Let us further explore, the purpose of life. Let us look at our own life. What do we want in life? What are we seeking? ‘I want a job’, ‘I want money’. Somebody wants to get married; somebody wants good health. So, everything is, ‘I want’, ‘I want’, ‘I want’.
But why do you want to? If I get something, I will be happy. Happiness seems to be the purpose of wanting anything. To be happy, I want something. So, always the condition is: ‘By getting something, I will be happy’. Happiness seems to be the goal and getting something seems to be the means.
But the problem with this approach is, whatever happiness you get, will be temporary. Again, something else will open up. Somebody is studying hard. Why? He wants to get a good job. Okay, he got a good job. Within 6 months, he is worried now. ‘I want a good appraisal; I want a good hike’. So, continuously, happiness seems to be moving away from us. And, we are constantly, chasing happiness.
I remember a Hindi song, ‘ hum honge kamyab ek din….’. We will be successful one day, catching hold of happiness. This seems to be our pursuit of life. But then, every happiness is temporary. We want something permanent. So, you have to add an adjective called ‘permanent happiness’. Even though we understand that there is no permanent happiness, we are still constantly seeking permanent happiness.
Then, the second aspect of our life is, we want to know something. We are curious. Everybody is curious about something. There are gossip parties at home. Somebody wants to know something about somebody’s life. And they gossip. There is a discussion of politics. There is a discussion about sports. We want to get some information, knowledge. Somebody wants to read the newspaper, from the headline, all the way to the obituary column. Somebody wants to read books, books, books.
We want to acquire knowledge, as much as possible. In the current era, is it possible? How much knowledge you can acquire? There is no limit. I remember a story of Rishi called Bharadwaj Rishi. Bharadwaj Rishi was a great scholar of Vedas. He had read all the Vedas. But, still, he was not satisfied. When he became old, about 100 years, he prayed to God to extend his life by another 100 years.
Why? He said, “I want to learn so many things. I have not yet completed that”. God blessed him with 100 more years. Even that 100 more years of study was not sufficient for him. Again, he asked for 100 more years. Now, God says, “Oh Bharadwaj! Look at the mountains. Vedas are like mountains. Whatever you have studied so far, is less than, one fistful. Even if I give you 100 lifetimes, you can’t study all those. You are trying to study something which is unlimited. Why don’t you study something related to Self-realization, which will give inner peace, and satisfy our hunger for knowledge? Once you know about your Self, there is nothing else to be known. Why don’t you focus on that?”
Bharadwaj was very surprised and started his inner journey of Self-discovery. So, we are looking for three things: Knowledge, happiness and permanent happiness. Of course, we want everything permanent. Our health should be permanent, wealth should be permanent, our relationship should be permanent, everything permanent. Permanent seems to be our, ‘dil mangta hai’. The permanence.
Why do you seek this? Why do you want this? Deep inside, we know that something called permanent, something called happiness, and something called unlimited knowledge is achievable. That drives our own search. Our understanding is correct. Permanence, happiness, and eternal knowledge is possible. But the approach is wrong. You cannot get permanent happiness, or complete knowledge, by going or moving outwards.
I had told all of you earlier that there is an outer purpose of life. In the outer purpose, you cannot get these fully. You will get partial satisfaction. For real satisfaction to happen, you need to move inwards. Because, your inner nature is Divine, the Divine Self. You are of the nature of the light of the Self, Atma Jyoti. Go inwards, then you will discover something, very, very valuable inside.
That valuable is called God, the Supreme Reality. That light of the Self, is of the nature of Sat, means, permanent truth, eternal. Chit means Consciousness or knowledge. And Ananda means Bliss. There is something inside you that is of the nature of eternal bliss, infinite knowledge. Search for that. Your outer search is futile. This you can get only through inner search, through Jnana, knowledge of the Self, Atma Jnana. And, dhyana, meditation, go deep inside you. You will find, Sat, Chit, Ananda. Which is of the nature of God, which is of the nature of Supreme Bliss, eternal Bliss, and infinite knowledge, deep inside.
So, that is the inner journey. That is the purpose of life, inner purpose of life.
Pranams
References:
Self Knowledge_T13_PurposeOfLife_Part2_07Apr2016