At The End…

What are we searching for throughout our whole life? We are so busy! But for what? We never pause and ask ourselves this one fundamental question: what do we actually want? 

We are so caught up with this world—with all the things that it has to offer—that we become insensitive to life’s longing. The life that is pulsating within each one of us—what is its longing? Not realising this, we get carried away by our mind’s longings, and the funny part is, the mind is never satisfied! 

A time comes, when we become tired from all this running and searching, and hopelessly we collapse. And when we look back at our life we realise with a sad heart that maybe we’ve wasted our life! This is the worst guilt one can have. 

Life is brief. Years don’t characterize life. What truly characterizes life is the profoundness of experience. In that context, life is very brief indeed. Before we even become somewhat capable in understanding—what all this is about—we run out of time! 

To avoid this catastrophe, we should never forget that at the end of life, only 3 things matter the most—

I. How Well We Lived:

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.” —Leonardo da Vinci.

Living well does not mean having good foods, expensive clothes or a comfortable lifestyle. Lifestyle is not life! A well-lived life is one that is full of peace and contentment, which is the real treasure of life. Whatever we may have, at the end, if we don’t have contentment, then what! The Dalai Lama said:

“When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‘Oh yes—I already have everything that I really need.'”

II. How Deeply We Loved: No matter how much we talk about ‘Love’, it will not be enough to understand this word. But, (in my view) the whole life can be packed into this one word—so much depth it has!                           

Until the lotus of love blooms in the muddy pool of our hearts, we will not experience the beauty and fragrance of life. Love is that fragrance. The more it matures, the more our heart expands and radiates beauty. And I wish for everyone (including the wretched writer here) that our hearts explode in love. Let it explode in a supernova!

III. How Much We Learnt: Life is—to put it very simply—a process of learning. Our whole life is nothing but experiences. And what experiences are for? Be it pleasurable or painful—the fact of the matter is—we are going through certain experiences. A thoughtful mind will naturally ask—why? Why indeed, so that we learn. Have you noticed, until you learn something totally, it keeps becoming trouble in our life? For example, until we learn to harness anger or greed or any other negative emotions for that matter, it keeps coming to us. But once we learn something totally, it dissolves, and we move forward to a higher state of being. 

As beautiful and charming life is, even so mysterious and fleeting it is. Before we fall dead, we must live so well, love so deeply and learn so completely, that no need remains to make us come back again and go through another cycle of lifelong torture.