The Purpose of Life - Maharaj Charan Singh

The Lord, when he made the creation, divided it into eighty-four lakh categories of life forms. The sages of ancient India accounted for the categories as follows: Thirty lakh kinds of plants in the plant kingdom; twenty-seven lakh kinds of insects and reptiles; fourteen lakh kinds of birds; nine lakh kinds of creatures living in water; and four lakh kinds of animals, gods, goddesses, ethereal beings and human beings.

We are all prisoners in the vast prison of this world because of our karmas. We can escape from it only when our soul realizes the Lord. The gift of human life has been granted to us to enable us to escape from the cycle of recurring births and deaths. It is only in the human form that one has the unique distinction and honor of meeting the Lord. Guru Arjan says, "The Lord created the eighty-four lakh categories of life forms, and he made man the highest. Whosoever falls from this rung of the ladder will suffer pain and misery as he comes and goes in the cycle of births and deaths¹."

Life as a human being is the top rung of the ladder. If we try hard when we have the human body, we can step off the ladder and onto the roof; but if we slip we will fall headlong into the prison of this world again. Guru Arjan says:

Many lives have I had as

insects and worms,

And many lives as elephants

and fish and deer;

In many lives I have been a 

snake or a bird,

And then again I have been a tree

For lives unnumbered.

After countless ages I have

been graced

With this human life.

And now it is high time to find the Lord 2!

For endless ages we have been moving from one form of life to another. We have been plants and vegetables, insects and reptiles, fish and other water creatures, birds and animals. After a long, long time, we now have the human form and all of us should take advantage of this human body to start on the path that leads to God-realization. Maulana Rum says:

From minerals I became a plant

And then to a higher form did go:

Four hundred thousand lives have I passed

And each was better than the last 3

It is only after many ages

That one gets the human form;

If once you slip,

You never know when you will get it again⁴.

It is for this reason that the sages and seekers of India call the human body nar naraayaani deh (the body which God has made, in which he himself dwells, and in which alone he can be met). Muslim saints have called it ashraf-ul-makhlukat (the topf of the creation). Jewish holy men say that God made man in his own image. Kabir Sahib says:

Rare is the human birth,

One does not get it every time:

Even as the fruit that ripens 

And falls to the ground

To the branch again 5.

Soami Ji says:

You have got a human body

at last;

Now do something for

yourself.

Do not get inolved in this

world;

Take it as a night’s dream,

no more.

The body and the home, all

are false;

Why be consumed in

illusion⁶?

The Lord has granted us the human form so that we may do our real work. Our real work is to labor to return to our true home. This is true devotion to the Lord. This world is like an immense dream. Actually, it has no permanent reality, substance, or existence. We should not forget that all our friends and relations, our wealth and possessions, our honor and glory, are transient and fleeting. Even our body is fragile and short-lived. It will soon decay. Neither the body nor anything else will accompany us when we leave this world. The saints therefore say with great emphasis that we should not fail to make the best use of this wonderful opportunity of having a human body. Family and children, eating and drinking, we have had in all of our lives. The one thing that we did not have was the opportunity to practice devotion to the Lord. This is the sole purpose of human life. This is our true work. When we are born as human beings, we completely forget the purpose of life. We get so absorbed in enjoying the pleasures of the senses, in devotion to our caste, creed and country, that we have no time to think of anything else. "Eat, drink and be merry while you are here," people say, "for who knows anything about the next life⁷." This attitude makes us busy ourselves with the world and its attractions, with the result that we quite forget about the inevitability of death. This is the case even when we see our companions departing one by one never to return. We see them go empty-handed, leaving everything of the world behind. We seem to think however that death is for others and not for us. Guru Nanak describes our condition as follows:

Running about after worldly

affairs,

You have become bound to

the creation;

You have not realized Truth.

You fool, you are a slave of

the mind:

You ignore that you are

subject

To life and death⁸.

