On Life, A Short Ramble
Life is a wonderful gift bestowed upon us to maintain the essence of our existence in the Cosmo. There could be a thousand definitions of life; the sole purpose is to seek out ourselves for an identity. Lord Mahavira professed that one who maintains equilibrium in profit or loss; fortune or misery; life or death; admiration or condemnation is the one who is always happy. This is true happiness attained by awakening in real identity. It creates Right Belief in life.
It is our human desire to be somebody, yet the process may subtly reduce us to nobody. Once the prominent American poetess Emily Dickinson explains:
As long as there is life on earth, there will also be suffering; only the degrees vary. Suffering is both a reminder and a guide. It stimulates us better to adapt ourselves to our environmental conditions, and thus leads the way to self-improvement. Besides the search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
When we learn how millions of diverse human think and feel about their lives, we get a perspective of our own. We become less prone to irrational negative thoughts. It’s good to learn that its human nature to be dissatisfied. Bertrand Russell said that the most enviable man is the man who feels no envy. The paradox of living is that those who are more confused themselves and who lack real purpose in their lives, often are the very people who burden others with their unrealistic expectations.
The world troubles us not because there is something wrong with the world but because we don’t know how to contact it. Some Vedantic principles on how to contact the world include unselfishness, non-attachment, intellect rules, goal, solitude and study. The suffering of each depends, not upon the factual happenings, but upon the texture of each one’s mind. Indeed suffering is a relative term. Pain, happiness, joy, and struggle are the experiences of the mind. Instead of trying to suppress our pain we should accept it and experience it fully, it would go away.
Man’s inner self is the spring that feeds all his knowing, all that he enjoy on earth. If he neglects it, all his perception must wither and die. If one neglects a spring, it may clog up and stop flowing. We decide things based on perceived reality. The aberration between the soul and the body produces worldly attachment and relationship. The body is not the real man; neither is the mind for the mind waxes and wanes. It is the spirit beyond, which alone can live forever. The body and mind are continually changing and are, in fact, only names of series of changeful phenomena, like rivers whose water is in a constant state of flux, yet represent the appearance of unbroken streams.
Rene Descartes once remarked that we ought to give all of our attention to the most insignificant and most easily mastered facts, and remain a long time in contemplation of them until we are accustomed to behold the truth clearly and distinctly. Only mature minds can grasp the simple truth in all its nakedness. The only sense that is common in the long run is the sense of change- and we all instinctively avoid it.
The human’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenseless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenseless against ourselves. Spirituality essentially reiterates Universal Oneness. In the meantime technological progress is also necessary for our overall development. However, more than material development it is our spiritual progress that allows us to make a better decision on choices and gives us the direction and mechanism to live a sustainable and happy life.
It is our human desire to be somebody, yet the process may subtly reduce us to nobody. Once the prominent American poetess Emily Dickinson explains:
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
As long as there is life on earth, there will also be suffering; only the degrees vary. Suffering is both a reminder and a guide. It stimulates us better to adapt ourselves to our environmental conditions, and thus leads the way to self-improvement. Besides the search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
When we learn how millions of diverse human think and feel about their lives, we get a perspective of our own. We become less prone to irrational negative thoughts. It’s good to learn that its human nature to be dissatisfied. Bertrand Russell said that the most enviable man is the man who feels no envy. The paradox of living is that those who are more confused themselves and who lack real purpose in their lives, often are the very people who burden others with their unrealistic expectations.
The world troubles us not because there is something wrong with the world but because we don’t know how to contact it. Some Vedantic principles on how to contact the world include unselfishness, non-attachment, intellect rules, goal, solitude and study. The suffering of each depends, not upon the factual happenings, but upon the texture of each one’s mind. Indeed suffering is a relative term. Pain, happiness, joy, and struggle are the experiences of the mind. Instead of trying to suppress our pain we should accept it and experience it fully, it would go away.
Man’s inner self is the spring that feeds all his knowing, all that he enjoy on earth. If he neglects it, all his perception must wither and die. If one neglects a spring, it may clog up and stop flowing. We decide things based on perceived reality. The aberration between the soul and the body produces worldly attachment and relationship. The body is not the real man; neither is the mind for the mind waxes and wanes. It is the spirit beyond, which alone can live forever. The body and mind are continually changing and are, in fact, only names of series of changeful phenomena, like rivers whose water is in a constant state of flux, yet represent the appearance of unbroken streams.
Rene Descartes once remarked that we ought to give all of our attention to the most insignificant and most easily mastered facts, and remain a long time in contemplation of them until we are accustomed to behold the truth clearly and distinctly. Only mature minds can grasp the simple truth in all its nakedness. The only sense that is common in the long run is the sense of change- and we all instinctively avoid it.
The human’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenseless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenseless against ourselves. Spirituality essentially reiterates Universal Oneness. In the meantime technological progress is also necessary for our overall development. However, more than material development it is our spiritual progress that allows us to make a better decision on choices and gives us the direction and mechanism to live a sustainable and happy life.
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