Born again

Never lose faith, you shall ascend;

In the darkness, the Moon will guide you.

2021 was a tough year for me. I know it to be tougher for others. This is to your determination.

The other night, when I could not sleep and when my mind was whirling with unnecessary thoughts, a rather interesting thought arose - Would I like to be born again? Would I like to repeat the life that I have led? Or would I like to came back, perhaps, in different circumstances?

My immediate answer was - No. That answer led to a consequential thought - If 'life' was not worth repeating, did that imply that 'life' was not 'worth it'? That unsettled me. Was my life really not 'worth it'? I sat up. Why did I feel that 'life' was not 'worth it'?

The answer was standard - life is a struggle, the world sorrowful. Shakespeare rightly said that the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. The same is true for life. When asked to assess our lives, our instinctive reaction would be to focus on the misery. Mostly, we are ingrates (at least I am).

However, even reasoned analysis would suggest that life contains a good amount of misery. In the  भगवद्गीता (Bhagwad Gita), भगवान कृष्ण (Bhagwan Krishna) describes the world as an abode of misery. (दुःखालय - Chapter 8 - Verse 15). In the womb, we face great pain. In the शिवापराध क्षमापन स्तोत्रम् (Shiv Apradh Kshamapan Stotra), भगवान आदि शंकराचार्य (Bhagwan Adi Shankaracharya) describes the misery faced by the baby in the womb, as she is placed between the digestive fire and bodily waste (Verse 1). Once out, we face all kinds of troubles. Life is an endless struggle. A battle against misery. In fact, in the गर्भोपनिषतद् (Garbhopanishad), it is said that in the womb, the baby remembers all her past lives and the collective misery and thereafter resolves to take refuge of the Lord when she comes out of the womb. The baby does not want to be born again. She also desires freedom from the continued misery. However, on birth, माया (Maya i.e.: ignorance) envelopes her and she forgets all her past lives and the associated misery. 

One would argue that life is also filled with brighter things. Some small - like seeing a peacock next to your car, or a rainbow when you're at the temple, or beautiful flowers lined by the side of the road. Some bigger - like finding love, or becoming a parent, or the presence of your Guru, or the comfort of a true friend. 

Thus, life is an ebb and flow of good and bad times - ये जीवन है, थोडे गम है, थोडी खुशियाँ. There is great contentment and happiness in accepting that there will be good times and that there will be bad times. But the initial question remains - Does that make life 'worth it'? Misery reduces the worthiness of a life. Even if one has to experience misery, there must be something good that must come out of it. Is that 'good' worth the misery? For this, we must know the 'good' that we are chasing. Because, to my mind, a lot of the misery is caused by our own indecisiveness and confusion regarding our wants. We don't know what we want. We don't know what we are working towards. There is no goal. There is no plan. There is misery.

12 years ago, in one of my regular sense of life posts, I had said life can't be a torture (that) we have to bear. Back then, I had hoped that all of us would find our purpose. After a decade, my thoughts are the same. Life can't be a torture.

Life must have meaning. A purpose. A drive. Perhaps, working towards that purpose would make life (and the misery associated with it) 'worth it'. The achievement of the purpose is not that important. What gives meaning to life is the continuous pursuit towards something. Bhagat Singh fought for independence and died for independence, but independence was not achieved in his lifetime. Even though the goal was not achieved, the life was meaningful. A life spent towards a goal is a meaningful life and that life is worth the misery. Imagine yourself looking back at the timeline of your life - would you say that you lived well? If the answer to that is yes, then life was worth it. Also, the joy is in the pursuit. Once the end is achieved, then what do you do? Therefore, never underestimate the journey.

It is can be quite tiresome to firstly, find purpose and then to pursue it with all your energies. But, what else can one do? If we don't continuously search and work towards the purpose, then life would be a waste (as misery was experienced without a goal). I hate waste. I hate wasting waste, that's why I make compost. Life is precious (which is different from worthy). We must also make it worthy.

You may ask me - Are all purposes created equal? Or are some purposes more equal than others? You should be concerned only about your purpose (स्वधर्म). For instance, I believe that my calling is to help others, to fight for justice and to bore you with my writing. These pursuits make life purposeful (for me). At the end of my life, if I have made reasonable progress towards these, I would feel a sense of contentment. Or at least I hope that I would! We don't know when life is going to end. Thus, the worth of our life must not be gauged only at the time of our death, but at any point in our life. We must never give up the pursuit.

So therefore, we have a purpose and we are working towards that purpose. We also have made peace with the fact that good and bad times go hand in hand. Now, you look at your life and you find that you worked very hard towards your goal and think that your life is somewhat worthy. Let me know ask - Would you like a second chance to do things better? My instinctive answer would be - Yes. All actions are imperfect and therefore there is always a scope for improvement.  

And hence the world will never truly satisfy us. In the post linked above (and many others), I have advocated that this world cannot satisfy us. No world has the capacity to make us happy. No amount of second chances will make us happy. We will keep desiring to come back. To achieve a little more of this world. We will forget the (earlier) misery and come back for more (misery). Come back and again examine these issues of purpose of life.

This is why, the भज गोविन्दं (Bhaja Govindam) says:

पुनरपि जननं पुनरपि मरणं

पुनरपि जननीजठरे शयनम् ।

इह संसारे बहुदुस्तारे

कृपयाऽपारे पाहि मुरारे ॥ २१॥ 

Again birth, again death and again lying in mother's womb - this samsara process is very hard to cross over. Save me, Murari (O destroyer of Mura) through Thy infinite kindness.

[Translation by Swami Chinmayananda]

In this light, the desire to not be born again is a positive idea. The positivity is driven from the desire to end misery once and for all, rather than escaping misery. When I said that I didn't want to be born again, I basically meant that the misery was too much to bear. Escaping misery is not a solution to misery. Thus, finding purpose and meaning in life helps deal with misery. But it will not end it. 

Then, what will?

मोक्ष (Liberation) promises दुःख की निवृत्ति और निरतिशय सुख की प्राप्ति (the cessation of misery and the realisation of unparalleled happiness). This state is not in heaven, but here and now. It is also not contingent on the achievement of any object, but it is to be realised in the heart cavity (हृदय गुहायाम्).

We must hasten slowly towards मोक्ष (Liberation) - one step at a time. But until then, we don't have to let our depressions suck us. There are going to be imperfections. Like I said before, all action is imperfect. Still, we must act. We must move towards our goal. There will be bad times. There will be failure. But we don't have to suffer. There is much joy in life - in the small and big things. We just have to recognise. We have to be grateful for what we have. We have to march forward. 

Onwards and forwards - to make life worth repeating, but to not repeat it.

ॐ

Zindagi Kuch Toh Bata (Reprise) - Jubin Nautiyal

Jeete Hain Chal - Kavita Seth

Photo Credits: Mokshi