We are busy all day long working to get money, but we never pause to think about the main purpose of human life—the purpose for which God sent us here. Our own house is on fire, but we are busy trying to extinguish fires in the houses of others. Our own house is being robbed, but we are busy guarding the houses of others. We can barely carry our own heavy load, yet we serve as beasts of burden for others. Not only do we deceive ourselves, but we also deceive the world. How very foolish and ignorant we are! Soami Ji says:

How shall I describe the

doings of Kal,

Who rides with might over all;

He entraps and misleads all

creatures.

Alas, no one fears death or

Yama⁹.

Kabir Sahib, speaking of the same subject, says:

What did you bring with you

when you were born?

What will you take with you

when you die?

When you came to this world

Your fists were clenched;

When you leave, your hands

will be empty.

This body is like a paper bag

Which will dissolve in a few

drops of rain;

Listen, O saints to the

words of Kabir:

Without the gift of the

Name, You will repent most

bitterly¹⁰.

We come into this world empty-handed, and empty-handed we depart. No one has come into this world bringing anything with him, nor can anyone leave it taking anything with him at the time of his departure. Our body is like a paper bag that a few drops of water can destroy. And at the time of death our body will be burned or buried.

Mahmud Ghaznavi invaded India seventeen times and carried back to Ghazni a huge amount of precious stones, gold and silver. His army brought bloodshed and destruction wherever they went, leaving behind countless widows and orphans. When the time of his death drew near, he ordered his court officials to put all the booty he had brought from India on exhibition in a hall in his palace. When this was done and he was carried slowly around the hall on his bed, he sighed deeply and with tears streaming down his cheeks, he exclaimed, "Nothing of this wealth, which I committed endless cruelties and atrocities to gain, will go with me now. After my death, please let my empty hands be shown to my people, so they may learn a lesson from them."

Christ says in the Bible "Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: For him hath God the Father sealed¹¹." That is to say, instead of spending all our time trying to amass wealth and things of the world, we should work to gather the priceless wealth of the Name or the Word, which never perishes. The treasure of the Word that I will give you, says Christ, is indestructible and everlasting, for I give it to you from the Lord and not from myself. Soami Ji says:

After endless wandering

You obtained the human

form;

But mind and senses united

And destroyed you¹².

All the attachments that we have with the world are a result of the fact that we are in a material body. When we are in such a body, friends and relatives, wealth and possessions, castes and countries—all seem to be our own; at least we try to make them our own. The moment we depart from the body, we become complete strangers to all of these worldly attachments. As long as we are in the body, therefore, we should make it do our real work. We must meditate upon God, Soami Ji says:

Come, my friend,

To your true home.

Why live in an alien land?

Attend now to your own

work;

Do not get caught up

In others’ tasks.

Remember the Master’s

Name

As you proceed through

life—

It is the only wealth worth

securing.

All the colors of the world Are

sullied;

Be cleansed of them,

I implore you¹³.

Just study history and you will see that all great and famous kings and rulers, brave warriors and conquerors, ruthless dictators and despots, whose very names gave rise to terror in the land, are now no more. Dust they were and to dust they returned. We look upon their graves with scorn. There is no doubt that we will meet the same fate. Today we trample their bones under our feet, but the time will soon come when others will trample upon our bones. At the time of their cremation, their ashes are blown by the wind into our eyes; at no distant date our own ashes will be blown into other people’s eyes.

Saints awaken us from a long, deep sleep. They say that we should always remember that the time will come when nothing of this world will be our own, when no one will come to our help, when we will be left alone and the ‘bird of life’ will have flown away. Then all our friends and relatives will be left behind. They will not even know when or from where the angels of death have come down upon us or where they will take us. There is little that they will be able to do except weep. Our relatives and friends, our mansions and possessions, our honor and glory, all desert us when the angels of death take us away.

