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Living a Meaningful Life (Mathew Idikkula)

Published on 16 April, 2021
Living a Meaningful Life  (Mathew Idikkula)
We’re living in an age of a cultural cancer—a major fallout from the norms and values of life—causing as a result enormous tear to the very fabric of our life.  We are also in an era where the value of human life, or any life for that matter, counts the least. By the same token, brutality towards our fellow men and other creatures has climbed to its peak. Needless to say, the increasing epidemic of gun violence perhaps kills more people than the COVID-19 pandemic ever does. A massacre of innocent people somewhere in the world doesn’t shock us anymore. Thoughtless and self-centered, we’ve transformed ourselves into a blinded and hostile world in which we are left incapable of discerning truth from falsehood, real from unreal. Sadly enough, falsehood has assumed the role of a new normalcy.
    
Naturally, our life has become a breeding ground for many evil and bizarre thoughts and habits, such as racism, hatred, bias, extremism, greed, and violence, to name only a few. The implication is clear. We’re not living as we are supposed to; instead, we exist by being slaves of our own uncontrolled emotions and passions.  It is long past time for us to be awakened from a life of senselessness, chaos, and ignorance.
    
Obviously, we need a better understanding of life itself in order for us to pursue a meaningful life. Although the concept of life is a mystery that we can’t fully understand, it is a reality to be lived regardless. Fortunately, we have inherited a voluminous manual of values, codes of conduct, and lessons of wisdom concerning rightful living, passed on to us from the ancient sages of India to help humanity live a meaningful, fulfilling life. In the end, what matters most is not how long we lived but how we lived: rightfully or wrongfully, happily or miserably.
    
After all, what is life? In India, where the notion of spirituality has taken its origin, the scriptures declare that life is a manifestation: coming to form. When life is manifested, we call it life. When it goes out of manifestation—going into formless—we call it death. More precisely, life is an evolutionary journey from birth to death and beyond. It is worth noting here that life doesn’t stop at death, where we shed our physical body. For, we come back to life with a new body, and each time we come back to life, we learn few lessons of living. Thus, the cycle of birth and death continues until we learn all the lessons.
    
The task of living, therefore, is our assignment to experiment, learn, and fulfill. To make more sense out of this process, life is compared to a game. The player on the other side of the game, the Lord, is hidden from us. But we know that He is always fair, just, loving, compassionate, patient, and egoless. Likewise, the Lord wants us also to be equally virtuous while we play the game of life.   

From a spiritual perspective, life is said to rest on two fundamental principles: Dharma and Offering. In a broader sense, dharma represents the universal order that keeps the universe in harmonious balance. According to this principle, the entire life is an indivisible unity. In the context of our personal life, dharma represents the principles of rightful living—a harmonious co-existence with all beings. Dharma also implies that the more we live for the welfare of others, the healthier and happier we become. As for why, we become happy because there is no ego whenever we serve the needy selflessly.
    
The second principle of Offering signifies offering of oneself in the service of others. Curiously enough, this principle of service also supports a harmonious life, paving the way for happiness and peace.
    
Remember,happiness doesn’t come from any outside source, but only from within. Yet we continue to chase outside sources for happiness, resulting in our disappointment and anger. It is because we do not understand either the nature of life or the nature of the outside world that we make senseless demands that they are incapable of fulfilling.
    
For example, we do not want things we like most to change. We all want to cling to our youth. Is it possible?  Similarly, we demand happiness from our material possessions, so we keep on acquiring them on the assumption that they would make us happy, but they never.
    
Make no mistake; life is not an entity but a process, a series of experiences, ever changing from moment to moment. And the same is true with respect to the outside world of objects. Right understanding of life, therefore, is to know that perpetual change is the fundamental feature of not only our life but also the outside world. They all come and go and hence not dependable.
    
Regardless, rarely do we succeed in resisting the appeal of our senses. What makes us so vulnerable to the lure of our senses, which turns out to be a trap?  Again, the sages of India discovered that the key player in all our problems is our own mind. The remedy is to reform it, for which the sages prescribed three fundamental principles for us to put into our daily practice.
    
They are self-control, non-injury, and truthfulness. They are essential for living a meaningful life. While self-control is the discipline to keep our senses under check, the principle of non-injury implies that we do no harm to any living being. Listen to Buddha who says,

“All creatures love life, and they all fear death. Therefore, do not kill.”  Buddha demands that we love all beings alike. Whereas, the principle of truthfulness is a call to remain truthful in all our endeavors of life: thought, speech, and deed.
    
Lasting happiness is what we all are seeking. Our life is about helping us find it only if we discipline ourselves. Meanwhile, we should never try to make our life a business-like entity. That is because our life is not about accumulation of wealth or other material possessions. Neither is it about power or fame, nor is it meant for indulgence in sensual pleasures.
    
On the contrary, life is about living for the welfare of others, our welfare included.  Such a life alone is meaningful, as Albert Einstein has rightly put, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”  It turns out that life is more about giving than taking.  Life is also about our accountability, for we have to reap our own harvest. Most of all, life is about acquiring wisdom from our own experiences. In a nutshell, life is about brotherhood, goodwill, love, and unity.
    
When we base our living on the rules and principles of rightful living, we are considered living a meaningful life, which leads us to a higher realm of purity. A purified mind succeeds in mastering it. Mastery of our mind is mastery over nature, the ultimate goal for which we are born.


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