Zen says ‘keep flowing.’ The Buddhists say its nirvana. Osho says it all about no-mind. Jesus says forget & forgive. And there are many others who have dedicated ample number of years to understand what life is all about & who took enough pain to share their experiences about God or Divinity or shunyatha - whatever you name it. End of the day truth remains that there is no escape from day-to-day human problems and that you cannot leave them behind to survive in solitude.
Whether you live in a crowded place like Mumbai, or you escape to the caves of Himalayas once in a while – you would need people to socialise or at least to share your experiences. Ultimately Buddha had to come down to the same town, where he was an emperor, after 12 years of penance to preach the people about Bodhi Satwa.
Once I was typing a letter to someone & by mistake I typed 2104 as the year. And to my surprise I could not see my existence. I could not even see my children’s existence by that period. An important truth flashed in my mind that even in our sub conscious we are aware about our life span, and human mind can not think beyond a point. Of course we can take our imagination a bit forward and think about how the world could be in the year 2200 but then it will be really hard to see yourself enjoying all the amanities. We exist in a particular time frame say between 1975 & 2050, and life is all about how many good & bad memories you gather in that particular time frame.
Goals are important, money is important, career is important, the new house, the new car and the new girl are important. But then no body will remember you for having a bank balance of few crores, or for owning a flat in Marine Drive, or for sleeping with Jennifer Lopez, or for having a chauffer driven car while working with Tatas or Birlas. You will be remembered on the basis of how many good memories you could inculcate in the people you have interacted with or on the basis of the good changes you were able to bring in somebody’s life.
Spending money is the easiest thing. You can either splurge few 100s in a dance bar boozing yourself with the best beer and dancing your way with a bar girl or probably donate a 2 rupee coin for a hungry child who begs under the hot sun near the traffic signal. By donating you of course are supporting beggary, but I think supporting beggary is better than promoting bar girls.
Living a selfish life is easy. Anybody can do that. But living your life to assist humanity is altogether a different ball game. Many talented & successful people have lived & died, but then the one who tops the list of important people in our minds are the people who were able to bring great changes in human lives. They not only collected good memories for themselves but also were successful in implanting great reminiscence in others’ mind.