My father used to tell me (still does sometimes) that I should have a goal in life. My mamaji (uncle) would tell the same to all of us kids during the family gatherings. 'Lakshya hona chahiye' in life. I never really understood why they would say it as if that was the most virtuous thing in life. I never had a goal and I was pretty happy. So are a lot of others, it seemed to me.
I have never had a goal in life. Yes, minor things I have wanted, sure. But not a goal in life. And I had a pleasant run. Life, before I started thinking about significance of things, was carefree. It started with a period of self-doubt, the 'figuring-out' time of a normal teenager. Once over with that stuff, I started thinking about the meaning of life, and goals in reference to that.
I think sometimes, or have thought often in the past, about the meaning of life. The more I thought, the more I got convinced that there's no meaning that humans can discover. Where can you even start to think about it? Sure there have been people, yogis and all, who have meditated and claimed to have understood a part of it. I have talked to some of their followers. One person whom I considered rational enough told me that the aim of life is 'to do one's duty' and the duty is 'to be in harmony with nature'. I got curious as to how one would define being 'in harmony with nature'. I never have understood these things. The first time I was told humans are destroying nature by making non-biodegradable products, I wondered why they wouldn't say 'nature, as we know it'. I wondered, if humans are part of nature, how it can be that what they do is unnatural. It may be that what they do will go towards destroying the human race and probably life as we know it, but that does not make it going against the nature. We can not do anything unnatural. But I figured that the whole idea of 'natural' and 'unnatural' is a cryptic way of saying the whole thing, and in the process glorifying or deifying the concept. So that it becomes sort of 'you dare not do it, it is unnatural'. But I don't like this route. The short cut, I mean. I like things explicitly stated, for which I am often ridiculed, playfully most of the times. For one thing, I do not understand things until that are not explicitly mentioned (I am a little thick-headed). For another, I think that it lays the recipe for blunders. For example, one can declare that gay-marriage is 'unnatural' and so it should be banned. That, you see, is my problem. I would like you to take the longer route and explain it to me how homo-sexuality, being unnatural, does more harm to people than it does good to the concerned. I could decide by the longer route, but not by the plain fact that it is unnatural.
So getting back to the point from where I digressed, I got curious by 'the goal of life is to do one's duty' and 'duty is to be in flow with nature'. I sort of knew I won’t get any answer that could satisfy me. But I pursued my queries – what is it to be in flow with nature? – to begin with. To some answers, I asked how one knows that. The answer - many yogis have told us. Okay, I believe things that I read in books. That earth revolves around the sun, that the life cycle of so and so micro-organism is this many milli-seconds, or whatever. Things that I believe not because I know them first hand but because I have faith, in experiments, and in scientists of the world. But clearly this faith is different from the former and the one that is commonly talked about. The difference is that these facts are open to be tested by anyone based on the experiences since one is born and on the only tool that humans have to figure things out - reason. That does not mean that it is the supreme reality. I am open to the idea that the worldly reason is too limited in its scope to understand the ultimate reality. Believing that there might exist an entity (aatma) in all living things, that makes things living and has not yet been identified by any characterisation technique, is not that 'unscientific'. But it takes a giant leap to believe that somebody knows that aatmas exist and they unite into parmatma after so many years and then there's pralaya in which all aatmas are created or destroyed or whatever. It gives the impression of being a creation of a fertile mind that has forsaken wordly reason - but only partly and not in its entirety - to create a mythic picture.
There's no way of knowing if it is true. They say what we see and hear is an illusion. What if what we experience during meditation is a higher level of illusion? It is highly likely. 'You know I lied. The truth is ...'. Doesn’t that make it more true than saying it the first time round. 'You see, he lied earlier. But now he's confessed to the truth.' Or, ‘I was in darkness. But now, I see the light.’
The way I see it is: illusion is a must if you need to survive and be happy. Either illusion, or indifference. It depends on the person which level of illusion he is comfortable with. Most people are indifferent. Some, like the meditators, really think that they know the TRUTH, as they put it. But probably, they are under a different level of illusion – ‘I was lost. But now I have found the WAY.' In my view, they have just accepted the fact that they can not know it all, and everything unexplained is attributable to some unmutable law which one should not bother to question. That is, they have settled for another version of the world that soothes their sense of adventure and exploration and they are content with that. Which, to be frank, is excellent. Since one can not know much about the world, it is all a matter of what makes you content and happy.
Getting back to the original point of digression, if you can not know what the TRUTH is, what does it mean to have a goal? And the answer lies in the previous jumble of words. Illusion and indifference. Everybody needs something to create that illusion and indifference. Who says GOD is unkind? Hasn’t he given the mechanism in brain that alleviates the mental trauma of disillusionment, the state when you know that you know nothing and can know nothing but have to go on nevertheless because you don't have the courage to end it?
So my mamaji and Papa were right. I should have a goal. I need that illusion to survive. I know now that even if it is not the most virtuous of ideals, it is a worthwhile illusion.
Here's a quote from a great philosopher:
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth. -Sophocles, (495-405 BCE)