We are bound to each other by karmic strings. We come here to settle our karmic debits and credits. We come to this world as parents and children, as friends and relatives. But as soon as our karmic accounts for this life are settled we depart, each going his own way. This world is like an inn in which we all gather together for the night, but at daybreak we all go our different ways. We are like birds that take shelter together in a tree in the evening, but with the first light of dawn, each flies off on its own way.

Just as the platform of a railway station is crowded with people before a train leaves but is deserted after its departure, even so is our family life and all our other worldly activities: They all come to an end when we depart. Again, the world is like the stage of a theater on which each actor plays his own role and then makes his exit. During the play there is a king, a queen and a villain, but as soon as their allotted role is over, they leave the stage and there is neither king nor queen nor villain. All of us come into this world to settle our karmic accounts, and as soon as they are liquidated our ties with the world are broken.

When we die, our relatives are sad, but the new family into which we are born rejoices at our arrival. If we have forgotten all the relatives of our many past lives, how can we ever remember for all time our present family, for whom we work so hard and whom we love so much? Guru Nanak says:

Father, mother, all that we

own,

Even the body itself,

Are stricken with the disease

of death;

And all our kith and kin so

dear,

They too will be struck down

by death¹⁴.

Our father and mother have to depart from this world and leave us behind. And everything that we see around us in this world will remain behind us when we depart. Nothing will go with us. All our relatives and even our body, of which we take such good care, will not go with us beyond. Soami Ji says:

Wife and son and grandson,

None of these will help

The double flow of breath

Continues unbroken; one day

This hide will be empty.

Remember, this body is like

The water carrier’s leather

bag:

The water of breath

Is continuously flowing out¹⁵.

None of our relatives can be of any real help at the time of our death. Regardless of how full of water a tank may be, if you attach a pipe and open the valve, the tank will empty. Similarly, our body is a reservoir of breaths. As long as we breathe, we rush around in the world doing things for one another. What do people not do for the sake of filling their stomach? But we completely forget the time when this reservoir of breaths is going to be empty. At our death, people will send telegrams and make telephone calls, and relatives will gather together and consign this body, which was loved so much, either to fire or to earth.

Soami Ji explains this with a beautiful example: "As long as a hide is filled with air, it floats on the surface of the river, and people can cross the river with its help. But as soon as the air runs out, it sinks to the bottom of the river, and whoever is then clinging to it will sink to the bottom too16." As long as there is breath in our body, we go on doing our worldly work, and people depend on us for passing their life; but when all the air comes out of the hide—that is, when our body has no more life in it—then all the people who were depending on this body begin to weep and wail in panic. Soami Ji points out that "family and friends are all selfish; without wealth, none of them will come near you¹⁷." We become so involved, so attached to family, relations and friends that we completely forget the Lord.

Saints have only one purpose in giving these examples: to make us aware of death and to urge us to complete our spiritual journey beforehand so that we may reach our true home.

1. Adi Granth, Guru Nanak, p. 466.

2. Adi Granth, Guru Angad, p. 466.

3. Adi Granth, Guru Nank, p. 1009.

4. Adi Granth, Guru Amar Das, p. 123.

5. The source was not available at the time of printing.

6. Bible, Matthew 19:24.

7. Bulleh Shah, Kulliat-e-Bulleh Shah, p. 88.

8. Kabir, Kabir Sahib ki Shabdavali, 1:48.

9. Bible, Matthew 10:36.

10. Bible, Matthew 12:50.

11. Adi Granth, Guru Nanak, p.6.

12. Adi Granth, Guru Amar Das, p. 1046.

13. Kabir, Kabir Sahib ki Shabdavali, 1:2.

14. Soami Ji, Sar Bachan Poetry, 24:1.

15. Charandas, Charandas ki Bani (Allahabad: Belvedere Printing Works, 1978), 1:16.

16. Adi Granth, Guru Arjan, p. 641.

17. Adi Granth, Guru Arjan, p. 641.

© "The Path" by Maharaj Charan Singh, published (2000) by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, Punjab 143 204. Reprinted with permission.

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