave for
something more. I want to be a contributor. My purpose is to reach out to my
fellowman, to all living beings and make this world a better place.’ Well, the Vedas
have certainly not disregarded your wish! Social service, acts of kindness, aiding
another in any way, falls under the heading of ‘dharma’.

A concept of great significance in Vedic culture, dharma is pregnant with context-

dependent meaning and does not lend itself easily to any English equivalent. Within
this framework of a life purpose, dharma produces joy experienced through activities
that alleviate another living being’s pain and suffering. It is not to be equated with
kāma, pleasure born of desire fulfilment. Many-a-time, no form of security is required
to stumble upon the unique joy stemming from dharma; a kind word, a helping hand,
even a compassionate regard, can give rise to a distinct state of happiness.

Doing what is to be done by you at a certain time, place and in a specific situation also
gives rise to the joy born of living dharma, eventually, if not immediate. Dharma
yields its satisfaction from living a life of harmony; a life of caring and sharing, where
the Golden Rule of ‘treat others as you wish to be treated’, is valued. Living thus, we
discover the maturity of a conflict-free mind that becomes translatable into our pursuit
of both security and pleasure. Dharma stands now predominantly among all the
human ends discussed thus far.

‘Well, I have lived a highly ethical life. I have tried not to hurt anyone or anything
intentionally. Much of my life has been spent in work which reaches out to all in need.
I cannot do more and there is still suffering and pain. This makes me unhappy. I feel
inadequate, limited. Can’t explain. Something niggling inside...’
The Vedas understand you. They answer, ‘Dharma, is also not the end in life’. Can
you not see the one correlation between all your pursuits? What is it you are really
seeking? Throughout your life’s journey, do you not want to be happy? By gaining
security, artha, what is it you really gain? Happiness. Through fulfilling your desires,
what do you feel? Happy. Helping others, reaching out, doing what is to be done,
what do you experience? Happiness. All the human ends you run after lead you, again
and again, to the experience of happiness. But the seeking never stops because
happiness never seems to last! Our lifespan is slowly depleted in a relentless quest for
unlimited happiness.

The Vedas’ assertion is that our life on earth has but a sole purpose, deceptively
interwoven within three conventional pursuits. Although pervading in and through the
other three human ends, this objective is separately mentioned in the Vedas, in the
upanishads, which are sub-texts within the Vedas, generally referred to as ‘Vedanta’.
Why? Because we remain ignorant of what we essentially desire – the end known as
‘moksha’, literally meaning freedom or liberation; freedom from all sorrow, limitation
and from the seeking itself! The Kaivalya Upanishad, ninth mantra, declares:

sa eva sarvaṁ yad bhūtaṁ yacca bhavyam

sanātanaṁ jñātvā tam mṛtyum atyeti nānyaḥ paṅthā vimuktaye

Indeed, that is all that was and will be, eternal. Knowing that, one transcends death.
There is no other way to liberation. The desire itself reveals that sorrow is not our
nature. We long to be rid of it. But how? Indeed, our spiritual pursuit begins with this
question. The Vedas reveal that we are the sole source of the happiness we seek. It is
our very nature. Like a musk deer frantically searching all over for the wondrous
fragrance, not realising it emanates from itself alone, we spend our lives running after
droplets of happiness, not realising the vast ocean already available with us. This
recognition is moksha!
to be continued...

29 AUG 2017
BRI NANDANAJI
The Meaning of Life 2
Updated: Jul 31

...Let us understand this word, ‘moksha’, liberation or freedom in greater depth... The
Vedic concept of liberation is not going to heaven as in many faiths and religions.
Honestly speaking, who really cares about what happens after one dies? Do we not
desire to be free here and now? Do we not want to be rid of all sorrow while we live?
Do we not want to live full, meaningful lives without suffering a yoyo-like existence
with continuous highs and lows? Ask anyone, ‘Do you wish to be happy?’ The
immediate response will be ‘Yes, of course’, in whatever language one speaks, in
whichever part of the world one lives. Moksha, liberation is what exactly for us?

You’ll read in many books, ‘Moksha is liberation from the cycle of birth and death.’
This is the typical dictionary definition! But the problem is most folks don’t even
know they are in a cycle, let alone think about death, which is a fact we all have to
face one day.

So let us understand this ‘moksha’, this liberation, this freedom. Freedom always
implies freedom from something does it not – such as freedom from jail? Therefore,
the Vedas define moksha as the freedom from anything I don’t want, anything that
makes me unhappy. And if I examine life to some extent, what makes me unhappy? It
is that deep sense of lack, of inadequacy, of no self- acceptance. Whatever I achieve,
however much wealth, name and fame, even knowledge I possess, I am still left with a
sense of incompleteness, a feeling of inadequacy.

Our Veda says these notions centred on ‘I’ are all erroneous....and moksha is in fact,
freedom from this sense of lack, from the feeling of insecurity, from the notion of
limitation. The whole problem in life is that I take myself to be an limited, wanting,
insecure individual, dependent on so many things, people, places, situations, for my
happiness. ‘If I have this, I will be happy. If i get rid of that, I’ll be happy’. This life of
‘becoming happy’ is what we call samsara, an incessant cycle of becoming.

The vision given in our Vedas is that you are already free! You are already everything
you wish to be! You are the very meaning of fullness, completeness, limitless
happiness.

What is it that you lack? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Your nature is all joy, all peace,
the truth of all