Purpose

Yes, it's coming back. What is the ultimate purpose of my life? Of anyone's life? A blogger-mate tells- it is to die. I refute this claim. My life means more than that. I had given up once and had declared that life didn't have any purpose. But right now, at this particular moment, I no more believe in that conclusion.

Is it Money?

NO. I reject this idea. Let's start from this. What will happen if I don't have money? I wont be able to buy myself food and clothes? Yes that's true. But I ask this: why do I need food and clothes? To survive, is it? Is this what you have to say? Well then it's just a loop, isn't it? The fundamental question remains, rock solid and unanswered. What is the need to survive? :) Earning money cannot be, because it just keeps you moving in a loop!

Getting out of the loop

Are you a part of this loop? Of course, I am. Can I get out? I want to. And since I am very sure, money is not a purpose, nor is death, I want to figure out the reason for the need to survive.

What is the future? I am talking about the future in general, that of the overall life on earth. Yeah, so what is it, how is it, the future? You don't know? Well, me neither! :) And even if you can 'see' some future, it's still just in your mind. We have some idea, but none of us really know what the future is really going to be like.

Why did I suddenly start talking about future? Have patience. You will figure that out for yourself. Let me talk about the past now.

What about the past? Do we know how it was? Yes we do, a lot of it. We know what happened in the world yesterday, the day beofore, the year before, the century before. What do we see? Do the historical records that we have, tell us something? Anything? Some trend? I am talking about the general trend of the overall human life on earth. Where is it headed? Anywhere?

Look at all the people around you, the human beings. They didn't even exist some time back (okay call that 'a long time back' if that really matters). The point is that the human species did not exist at one point of time! Some say that we have evolved from the monkeys. Quite agreeable. We, the humans and monkeys have a lot in common. The level of thinking, the so called intelligence is what differentiates us from the monkeys, besides the look and the tail of course. So, if past tells us anything, it is that the net direction of all that is happening on earth is to lead to a more and more complex species, which can think better than the one that existed earlier. And this gives a hint at an aspect of the future also. This 'intelligence' should keep on getting refined; should keep on getting upgraded. A lot of new things happen with this 'upgraded'intelligence. The quest for the answer to the purpose of life is one of them!

Do monkeys think about the purpose of life? This is not a joke! Answer me. Do I hear a big NO? So you agree that these things originate only in our brains, the human brains, right? Good. And I also guess that you are already sure that this has to do with the higher intelligence level that we possess. As human beings, we have the ability to think of things beyond just those necessary for survival. As human beings, we have the intelligence to question the need for survival iteself! But then, we have got only enough intelligence, so as to raise this question. We still do not know the answer. We do not know, where to look for answers. Is the answer within us? Somewhere else? No answer at all?

We think, think, and keep on thinking. And this is good. This way, we are actually contributing to the progressive growth of the overall evolution. It might be a small contribution, but it is helping the overall life evolve and get more intelligent. If we stop thinking about this purpose, and only concenterate on our own survival, of ways to be ahead of others, we are wasting the power that we have aquired as human beings.

Today we might not have enough intelligence to find out the purpose, but we can make guesses. We can keep attempting. We need to push our minds into this. But to keep thinking, we need to survive first of all. If we are dead, we can no more think! Looks like I am out of the loop now. I am not here on this earth, living, just to wait for the 'inevitable' death. I am living, so that I can think, and in the process keep refining the power that I have; the power that makes me and fellow human beings superior to any other living species.

Is thinking enough?

No. At least I do not think so. If all I do is just keep speculating on the real purpose, and do nothing else in this direction, my contribution to the growth of life as a whole, is very mild. I want to contribute, and do it the best way that I can. And this isn't possible by merely thinking. I need to think to make guesses, but I also need to work on my guesses.

Guesses?

Till now I never talked about a single purpose! I did mention that a purpose exists, and I did mention that we are not yet smart enough to tell what it exactly is. Ok, not exactly may be, but how about a guess work? Intuition? If that's the only thing that we can do, we should do it.

So let me make few attempts at guessing what the real purpose of my life can be. And before doing that, I will keep few things in my mind.

1. Earning any more money than what I will need to survive, and keep living, and keep working on whatever I guess my purpose to be, is stupid. Makes no sense.

