Life is much more than a race

Just imagine, you are driving on a highway on your new car. You are in high spirits, enjoying the comforts of soft cushioned seats, listening to your favorite music, appreciating awesome scenery on both sides of highway and thanking the almighty for all his blessings. Life is beautiful, you are enjoying the journey and you have covered more than half a distance.

Suddenly, you saw a Mercedes zooming ahead of you at high speed. Not only one, but many others are getting ahead of you. You assumed that it’s a race and you have to get ahead of these guys. Now, you stared peddling at full speed as per the capacity of your car. Under pressure, you started ignoring the rules of the road as all of your attention is to get ahead in the race. Not only that even if your car is getting minor dents on the way, you are ignoring that. You are no more appreciating the scenery. Instead all of your focus is now on winning the race. Same journey that you were enjoying before has become a tiring endeavor.  

Remember in reality, there was no race. Everyone was going at their own predestined pace but your thoughts made it a contest. During this imaginary race, not only you forgot to enjoy the journey, but we also lost track of our destination. Most of us are participating in this race without any predefined goals – in an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit of wealth, power and happiness.  We just continue in the race without knowing the destination.       

During our childhood, we used to care less about others. We used to always remain happy and gay. As we grew up, from the school days onward we were told that there is a race. As we grew up, we also imagined that there is a race going on. Instead of giving importance to our discrimination, we entered into that race or a competition. This imaginary race started with a pressure on us to get good grades, then get into good college, good job, best wife, grand house, most luxurious car and so on. This self-defeating, pointless race continues till we end up for a long long sleep.

Only a true seeker who gives importance to his own discriminative abilities can come out of this race. This is the goal of spirituality – to introduce you to the beautiful aspect of your journey. Spiritual exploration of a seeker also clarifies the purpose of life and introduces him or her to the real destination. On the path of Self exploration, a true seeker begins to appreciate the blessings of life and begins to enjoy the journey.  

Dharam te nivrati, nivrati te gyana;

Gyan te pave param pad nirvana ||

Translation:

Spirituality leads to dispassion; dispassion leads to true knowledge;

True knowledge leads to the supreme state of Nirvana.