“Hi! Howz Life?”. Isn’t is one of the most familiar questions in the world?’. The typical responses we hear for this are – “Life’s fine/good, just the usual, life’s passing by (in hindi ‘kat rahi hai’)”. Are we too casual in answering back? Or is this question not so relevant and important to be answered?
No question in this world is unimportant. We may either don’t have an answer for it or we may choose to respond in our own way. But the response we choose tests our presence in our life. People commonly don’t understand the distinction between LIFE and TIME. They often see them as synonyms and believe that passing time means passing life. They literally forget that they are not controlling the either and they will eventually pass, even if you are sitting idle on a chair in a room for years. Let’s understand what time means to us, as its relative to the space. For understanding let’s see it as a simple philosophical simile. Suppose we are like a Car with a permanently running engine (heart). The food we eat or drink is the essential oil/s of the car, needed for its maintenance. Time is like the fuel that continuously burns as the engine is running, even if the car is not moving. Life is the actual displacement occurred due to the movement (activity) of this car as a result of the interaction between the road conditions (environment around us) and the car (us).
The simile above, although is oversimplified to relate Time and Life, but highlights a truth to understand that Life is a series of Interactions or events with their responses we choose. For now, let’s hold to this definition of life and take a pause to look back at our life. We will see that whatever we have lived till now has been nothing more than an event and how we responded to it.
Imagine a blindfolded man and captured in a room that is empty. He has been sentenced to be in this room for 1 year. The time will still pass, but what would HE have lived in that year? Perhaps nothing. No event to respond to. just sitting at one place. Although you may say that being captured in a room is also an event. Don’t forget even prisoners are given a life to live in the jail, as they get involved in the activities and also get to socialize & make friends in the jail.
Now, if you put a musical instrument in the blindfolded man’s room without telling him, what will happen? He may not get to know about it and never play it. What if we put that instrument in his Lap? Now he may try to figure out what to do with it. Most of us are living life like the captured man. Waiting for the events to come to us. We are living blindfolded in this world with so much around us but waiting for someone to put it in our lap.
One of the most important aspect of Life is that it never happens outside of you, since YOUR LIFE requires you and your response only, hence LIFE OCCURS THROUGH YOU. Life is indeed Empty and Meaningless. It is all about what MEANING or INTERPRETATION you attach to it that occurs or expresses as your RESPONSE to the EVENTS.
If you have guests at home then don’t you get extremely busy, charged and active in serving them? To get busy in life Don’t be a Guest to Life but become a Host to Life. Life is experienced at its best when you are hosting life and the only way to host life is by getting INVOLVED in LIFE. Don’t DETACH from LIFE. Detachment is only necessary from the results in life not from the events/processes in life. More you are involved in Life, more you experience it. You can’t tell the taste of a food by only looking at it. You will need to bring it in your experience by tasting it. When you experience something yourself, you get involved.
So in any upcoming Festival, don’t wait for people to visit you or wish you, but get involved and wish them or visit them. Don’t sit in the room expecting the world to come to you. The world will anyways keep running with or without you. But your only chance to stay in the world even after your gone is to get involved in life and touching many more lives outside the room. Detaching yourself from any results or expectations but NOT Life, because you are adding meaning to your life, others will any which ways give their own meaning to their life.
Sending Love, Laughter and Joy
Parth