Goal of Life

Recently, I saw the movie Ikira (to Live) by Akira Kurosawa. Interestingly, it coincided with my 40th birthday and it had a great impact on me.

The story is about an man who has lived all his life in an office, doing the same repetitive and boring things and basically killing his time and dragging himself in life. And of course he has received all possible medals of honor in recognition of all his work and service to the society 😐

Then one month before his 30th year anniversary and retirement, he notices that he has stomach cancer. And this is the start of a big awakening in him where he faces with the naked Truth of Life.

Life is so fragile and precious. It is so mysterious and is even a miracle that it exists. A broken bone or a slight pressure on brain or a sickness such as cancer is enough to finish it forever. 

All society, rules, beliefs, politics, etc. are against Life, whether they say it or not. They are all attempts of a fragile Man to create a continuity and relief in his destiny. Man wakes up in the morning and follows this continuity to go to work, follow plans, look after family, etc. and create all possible excuses to look important and needed. By creating History, Man tries to create a meaning for Life and live with it.

Life is always fresh, discontinuous,  unrepeatable, and unpredictable! It always comes with big shocks! It is just Mind that is in constant struggle to create a continuity around it, to create a meaning and history around it! For example, a tree, a person, a bird keeps changing and it is only in Mind that they are treated as unchanging and fixed objects.

A person who becomes angry and then happy and then sad, etc. are considered as the same person and even blamed for their past behavior but the Truth is that there is a complete discontinuity in Man and his psyche: The one who gets angry and the one is sad are never the same person. And they are only treated as the same by Mind.

In this sense, Mind is in fact is the enemy of the Life and does a very great job in that! It does all things possible to keep Man away from facing Life as it is!

All human goals, endeavor, honor, war, peace, etc. are just projection of the Mind, i.e., they are important because Mind is capable of pretending that they are important.

To test this: When one becomes sick, one forgets all goals and successes, etc. and notices their futility but still goes back to the same goals after recovery.

The biggest Doers and Achievers in the history all have died unfulfilled and sad and disappointed because Life is too short and once it is lost, it is lost and no way to return it!

Perhaps the biggest teacher in Life is Death! Like everything in Life it comes unpredicted and takes whatever is given to Man and makes him naked like a baby! It gives an unimaginable purity to Life!

Man is without any destiny and is left so free! Man can do whatever he wants and the only barrier is the Mind and its pressure! And it is an agony to live with so much freedom in a Life which is impossible to make sense! 

There are  only two choices possible: (1) Live in the abyss of Death (2) Go back to Mind and get self-amusement with goals, concepts, ideas, philosophies, etc. and live in a continuity which is already in Death and moves towards a final Death.

That is the main agony in Life not Life itself ... What to do? Where to go? Why?