Self-Improvement- :: Meaning and Purpose of Life

October 1, 2007 — Suriyodayam

What could be, in a nutshell, the meaning and purpose of life? What could be that philosophy which when lived can take man from manhood to supermanhood and to Godhood?

In simple terms, it may be said that by enhancing the ‘unifying’ and ‘universalising’ forces in his life, man can move from imperfection to perfection. The former is the ultimate goal of all disciplines, austerities, sadhanas or yoga, that is, centralizing and focusing the vital energies in us bringing them under control and thus strengthening and ennobling and integrating one’s personality. It is only then that the inner potentialities can be brought to manifest. The second is to channelise the energy thus accumulated for expansion, fulfillment and growth, directed towards serving everything in the universe.

Swami Vivekananda puts it as “involution followed by evolution”. In his own inimitable way he related it to human life as “internal contemplation followed by external service.” Again, this principle forms the backbone of the ideal of “renunciation and service”.

To a person in whom these two forces have been harmonized, the whole creation is nothing but a grand display of these forces of unification and universalisation. This is the very secret of Nature; this is the science of sciences. This cosmic force operates from the gigantic galaxies to the invisible atom – from ant to Brahma – as they put it in our scriptures. This cycle of matter to energy conversion goes on eternally.

What could be the role of man in this great universal drama? To understand that, he has only to look around again to Nature and her working.

There is the great sun illuminating the entire world and filling it up with its light energy. It must have taken millions of years of condensation and concentration to create the dense matter within it before it turn out to be an almost infinite source of energy burning itself off – sacrificing itself to serve the creation for centuries to come. Look at the trees around. What are they for? The pigments in the plant world only can capture effectively the immense amount of light energy falling on the earth and convert it into all these forms of energy, food, fuel, and so on, by which man can make his life beautiful.

So much man realize his place and role in this vast creation. As a potential source of divinity, he has to convert himself to be an instrument to capture the divine energy, condense, concentrate, focus and centralize unto himself as much as of these positive cosmic divine forces and through him route them back into the universe, to complete the cycle. In short, he must learn to make himself an instrument in the divine play.

How can man attract this supra-human forces unto himself? Just as one pure tiny crystal can attract to itself like molecules in a saturated solution, grow and expand, so can man expand his speck of divinity and make it operative as a divine force. Through renunciation of all the unwanted dissipating forces within him, through the power of his self-will, sadhana and surrender, he can in this very life manifest divinity.

Excerpt from the Chapter “Mother, upon thee I meditate” in the book “Snake and Ladder” (A Few Drops from the Nectar of Bhagavad Gita) by Dr.M.LakshmiKumari, President, Vivekananda Kendra.

Grateful thanks t0 Dr. M.LakshmiKumari and Vivekananda Kendra.