Setting A Goal For Ourselves

15 October 2001, 12:07am IST
ARCHANA JAIN.

Why do we get up in the morning? have we ever thought about this? the question seems so inane that you dismiss it without even thinking about it. what gives us joy and contentment at the end of the day? how do we see ourselves five years from now? these were some of the questions which were discussed in a workshop held recently that i was a part of. there are no easy, set answers to them. everyone has their own reasons for getting up in the morning. some cannot sleep beyond a certain point of time, some have to get on with the day’s chores. and some, to see what the day has in store for them and to make the most of it. if you are able to extract the maximum out of a day and something new has been achieved then you say that it was a day well-lived and are filled with joy and contentment. how you see yourself a few years from now is actually a culmination of a series of such days that have been lived with joy and contentment. or, you can simply set yourself a goal for the next five years. then each day would be a progression towards that goal and you would be getting up in the morning to take one more step towards that goal. a goal is something we set for ourselves. it gives meaning to our lives and a reason to live for. it gives us an impetus to move forward. but then, why do we need to give meaning to our life or any specific reason to live. why not just live for the sake of it? to live life from day to day — the idea is very alluring; to have no specific goal to strive for, work hard for. to pass through life without making an effort to understand anything about it. but, to live like this is to live like an ignoramus. to live life senselessly is simply to exist and not go through the subtle nuances of life which bring us joy. if we have been born and blessed with some thinking faculty, then we might as well try and make some sense out of our life. having a goal helps us in doing that. it keeps us involved in progressing constructively. however, what do you do when you have reached your goal? do you look for another goal or be satisfied with where you have reached? stop. take your time. when you have reached a goal, after striving hard for it, enjoy it. experience it. get the maximum out of the moment. once you have done that, you will grow out of it, naturally. the experience will have become a part of you and you will have moved beyond it. another goal on the horizon will beckon you. you will start moving towards that. is chasing goals like chasing a mirage? the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? no one knows. but, somewhere in the midst of your journey material or spiritual, your life may end. if you believe in an after-life, you will take up from where you left and leave this world in peace. it will make you believe in continuity and evolution which leads to moksha or salvation. you must realise that what you achieve at the materialistic or physical level matters far less compared to the spiritual heights that you gain in your life. all this sounds too simplistic, too clear-cut a theory for something as vast, complex and beautiful as life. everyone has a view of life. and that viewpoint changes at different stages of life. but this view of life, that can come through inner realisation comes from the ancient scriptures as well. most of these scriptures say that one’s destiny or fate depends on one’s karma or actions, and the quality and fate of the individual in his next life depends on the individual’s karma in this life. the scriptures say that all the experiences that the individual will experience in his next life, whether painful or joyful, will result from the accumulated actions that he has performed in this life. these actions arise from one’s mind and therefore, in a spiritual quest, it is of utmost importance to free the mind of ignorance and attachment, to material objects. as you grow, your views and reality keep clashing and you keep modifying, at times making compromise, fine-tuning your ideas. your perception on life keeps on changing with different experiences you undergo. it is only when all the six blind men come together and share what they have experienced that the whole truth emerges. and then, they finally understand what life is all about. until then, they are really trying to pick a single grain in a vast desert of sand.