What are the objectives of life?

Our prime objective should be keeping ourselves away from suffering.  Human life has to undergo failures and success, happiness and sorrow, afflictions and well-being, pleasures and pain, fortune and misfortune, grief and joy, distress and contentment, constantly.   Hence ‘life is a bed of roses full of thorns’ and these are fleeting moments in everyone’s life.  We all want to be happy always, that is the ultimate truth, but the hardest truth is that it is impossible to achieve.  The supreme spirit and sacred scriptures are too kind to creatures, they both strive hard to protect the living beings from the miseries, they both define the path of contentment, self- realization, and realization of the supreme spirit.  There are four objectives in life known as Righteousness/Dharma, Wealth/Arththa, Desire/Kama and Moksha/ liberation.   Righteousness is a mode of conduct, following prescribed duties and responsibilities, attributes, virtues, essential quality, ordinance, custom, observance of customary duties, the practice of religious rites, and morality.  Earning wealth to meet the necessities of life, the performance of charity, offering money for religious rites, and utilize the wealth for service to humanity.  Cultivate the desire to perform all the religious rites, desire to perform the duties and responsibilities in a perfect manner, fulfill desires of both physical and material of yourself and your dependents, and gratify the desires of your ancestors by producing children to perform religious rites.  Liberation is the final state to get freed from the vicious cycles of worldly existence once for all; it is called liberation from repeated births.  It can achieved through various pious deeds, self – less service, /Karma Yoga, intense devotion and faith, /Bhakthi Yoga,  and gaining knowledge from scriptures, knowledge of self and God-realization/Jnana Yoga.

What makes a person happy?

In my opinion  living with essentials of life along with the virtues of simplicity, good health, kindness, elegance, humility; self-less act, positive thinking, acquiring knowledge and sharing wisdom, peace and serenity are the keys to happiness.  It varies from person to person.  Finally, knowledge of self, knowledge of supreme consciousness is the bliss which is difficult to attain but not impossible.  Knowledge of supreme consciousness is permanent bliss, which can be achieved by several years of devoted practice of Yoga and meditation, reading scriptures, observing the vow of silence, and practice of selfless service.  This will change the perception of the individual altogether; it transforms the person with a great sense of gratitude,   forbearing, loving, caring and kind.  They start loving all that surrounded by them, they do not get scared of loneliness, and they find themselves happy in their nest J

What is the definition of Happiness?

If you ask people ‘Are you happy in your life?’ majority of the answers will be ‘No I am not.’  Is that true? It is not, because happiness has transitory nature, it is like two sides of a paper; hence we are neither happy nor sad.  We can create happiness, by not focusing on what we are lacking in our lives; we can concentrate on what we have achieved in our lives.  Be thankful to Almighty on every moment for that goodness in life.  Ask yourself ‘Do you have a critical illness? Are you struggling for the necessities of life? Are you an orphan?’ if you have not any of these then you are rich my boss.  As we grow older, fortunate will be drawn towards spirituality, they seek peace in it, and finally, they achieve the goal.  Live your life happily and make sure to spread happiness, live in present and enjoy all those funniest moments, never hold the feeling of resentment towards anyone, find peace in whatever you do.   Happiness is the nature of living beings because we are created by supreme conscious, as I said earlier, we are bound by our Karma.  Eventually, the choice is ours to be happy or not.

Does life have a purpose?

Yes, we all have some specific purpose, things to achieve, dream to accomplish and checklist to follow that never ends.  While childhood days, we want to achieve certain things which could add pleasures to our sense, tiny things like play materials, dresses, toys, and all those teeny tiny things we are attracted from our playmates or childhood friends.  As we grow up the priorities go different, our wish list will be brimming with the needs of an adult, like going out for a movie,  owning gadgets of your choice, partying with friends, etc… Once you start earning you will start dreaming to have your own vehicle, luxuries, home and have a family of your own.  After a certain period of time, you will be started yearning for those wonderful moments you had with your lovely parents and grandparents, you will start realizing the biggest truth in life that material things cannot satisfy you, your inner heart was always satisfied with peace and affection from your beloved people, material happiness is just momentary and it will fade away with the years passes by.  Therefore enjoy being with your family, respect them, be kind and caring.  While chasing after the material needs, pause a bit and think of the people in your life, give time and have a pleasant conversation with them.  We all have to leave this world and our wealth behind.  In the short span of our life, we all have to take an effort to know about the supreme consciousness which is the place of our origin and final destination as well.  We are always surrounded by illusion, it influences our wish list keeps multiplies and changing in every phase of life, and we are fastened by our Karma.

What do we expect from life?

It is a difficult question indeed, most of the time we mix up necessities, comfort, and luxury.  Interestingly, priorities of our life go changing the years passes by,  eventually our comfort turns out to be necessity and luxury turns out to be our comfort.  Expectation never ends and it keeps growing to a stage where we end up in resentment, disappointment, and loss of mental peace.  It is always good to tune your expectations low; it can keep you away from distress, eventually, we will start to find something pleasing each day.  Believe me, it is a great feeling! here comes the regular practice of meditation and Yoga as savior.  Yoga and meditation are inspirational for all age groups, breathing techniques make the whole body nourished with the fresh supply of oxygen, it purifies bloodstreams and removes respiratory disorders.  It increases memory power and helps to get good night sleep.    It has detoxifying benefits, strengthens the immune system, improves creativity, and relieves pain, muscular tension and stress.  It brings a sense of contentment, self-love, confidence, it elevates mood, improves physical health, changes the perception, teaches the highest truth of self-realization, increases the energy level, it removes anger, frustration, insomnia, psychological disorders, fear, and anxiety.  Finally, It brings overall mental and physical well-being. 

 

This is something I found very interesting, we have no idea why we start writing with a pencil, why we do not use the pen in the beginning years of life,  then it would have been so easier isn’t it?, We need not put effort to practice writing with the pen as we do now.  In the initial years of our childhood, we make lots of mistakes, so the pencil is easy to erase, during these years we always have our guardians or parents or mentor with us, constantly watching on us and correct our mistakes.  As we grow young we will have some kind of knowledge about what should do and what not, youth will show confidence and tendency to move out their own, some may take the opportunity to go out of the shade of guardians and parents, and explore.   One important lesson we forget during this journey that mistakes made in adulthood is hard to erase, not to say about the remaining years of life.  We have a whole life before us to learn and the process of learning never ends.  So, when we make mistakes deliberately, we should think twice.  The personal intelligence is put into practice the things we have learned for personal growth,   mistakes are unavoidable, but hung on the same is not a wise idea.

Criticism –

Criticism can be constructive and destructive; it depends on the way how you react to it.    In my opinion, criticism is essential for personal growth and success, though the person’s tone and manner are too harsh, it gives us an opportunity to grow and correct our flaws.  It is good to give time to reflect on the criticism, find out is there anything you could take on to improve yourself, otherwise, ignore it completely.  This is how I react.  It is a waste of time to argue back blindly. One thing is certain, your growth depends on the feedback and criticism, some people comment exactly what is in their mind, it can definitely help you to grow, always move on from the refined comments gracefully.  Be more open-minded to criticism,  often we mistake people who criticize, some people are born with that kind approach, they cannot change themselves for you, accept them as they are to maintain peace.   It is a great talent to accept the people as they are,  this is the thing I often advise my son, it is a really hard process but we all can do it with regular practice, it can reduce stress in the family,  colleges, and workplace as well.    Sometimes, I do feel really sorry for them.  Do not argue with people who criticize, if possible start a gentle conversation, ask them to be more specific, so that you can improve and correct your mistakes, anything that hurt your self-respect should be ignored right out.