Most people today think that the only purpose of life is to have fun, enjoy & pleasure your senses; some might go a little further and say it’s to make a difference in this world, to make the world a better place, to help those less fortunate than us; some might say it’s a bit of both those paradigms.
So then, what is the purpose of life? I had this question when I was 15 & ever since it has haunted me; even though the answer was right in front of me I could not see it! Partly because I was too attached to sensual pleasures and partly because I grew up in 20th century India where materialism was the new god. So then, what is the purpose of life? I guess everyone will have to answer this question for themselves, I can only share what I’ve discovered after a long search.
The earth has several life forms, human is the only form that has been given the gift of intellect. In the recent past we have come to accept that the primary use of this intellect is to device better ways of finding pleasure for ourselves; conventional wisdom even goes so far as to equate happiness with pleasure! All want to be happy but do we really know what happiness means? In my experience, most confuse happiness with pleasure, for example: a good meal, a new dress, a new car, more money, having fun with family & friends, etc. All of those are ways of pleasuring ourselves, so then what is this happiness? Happiness is our true nature – happiness is who we are! I’ve written two essays on Happiness which will be soon made available on this website, kindly have a look for yourself.
Coming back to pleasure, my thesis is this: if pleasure is the purpose of one’s life then there are better bodies to have that in; for example: a pig can enjoy sex, food & relaxation much more than a human possibly can. Research has shown that a pig can have an orgasm that lasts 15 minutes, how great is that in comparison to the few seconds of a human orgasm! So if I were keen to enjoy the joys of sex, clearly I would be better off in a pig’s body. So clearly the human body is not ideal for having pleasure, so then what is it ideal for? And that my friends is the answer to the original question: what is the purpose of life?
One and only one: to find Enlightenment/God. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with eating, earning money and making love, those have their place in a human life too but we have unfortunately turned them into primary objectives while we have forgotten the real purpose of having a human body i.e. to find God; in case you are an atheist then let me rephrase that as: to find the Truth. Now tell me, what happens when we use the nose to drink water and put food into the ear? We cause injury to ourselves and that is exactly what we are doing living a life enslaved to materialism instead of focussing on spirituality.
We are living in the most prosperous times our planet has seen and yet we are miserable. We think getting more money, power, success, etc. will make us happy, but millions have tried before us and failed miserably. Those things can only bring temporary pleasure, to find everlasting happiness you will have to find the Truth/God, there is no other way.
Sai Ram.
-Nitin |
