Life's Too Short

We expect to live for a very long time, say about 70 to 80 years.

Now who has told you that you will be alive for that long a period?

We spend all our childhood and youth playing mischief, studying for career, getting ready for an adult life and we do not have time for any other thing.

Only when our parents tell us to go to places of worship or say some prayers, that we do it but without understanding any head or tail about it.

Later our grand parents or some other person teaches us or tells stories about some religious kind. We understand that if we do bad stuff or commit sins we will have to face God wrath and go to hell to atone for it, so we refrain from performing such acts.

If we do some nice deeds we will get benefits and God will be pleased with us.

Then as we grow up fall in love, try for a job, work for someone, get beaten up by society and pursue a wild goose for money and fame and then we meet failures in life....then we retrospect and wonder whether there is some God or not who listens to us. We create a wonderful or a horrible image of that God depending upon our experiences. We drift away from that world of beliefs and rituals.

As we progress in life, we come across some weird circumstances for which we again tend to turn to this strange phenomenon called God. If our prayers get answered then we promise to attend regular services in these places of worship and make some offerings as a bribe to that great Persona.

In time we get to understand that there is another path for us and to follow that path we require a support of another being who will guide us along the path.

Meanwhile we have married and had kids and now we get into a grihasta mode too.

The unnatural quest for knowing this strange being called God may come as a surprise to us.We then want to read up on texts which talk about this entity.

Or we tend to read up on authors which want to make us believe in their theories of this strange being. We get influenced by press or by our friends and read up on Paulo Coelho, Rhonda Byrne, Bach and so on.

We think that we have finally found that secret but alas, the truth is not so simple to decipher.

It is far deeper than these simple books which sell millions and make huge profits and spawn serials and movies for the authors.

Then we want to delve deeper into it so we start going for some spiritual discourses and want to absorb some gyan.

Again we find some mental block there.

That strange Guru is actually interested in politics, wants billion disciples, is peddling some courses for which they charge but do not give receipts,is making a big palatial ashram, wants to construct a huge edifice of places of worship, wants to evangelize on the telly, wants to hobnob with politicos, wants to attend big conferences and become as big as God. He or she has ulterior motives.

They cannot give you individual time just for yourself. they cannot solve your issues on spiritual since you do not get them alone and have a one on one.

You get disillusioned again and turn to some retreats but there too you are deceived.

You end up paying through your nose for some vague knowledge and finally at the ripe age you think you know who or what God is.....

So you start giving advice to all and sundry and with so much conviction that the one in front of you really believes in your God knowledge.

The end is nearer and then it strikes you that you still haven't a clue of that pie in the sky God and are clutching at straws.

So what happened to you then?

Having spent your entire life searching for that entity you have lost the opportunity to actually understand what you are actually searching for!

You have got duped in this life and are then ready for another one and still you will not understand what is it you are after....who is that God?

Holy people or Godmen,holy books, tv evangelists, holy places or any such stuff is least capable of taking you to that God.

The constant urge to know about Him and to make all possible attempts to understand Him, prayers, detachments from life, dispassion in life and ultimately discrimination will lead you to Him.

These stages come about at any time in life and we do not know when so we should always be ready for that.

Consider this life to be short for all that and continue that quest at the earliest.

I hope you do realize the importance of doing things as soon as possible.

Life's too short to be wasted on the mundane. Go after the absolute and not the impermanent.