Understanding the Creation and Our Role

                                                                        Saumitra Mohan

            The empirical insights emanating from our everyday life experiences and the consequent cognitive comprehension of the intricacies of human ontology are quite revealing at times. Human life often appears so bright and beautiful. When everything goes well and smooth, one even desires immortality to continue clinging onto the savouries of life. However, when the going gets tough and the tough never seems to be going, one also feels that one has had enough of the carnal pleasures to continue with this human sojourn in the spiritual journey of our existence. The truth, however, remains that the metaphysics of human life is too complex for the ordinary mortals like us to cognize the same.

            One has often wondered the real motive behind the Creation of this Universe, the carnal world but so have many philosophers and logicians since the beginning of the existence of life on earth. Various faiths and religions, saints and thinkers have tried to delve into the secrets of the purposes behind the Creation and have come out with different answers. The discursive discourse on the inscrutable subject has presented too mindboggling assortment of opinions and insights for the ordinary humans to come to any deduction of a definitive answer. The divergence of opinions and thoughts has just been too confusing to help any understanding on the subject.

            After all, what could be the real purpose behind the Creation? Could such a beautiful world have emerged just out of a chaos as many would have us believe? Is there no architect or engineer of this astoundingly complex Creation, which has been further compounded by the added complexities, which are the results of the restraints, placed on the mental horizons of a human life? The more one cogitates, the more one gets confused. However, stringing through the many threads one gathers through these empirical insights and cognitive conceptions, one does feel persuaded of there being the definitiveness of a design behind the making of our world.

            Almost all of us go through the same cycles of life on this earth, which appears so routine and mundane as to make the human existence simply meaningless. We are all born, grow up, hanker to educate ourselves, have a family, children, jobs, wealth, recognition and all the other goodies that life has to offer. If we miss any of the regular phases or goodies of a mundane human life, we feel incomplete. Someone regrets of not getting education, someone has wasted the opportunity of having a good education, someone regrets not having a child, someone not having a girl or a boy child, someone not getting married, not getting a job or not having a family and what not. We all have one or the other kind of privations to regret or to curse our destiny for. 

            Every one of us remains dissatisfied throughout one’s life regarding the deprivation of one or the other kind. And this deprivation is nothing but sheer notional as the same is a deprivation about something, which humans have themselves created. Humans have created wealth, religion, caste and other such amorphous and false divisions and values in their communal life and have since been running after them. The Hindu Holy books like ‘The Gita’ clearly points to the banality and futility of this ‘Mirage Chase’ as we run after something which never belonged to us yesterday and which shall belong to someone else tomorrow. Knowing very well that none of our materials possessions would accompany us to the next world, we still keep chasing the same. We not only chase, we actually keep fighting and competing for the false acquisitions thereby making our life on earth ‘really’ excruciating. And while we chase the material pleasures and carnal values in this mortal world, we continue making the life of the self and that of our fellow human being still more pathetic and painful in the process.

            All the problems of our times including poverty, terrorism, religious or linguistic fanaticism, environmental degradation, regional jingoism and the like are in one way or the other related to the human beings’ penchant for more and more acquisitions of the ersatz and hollow values of life which they have themselves created. And while we are all engaged in this mutually internecine chase, we lose our peace and happiness in this world. The human life, which could have been a positive sum game, ends up in a negative sum game. The race for one-upmanship and material successes at the expense of one another dehumanizes all of us, leaving behind the hateful and disgusting worldly scenes, incidents and events that we come across everyday in our day-to-day life.

            And believe it or not, this sense of deprivation/privation or dissatisfaction is the fount of all our progress and further growth. Now it completely depends on us as to how do we treat our dissatisfaction. We can definitely ensure that in our bid to realize our dreams and aspirations, we do not rise roughshod over someone else’s dreams or try to achieve the same by unjustly depriving someone else of his/her rightful deserts. Honesty in our thoughts and conduct shall ensure the peaceful and sublime co-existence of humans in this world. The enlightened ones rightly believe that all our woes and sorrows betide us as an effect of a human behaviour which is diametrically opposite of what should be ideally happening.

            Life’s challenges throw differing possibilities of attainments and achievements in front of us. Someone would fall by the wayside while handling the same, while someone would excel against the challenges offered. The secular challenges and hardships of the material life are God’s touchstone to test our character to find out the best of the souls, the souls who shall receive the ultimate divine bliss and beatification in His realm. While we do all this, while we go through the vicissitudes and multiple stages of our quotidian life, we are all constricted and constrained by the limitations of our varying capacities, capabilities and perspectives. Someone with very ordinary background rises against all imponderables to great heights, while someone with everything in his/her favour end up squandering the opportunities offered to him/her by the earthly life.

            While all this happens, we can clearly see through the working of a definite plan of the Almighty. One does feel that there is an order in disorder; there is a system, which works through the apparent chaos. We have all noticed as to how a child without much material support or family background rises and does well notwithstanding all odds. There are plenty of examples for us to pick up from our life. Then, we have also noticed as to how we have discovered to our utter surprise an opportunity or ‘good’ emerging out of an adversity or bad experiences, something for which we had cursed our fate or destiny. It does point to the micro-planning that the God has for all of us.