2. I do need to survive and keep living. I need to use all the time that I have in this life. Life is not just a time pass, and I am not here, merely waiting to die. I need to keep living till my time comes, so that I can keep attempting to figure out the purpose. I might fail to do so in my life time, but I would still be contributing positively to the growth of the overall life.

3. I should not restrain my thinkings to myself. I need to reach out to people and spread the message of active thinking, so that the whole process continues with speed.

Well, it looks like I have already started talking like Swami Vivekananda, is it? :) No, I haven't read any of his books as such, but somehow, the third point above made me feel so!

So having kept these three points in my mind, I am ready to make guesses. But that should be the content of another post. I cannot write everything all here. What I would like you to do, is share your opinions, thinkings, guesses with me. It's important for me. And may be for you too. I believe that it's important for each one of us to make an effort at figuring out a purpose, however futile that effort might appear to be. It's time we realize, we are no more monkeys, and so we have other things to do than just looking for ourselves and our families; quarrelling amongst ourselves; and jumping from one tree to another till we finally die. There's much more, and the monkeys can't do it. ;)

Think, think, think some more, and keep doing that. And let me know if you would like to, what you think.

6 Comments:

  1. Mohan K.V said...
    Hm, I see that you're taking Steve Pavlina rather seriously :)

    Talking about money, I still think you shouldn't shove it aside as being useless; Maybe money isn't the whole purpose of your life, but would you not _like_ to juggle around millions of dollars, like,say, Bill Gates does?

    However, it is absolutely true that it is an endless loop; more money only drives your desire higher.

    Oh, and btw, what is 'your purpose in life' as per Pavlina's test?
    amrit said...
    Yeah a trip to Steve's site made me think more on this line. But no I never took that test. It didn't sound alright to me. And look at the kind of purpose he arrived at for himself. I can't write all those things.

    My purpose has to be a simple one, a basic one.

    I never say money is useless. Do I? All I keep saying is, before making a run for loads and loads of money, let us first be sure, that is what we want. I am unable to understand the reason to work hard for the sake of earning more money than is needed for me to survive. Till now, I had been doing things, which proved to the world that I had 'succeeded' in some way. Making more money again sends the same message to the world. Bill Gates is successful! I no more believe that success should be based on what others think. It should depend on what I think. And it is so suprising, all this time, I had never really tried to figure out what this life meant for me! Most of us are like that, aren't we? We took the definition of success for granted! And we kept doing things which could make us successful. But we never really 'thought'.

    Think, think, and think more.
    Anonymous said...
    stop thinking. and thats meditation to reach outer limits.
    by thinking u only modify what u already saw. u find patterns, basically u try to figure out of what u r seeing with the help of thinking.
    u make a thesis of that. someone else observes another pattern, and makes an antithesis. that is becos he has seen a differnt world, and his mind thinks differently and this process continues.
    just now i made a thesis I guess.

    i THINK u can find more from j.krishna murthy's philosophy which says thinking can take u only till that faaaar.
    amrit said...
    Hi Anon,

    You sound convincing. Most of what you have said is true. I keep 'thinking' on this because I do not know how else to find out the answer that I am seeking. Thinking might take me only 'that far', but what can take me to the real thing? Hmm? You didn't say that, did you?

    I try to figure out what I have already seen, when I think! I am not sure if that's hundred percent true, because a lot of what comes in my mind has nothing to do with things which I have 'already seen'! Beleive me on this. And for two persons to come up with contradicting 'thesis', is it really necessary that they have to be living in two different worlds? Is it not possible that two persons living in the same conditions, and seeing the same things, come up with different answers? I think it is. And similarly, two persons who have seen the world, in a different way, can come up with a common conclusion.

    Only thinking, is definitely not going to take anyone to anywhere. That's why I have already mentioned in the post that, I want to take action on whatever I 'guess' to be the real purpose of my life. I have no intentions of wasting my life and the limited time that I have on purely thinking till I get the final answer. But at the same time, I also do not want to strive to be successful without defining it my own way. I will be able to call myself successful only if I am able to achieve 'my purpose'! Wish me good luck! :)

    Yeah, if you are wondering that this comment appears more like a blog post itself, I am with you! :)

    Thanks for telling me about jkm's philosophy. Would look into that.
    Anonymous said...
    Best regards from NY!
    » »
    Anonymous said...
    Enjoyed a lot! » »

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