We are endowed with life. Life lends us a lifetime. A lifetime of walk. Distance between our embodiment and disembodiment is life. That distance we have to walk. That is the normal understanding that we all have. So life is the path. The path on which we are walking. We are walking on the path of life. Life is the only path. In fact, to say that path is not the goal is true because walking is the goal of life.
Lao Tzu says a thousand miles journey begins with one step. If life is the path, the step is most important because in that step you step. Step to step you complete the journey. Then the step is the goal. Stepping on the path of life is in fact reaching the goal of life.
Man always thinks in terms of reaching somewhere. He wants to follow a goal. People are engaged in all kinds of activities to reach somewhere. But the goal of life is in the step of life. In fact, life is the goal of life. Step is the heart of life, the path of life. We are on the path. Life is flowing. Flowing is the path of life and we flow with the flow of life that is the goal of life. Man is fragmented. He wants to go in all directions. All directions will take you to one path. That one path is life which is the goal of life.
Life gives you all types of experiences. It gives you fear it gives you joy. It gives you love it gives you ego. It gives you happiness. It gives you unhappiness. It gives you bliss. If there is unhappiness life will bring happiness next. Experiences shape you to be ripe in life. Life makes you ripe. That ripe so you understand your path. You need a path till you are not ripe. When ripe you don’t need a path. You are the path. Your life is the path. The path is not outside of you.
But we are conditioned to think that we have to pass this life. When a person dies it is said someone passed away. So whether the person has passed away or the life has passed away from that person. It is said that man has to pass a long life. Therefore, something needs to be done for passing this life. Because you don’t know. So you have to engage yourself in activity. Activity is very important. But all activities can happen on the canvas of inactivity. Inactivity is the mother of activity.
Lao Tzu is right that life is not a journey that you yourself walk up to death. That you have to carry your own cross to be crucified. Jesus did it. But Jesus carried the cross blissfully and when crucified Jesus said, ‘O Lord forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing’. This means that Jesus prayed to forgive them because they were ignorant ones who thought that one could be killed by crucifying and therefore, Jesus did resurrect on the third day. This tells us that the basic thing is not this life but the one who watches life embody and disembody. The one who is beyond embodiment and disembodiment both resurrects.
We keep searching and priests ask us to follow the path set out by organised religions. Rituals, dogmatic principles, morality becomes the path of life. In fact, society wants its subjects to be moral, and disciplined. Rituals make you disciplined so you don’t raise doubts or questions on the faith you are asked to follow. Because you are conditioned not to be blasphemous. Society has invented morality as a parameter of religiosity. Being moral is a flowering of the one who has given up the outer shell. Morality is a flowering of the inner being. But you are conditioned to practise morality and, therefore, morality does not flower in you as grace. Deep down you will not be moral by practising morality and religiosity.
Morality is the opposite of immorality. Morality is defined by immorality. The one who understands the path of life goes beyond morality and immorality. One becomes amoral—a state out of morality and immorality which have a society in them. Therefore you cannot define Krishna or Jesus in the parlance of morality. They are beyond morality and immorality and that state of flowering of morality will never happen by practice.
Life is not a journey and life is not a path. If the path was there one would have walked past it. Buddha realised that the path that he walked on was not the path. Six years of sitting under the tree revealed to him that meditation is not the goal. The moment he gave up the last desire meditation by which he wanted to be enlightened, Gautam became the Buddha. Buddha means the awakened one.
You have to begin living your life. Live in all its colours. Jump in all rainwaters of life. Travel in all boats of life. Live in the life. Be in the life. Be the exuberance of life. Drink all the wines of life. Smell all the fragrances of life. Rejoice in all songs of life. Dance all rhythms of life. Life is in the eyes of the beholder. Life is in the heart of the one who is throbbing. Let your heart say that what it wants to say. Let it be what it wants to be.
Let you be what you are ought to be. You are ought to be what you are to be. If you wish to be someone else. You wish to do something else. You wish to practise some path. Obsession of the path will make you miss life. If you are not being what you are to be then life becomes anxiety and pain.
In fact, you are not living life. Life is living you. You are that canvas on which the film of life is being screened. The film of life is screened before you. It is going on every moment. Moment to moment see the film of life screened. Happiness comes, be happy. Unhappiness comes, be unhappy. But don’t become one with that what is being screened. If you want to emote, then emote. But see yourself emote. If you become the film ego becomes the film. And you become ego. Because ego cannot be by itself. You are needed to be ego.
The film of life screened becomes you. In fact film of life screened on your canvas is passing you by. It begins when you see it as a small child, it goes on. You find the child that you were born as become youth and humble middle-aged to the oldie. In fact, film of life screens on your canvas. Your canvas is the screen. You are never child or youth or old. You are that which you are the same as you once were there as you are.
The film passes you by and you find stood there for years. This film is over in 80-90 years. Life is not the path to follow. Life is to watch a film of life. Enjoy it. Rejoice in it. Tap in it. Dance in every song of the film of life. Be the rhythm of life.
Krishna says that you are not the doer. You are doing the same with your life. You are not the doer in this life. You are the watcher. Watch it by being it. Life is the film that is being screened on your screen. You are the screen and not the film. If you thought you are the ego, you become the film actor. Understand you are neither the film actor nor the film you are the screen on which the film of life is being screened.
The author is a spiritual teacher and he can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com
Life is not the path to follow. Life is to watch a film of life. Enjoy it. Rejoice in it. Tap in it. Dance in every song of the film of life. Be the rhythm of life.