Life is a short mystery...

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"I continue to wonder what exactly is life... It's the strangest thing that I don't quite seem to comprehend. And then there's death"

We all live lives - We have dreams, ambitions, wishes, desires, friends, work, parents, relatives, loved ones, enemies... We laugh, cry, shout, shove, fight, beat, run, fly, eat, sleep... And then we die.

Frankly, till date, I have never understood what life is all about - We all took birth, we live a life filled with some or all of the above, and then there is death, which will hit everyone.

Some people say life was an accident - that due to some random events, life just appeared. Possible. Some say that God created life. Possible. Whatever may be the reason for life, one thing continues to haunt me - What is the purpose of life? If you say that life was an accident, get over it, then I disagree because if it was, then there should not have been such an instinctive drive in all of us to survive and plough through. In the end, death will hit all of us, then why should the strong desire for survival exist in each of us?

Just imagine you're writing an exam, and the teacher says that all of you are going to fail the test, no matter what you write (Reminds you of VTU?). Will you have the motivation to study hard? When the end result is known, you will definitely lack the desire to work hard - The mindset would be that - "I'm going to fail anyway, why should I work?" And similarly, if you know that you are going to die, why do we all struggle so hard to live? Are we hardwired to do something, that we seem to be missing?

I'm not being a cynic who says - "Hell, we are all going to die anyway. So, let's not work hard to achieve something in life. What's the point?" No, I am not saying that. I am asking you to think and ponder over it. It is interesting, as an intellectual problem - Perhaps, the strangest mystery that keeps me thinking so often. What is death? The absence of life. So, what's life? What is missing between a person who's alive and who's dead? Why should a person die?

We often take certain things extremely seriously, and often forget to respect and enjoy the smaller things in life. Every minute of your life is precious - Believe me, you will not get to do this again. Live every moment, cherish every moment - You never know when it's your number next...

I continue to believe in - Study and work like you are going to live forever. Don't develop an attitude that you are going to die, and it's pointless. Just stick around. Some day, you never know, Swami Gulagulaananda might answer your questions :-)

And I pray to God to remind me of this fact - and not make another death remind me of the uncertainties and wonders of life

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Comments from Facebook:

Anand Bhatia: one heartbreak and already getting nihilistic ideas? :P

Nikhil Baliga: heartbreak? Nope, just plain old death

Hemanth Pai: Nikhil , good that u asked this very Question. The thing is ... failure is just a state ... so if the teacher says that all of us are going to fail , you give up reading for 'marks' & instead go for the 'subject' :) . So if u like the subject , an external quantification is totally immaterial to anything of real consequence . Similarly it is with life .. once u like 'life' .. the Quantification is 'So many years u lived ' is totally immaterial :P

This is copy-paste from the book , Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance :-D .. please read it .. its brilliant !!!

Kavya Sampath Kumar: Everyone in your class fails at the same time. Everyone in the world doesn't die at the same time. If we all knew we would die tomorrow, I am sure we'd give up everything. But, we don't know when.

Kiran S Sajjanshetty: coz there is a lot of success that we can achieve before we die and we dont want our lifetime to get wasted...If you think you are going to die and dont struggle hard, you wont be happy in the lifespan given to you..Well all this again depends on individual thinking..

Nikhil Baliga: ‎@Kiran - That depends on your definition of success. If you discover the cure for AIDS, it's a great breakthrough, and you will finally die of old age, even if you survive AIDS.

@Kavya - I disagree. Let's assume that each person is told individually that HE/SHE is going to fail the test for sure (And he/she doesn't know if the rest are failing or not). Then what?

I don't know if you guys read the post, or if you are commenting on the status update alone.

@Hemanth - Haha, good point. I am looking for authentic documentation on life :-) Otherwise, living life as it is, is merely reading VTU text books and passing till I fail. I want to read reference (foreign author for VTU :P) books... hehe, if you know what I mean. The Gita probably comes closest to this, but not many good books are apparently available. Lord Krishna, where art thou?

Kiran S Sajjanshetty: ‎@nik...that sense of achievement that you feel through that breakthrough gives you happiness..its better than doing nothing and just waiting to die coz we know we are going to die anyway...

By achieving success I mean the sense of happiness that follows back once we achieve it...

I just feel that living everyday happily and differently by striving hard to follow your dreams is better than waiting for death and doing nothing..

Hemanth Pai: ‎@ Nik - Thank u :) . Also , regarding what u said about the gita as the reference , its like giving a person 10 days worth of Antibiotics in a single dose :) . " WE " need to go out there , clear up our tunnel vision & actually experience stuff & then we can cross reference it against the Gita . Lot of people take the Gita as the starting road map conveniently forgetting the actual purpose and destination :P

Disclaimer : I have 'analysed' about all these stuff in detail , but followed maybe 20% of it . So i can be contradicted .. hence i own limited liability :) .. lol .

Dolly Singh: I feel purpose of life is to find the purpose of life and full fill it.. And definetly the purpose of life is different for every one... And if u ask why should we find and full fill it then you might get lots of reason if u ready to beleiv...

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Gayathri Gopal: Oh niks.. UR words of wisdom gave a new meaning to my life !! ;)

Nikhil Baliga: Ah G3, one more worthy devotee joins the fold of the great Swami :P

Prashanth Harshangi: ‎@dolly -kya baat kiye jo.. is dimag mein kuch bhi samajh mein nahi aaya.. purpose of life is to find purpose of life is an infinite rcursive loop :-)

Baliga - Even though i am going to die probably sooner than most of you I AM NOT STRUGGLING IN LIFE... When teacher says you will fail, the question of fail or pass comes into picture when you attempt the exam.. I wont even write the exam :-) So i didn pass/fail..I bunked.

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Comments from Buzz

Ashvin Srinivasan: @ baliga, I think most average number of ppl can perceive that they can fail in the exam but not many ppl perceive death( even if they perceive), the quite yet cant digest the fact about death. Hence, they just stop worrying about it( Probably human tendency) or else, who knows, we might have had many cynics on this planet!

But your ? " What is the purpose of life", well its still a mystery to be decoded.

There may be some purpose or may not be. I think this ? is very subjective. In my opinion, this ? is most definitely valid. There are some incidents in life which will be an eye opener.

Again in my opinion, the journey is way more important and crucial than the actual destination. The least we can do is our work(Not simply sitting around).

I seriously have no comments on Death and post life and such things.

The only thing I know is, its ridiculous to accept your fate and just keep quiet about it

vinayraj govindarajan: - here i would like to quote a conversation tat happens between the oracle and neo in the matrix reloaded movie......

oracle-everything is destined! u hav already made ur choice........

neo-if everything s destined then y have i been offered a choice?

oracle-to understand y u made tat choice!

ppl can interpret it anyway they want.....however wat i believe is tat the purpose of life is to actually know the purpose of life! u can only know the path when u walk thru it.....i am here coz i had to be the 2nd son of my parents,younger brother of my elder brother,i had to be the reg num 1pi06ec127 of ec dept in pesit, i had to be part of NBT team, in the future i will(perhaps) hav to be the husband of some girl, father of a child/children, and finally i will hav to die and make the ppl who hav been close to me to cry and remind everyone again tat death is certain! tat s the purpose of my existence.......both my success and my failure r destined! but i will hav to fail in order to understand y i failed and in the same way i will hav to succeed in order to know y i succeeded! thus failure or success being the outcomes r irrelevant! coz v only need to knw y those outcomes occured! which finally takes us to the philosophy stated by Lord Krishna-just do ur duty dont worry abt the outcome!