This is another of my post on Facebook, and I would like to share it with you. The second para is my comment in a humble way, in response to the comment of one of my fb friends. This was written when I was deeply engrossed in thoughts as to what constitutes the basic purpose of our life.

Why and what are we living for on this earth- money, wealth, luxury, status, name, fame, family, children or for the sake of living? We all know perfectly well that all these are transient and one fine day we’ll have to leave them all, and still we are constantly attaching ourselves to them! We’ll clearly understand and realize this truth if we succeed in breaking through these entanglements and think beyond all the physical manifestations. But we never dare to do so! This is the MAGIC OF LIFE!! When we come to know that there is a MORE BEAUTIFUL & AWESOME LIFE beyond the present one, everything here seems to us just like a game which everyone is hell-bent on winning! But the truth is, the true WINNERS will be those who play it boldly & honestly! And all others will be pushed back into the same perpetual and eternal abyss! Knowing the purpose of life is the first step towards living a PURPOSEFUL LIFE!!

Thanks for the comment, nowhere in my post I mentioned that we should not have hope! And neither my focus is on total Nirvana. Seeing beyond all the material manifestations doesn’t necessarily mean we renounce them all at once and take recourse to Nirvana. If I take Indian vedantic tradition, it never professes to entirely renounce this world and look for the OTHER WORLD without having seen and tasted this world. Rather it exhorts us all to live every bit of our life in total enthrallment but without any attachment to it, like a lotus flower in a pond. The lotus is always in the pond and is never gets wet by water. We can always aim for money, riches, luxury, name, fame, and status, but without attaching ourselves to them. The root cause of all the miseries in the world is this attachment, attachment to some-body or our-body or something else as if our happiness lies in them all, but in reality, our real happiness lies in ourselves. The more outbound we are, the more miserable we end up with. This is true for all the human beings on the earth without any exception, though some may not accept it. And about desires, I never mean to say that we should not have desires. We all can have desires but should never be slaves to them. It’s the kind of desire that decides and differentiates a man from the other! Man (this word includes both man and woman, if I’m allowed to use in its liberal sense) basically evolves himself/herself only because of hope. We are born with hope, make this journey with hope and may be, end up with hope. Hope is something which always keeps us moving! Movement is life and stagnation is death! Expansion is life and contraction is death! Everyone has his/her own hope and desire but it is how we handle it, control it and direct it into a proper course of action is the crux of the matter!! This comment is not to win the game but to start the game in a more cordial and affable way. Pl. correct me if I’m wrong.