What is the purpose of our life? What are life’s short term and long term goals?
-When our life’s little or small deeds such as bathing, eating food, going somewhere, making purchases, watching Television et cetera do have some reason or purpose, which may be to clean our body, kill hunger, meet someone, fulfill certain requirements, entertain ourselves et cetera, then, it is not possible that our life of 80 to 90 years does not have any purpose. Today, we are unaware of purpose of our lives. The goal of our life is freedom from the cycle of birth and death. We used the term –‘cycle of birth and death’. It means that our entire 80 to 90 year of lives are only a small segment of our endless journey. We have taken birth for innumerable times before our present birth and also, we will take birth for innumerable times after this birth. If it is sure that after this life we will take birth for innumerable times, then, what is the meaning of being free from the cycle of birth and death? If we act in a certain way, then for nearly 300 million years, we would not be born again. Miseries are there, only if, we take birth. Getting rid of miseries is possible, only if, there is no birth. Freedom from all miseries for nearly 300 million years is purpose of our life. Some people say that if we are to take birth again after completion of the specific period, then why should we make an effort for freedom from the cycle of birth and death? In answer to this, we may say that when we make every effort to kill hunger knowing for certain that after a few hours we again will be hungry, then, it is meaningless to say that we need not make efforts to go out of the bondage of birth and death, if again, after the end of nearly 300 million years, we will take birth. What are, now, the actions of special kind, because of which we do not have to take birth for a very long period of time? These deeds are called special because their fruit is-freeing us from the cycle of birth and death for a very long period of time. These deeds are – deeds necessary for accomplishment of Ashtaang Yog.
-Receiving education, taking employment or occupation, earning money, taking care of family et cetera are not the objective of our life but are only the short term goals of our life. The purpose of our life is to be free from miseries, which is possible only by freeing ourselves from the cycle of birth and death for a very long period of time. Since, it is not possible to go out of the bondage of birth and death without knowing God, who is the controller of this whole universe and, since, after knowing God, there remains nothing to be attained, we can rightly say that our life’s goal is to know and realize Him.
We see in this world that, if we want to go to Delhi, then, first we must know where ‘Delhi’ is. For knowing the location of ‘Delhi’, we do not believe on anybody but we believe on that person only who himself has visited ‘Delhi’ or is a geographer, that is, an expert in the study of geography. Once, we are confirmed about the location of ‘Delhi’, we decide about the means, that is, bus, aeroplane et cetera according to our financial capacity et cetera to arrive at the destination. After that, we chalk out the program with the help of available tools, that is, funds et cetera. All these steps-involved in going to ‘Delhi’- are present also, in realizing God. A lot of people, who want to attain God, do not try to find out-where He resides?, why they should know Him?, How knowing Him frees them from the shackles of birth and death?, what is the path of going to God?, what sort of preparation is needed to go to God? et cetera. As ‘Delhi’ cannot be reached by simply pronouncing ‘Delhi – Delhi’, likewise, God cannot be reached by simply pronouncing ‘God-God’. Today, the so called, spiritual people believe that simply by pronouncing certain words, they can attain God, which is totally wrong and misleading.
-knowing the purpose of our life is very very important in the sense that only after knowing, we can proceed towards achieving that purpose. If, we really want to know the purpose of our life, we must first of all develop more and more disciplined life through time management.
-Purpose of life, which is realization of God can be known or understood or realized only after knowing the purpose of creation of this world by God.