            That is why they say, if it happens as per your wishes, its good; but if it does not happen in accordance with your wishes, its still better as the same is happening as per God’s wishes and we should trust His judgement. However, that never means that we should become fatalistic stop trying to improve our situation. As they say, fortune (read God) always favours the brave. So, we ought to keep trying heart and soul with a positive attitude and without being unjust in our conduct. If we are undergoing trials and tribulations, suffering untold pains and woes, we are either said to be paying for our past ‘Karmas’ (read deeds) or we are being prepared for a higher task by the instant ordeal as part of God’s larger plan.

            As gold becomes purer and better by going through fire or as beautiful fragrant flowers have to be pressed for extraction of perfume, so are our pains a sign of the God trying to extract the best out of us. A book namely, ‘The Laws of the Spirit World’ by Khorshed Bhavnagri does attempt an explanation to many of our queries relating to happenings in this world and in the ethereal world i.e. life after death. The book is said to be a dictation by the spirits of the two dead sons of the author who reveal the secrets and mysteries of life and afterlife. Many have found similar allusions in the Hindu Garuda Purana. However, some of the enunciations, submissions and accretions in the latter seem to be apocryphal because at some places it appears to be tinged with the unethical and illogical human biases and prejudices, as are many other such enunciations and proclamations in supposedly holy books of different faiths.

            We as humans ought to have a basic understanding of the working of the God and His plan. While we ought to trust him for anything that happens to us, we also ought to keep trying to the best of our capacities and capabilities to work against all odds to make the best of the available resources and opportunities. And we should do this with a very positive bent of mind and without hurting another soul. A positive mind always sees the light even in the darkness of a deep tunnel.

            While the concept of ethics and moralities have varied over time and space, the basic ethos have always remained the same i.e. we ought to live our life without hurting another’s. In our bid to occupy more and more space for ourselves in any walk of life, we ought not to deprive our fellow human being of their legitimate space. And if by the grace of God, we happen to be in an advantageous position to help someone find that space, we ought to do that immediately as God has trusted us more by putting us in a position to be able to do so. We ought to thank God for the same and carry out the role bestowed on us as his ‘chosen ones’. That is what people like Mahatma Gandhi meant when they talked about the concept of ‘Trusteeship’.

            After all, living for ourselves, an epicurean and hedonistic life, makes us no different from the animals who have no power of rational thinking, mental and emotional faculties. They live just for themselves and when they live for others, they are forced into the same by the humans. So, while we live, we should live a life, sublime and humane, something that would differentiate us from the animals. We should never forget that life on earth is evanescent, not permanent. We should make the hay while the sun shines i.e. we should realize the true purpose of life by enjoying the same in an uplifting manner. We ought to live our life in a manner as to be a beacon to brighten others’ lives, by eradicating darkness from their lives.

            We ought to take advantage of our human life to share our goodies by helping the fellow human beings in whatever way we can. Here, honesty in thought is more important than the actual outcome. We should ensure that we live in perfect peace and harmony as far as we can. As they say, many of us live as we would never die and many of us die, as we never lived. We should, at least, ensure that when we die we do not regret having lived a wrong life, having hurt someone knowingly or having behaved unjustly or of having deprived someone of something. If we cannot do a good to someone, we should, at least, ensure that we don’t depart from this world by earning curses from the fellow human beings. How many people feel sorry at our demise and how many of them remember us fondly and positively even after our death point to our real acquisitions we leave behind in this world.

            While we may not know for sure anything or something about the life after death or there actually being a heaven out there in the ethereal world, lets treat this world as a testing centre to find out the best of human beings amongst us. We should, therefore, try to amass as much goodwill as possible for deserving the best and also because that is the only thing that eventually goes with us. Our presence in this world is like a stone thrown in the water. The strength of the impact with which the stone is hurled into the water determines how bigger the resultant circle shall be. Likewise, the bigger the circle of our goodness and goodwill as a result of our being in this world, the surer shall be our attainment of the eternal bliss. One somehow believes that God has all sent us to this world with a divine purpose, a purpose to excel positively and to make the earthly life better with our goodness. After all, if the world was fine the way it is, there was no need for us in this world. So, we should all try to discover the divine purpose of our existence in this world and we should all ensure that while leave this world, we leave behind deeply-etched sublime footprints on the sands of time.

            However, as said above, the disharmony and disquiet in this world are the ways of the God to test our mettle. Life would really be just dull and drab if everything were to be like a fairytale. The injustices and vices seen around us are God’s ways to find out His best souls. After all, everything has a price. If ‘good’ is better than ‘bad’, it must have a price. A perfume is the result of the painful squeezing undergone by hundreds and thousands of flowers. Now its up to us to decide as to what kind of life do we want to live and what reputation do we want to leave behind when we finally kick the bucket. Notwithstanding God’s micro-planning, we can still make or unmake the kind of life we want to lead in this world with our positive thoughts and humility accompanied by untiring efforts. Our positive thoughts are always backed, supported and reinforced by the inscrutable ways of the destiny, which we may like to call God, the Almighty.