Long and short of Life’s Goals

 I was driving last Friday to attend Roshni’s dance program in Los Angeles. Mom was dozing off on the back seat and Abhay in the front seat next to me. The sky was partially obscured by clouds. The road rolled straight ahead from lower ground ascending through the Grapevine into the mountains dividing the Central Valley on the north side and Santa Clarita Valley on its south side.

Admiring the scenery outside my mind was calm and reflecting on what would be the best purpose to pick to spend the remainder life. There was no more anything left to acquire from the world personally. Everything was complete within. What then could be the best use of the remaining life?

Eyes were looking at the road and mind was looking at life. Life itself appeared to stretch long, like the road ahead. Proceeding much beyond the boundaries of mortality. A funny realization dawned. The purpose that the mind was trying to pick for rest of ‘this life’ suddenly seemed to be a short term purpose. What most people refer to as short term goals is something that applies to a few weeks, months, or one to five years at most. For example career goals, or financial investment goals. Long term goals extend beyond a decade. A lifelong goal is definitely considered as long term goal. Today my mind found it absurd to think of a life span as long term. In the scheme of things visible to me, existing life span, point A which is now till point B which is the day for the physical body to drop, could not by any means be considered a long term. 

It became evident how everything is relative. When visibility extends to a farther point the definition of short and long changes greatly. And that was what I was witnessing. 

The best purpose with which to cover that short segment of existence seemed nothing else in particular except simply being. That carried more meaningfulness than defining any other goal. Just by being, and continuing to learn and grow in the understanding of life, I could do the best for those around me. It was a simple and honest realization that came in that moment. 

The vital part is the being. The active part is the learning and resultant growing. Everything else that the mind is up to is non essential. That includes bragging about what it learned or knows. All three are important to understand. The non essential component comes in the way of both, being and learning. It obscures the experience of being and impedes the process of learning. Learning too becomes an impediment in the actual experiencing of being. Hence it takes practice to be able to put a hold to learning from time to time to get settled into undisturbed state of being. 

To understand the two components of oneself is essential once you get to that level. In a human being, there is a human and there is a being. Only the human needs learning. The being confers the ability to learn. It confers the ability for the human to exist. It has no need to learn and needs no extraneous source to exist. It is knowledge itself and existence itself. 

The human attached to this existence is like a sheet of ice floating on the ocean. It is bound to melt one day. You can figure out where it will go when it melts.