Life per se!

It is said that in the last minutes of life, just before the brain dies, a flashback of memories of the whole life starts. I wonder how it feels to relive all those good and bad moments in a few minutes, perhaps seconds. Is it like watching a movie where you are in the main lead? The bigger question is, does it end on a happy note? I guess if you've made some memories worth recalling at the death bed, it'll definitely end on a happy note.

Death is the only inevitable 'natural' thing, which the humans thankfully have not been able to conquer till now. It cannot be averted and is bound to happen when you run out of your breath. But the question arises, are we living 'naturally'? Have we not forgotten the very purpose of life? 

Yes, the purpose of the life is to be happy! Life per se is a journey. You could choose to rush to the end line or could slowly walk through it, enjoying the spectacles it offers. You might finish it first but remember there is no medal for finishing it first, as it is not a race, it is a journey. The ones, who choose to heed the spectacles of life, are the ones collecting memories for the culminating flashback. 

I would say "live in peace to die in peace". I know it is easier said, than done. The time we are living in, is making us rush through our lives and the bigger problem is that it'll only exacerbate. Getting up early in the morning to start the daily routine and working till late at night. This sums up the story of an average person today. It had been okay if this was to continue for a small period of time, but no, this vicious cycle has no end! It is sucking up the life out of life! 

I do understand that it is important to earn but only to meet the ends. Save the rest of time to live life. You would argue that only the ones who have enough can afford to live the kind of life I am suggesting. But let me tell you I am acquainted with people who earn big money but are fed up with life they live. They have everything in life but peace of mind. Yes, strive for making it big but not at the cost of joy of life itself and thereby forgo some of the non-essentials in life.

Start collecting memories today itself. On a personal note I would love a flashback of my memories of me and my Nanu(maternal grandfather) hanging out together. I would love to recall all the beautiful landscapes that I would have seen by then. Also the fun of the family functions and outings with friends, so on and so forth. I will not waste a jiffy on recalling the stress at my workplace, but yes, I would like to cherish all the successful ventures there for one final time. 

So, as an advice to everyone out there who is too much stressed out, and thinks earning money and owning luxury cars and big bungalows is the ultimate telos of life, I would say, sir you're wrong! Take out time from your tight schedule to contemplate on what you actually wanted to do when you were a child. Do all the mad things of the world. Go out there for bungee jumping while listening to a qawwalli and all such sort of odd combinations because life doesn't wait. When the flashback ends, die with a smile on your face, instead of regretting. And remember the old saying “You only live once!!”

Cyclicity of life and death

Sine Graph

On meticulously examining a Sine/cosine graph, one realizes how it just carries on from one crest to trough and then to subsequent crest, rising from the abscissa (x-axis) to its highest point, and then descending to its nadir, intersecting abscissa in between. This pattern goes on. The highest and lowest points have a limit but there is no such condition on X-axis. Similar patterns are observed in the physical world too. The hot air, upon heating, rises from the equator and reaches the tropopause. It then starts to cool and sink down at the tropics, only to rise again from the sub-tropical region and finally sink at the polar region, thereby regulating the temperature of earth. 

The theory of Geographical Cycle of Erosion propounded by W.M. Davis and later tweaked by Walther Penck, presents a similar viewpoint for land forms existing on earth. It is hard to believe that the formation and destruction of such huge land forms is also a function of structure, process and time. They emanate from mother earth due to internal tectonic disturbances and keep uplifting till the highest point. Once the highest point is reached then denudation starts. No matter how humongous the structure is, it gets converted into a peneplain, though it takes millions of years.

There are many such examples apart from the ones above. Now this brings to central idea of this blog. Do life and death also follow a similar pattern? Our sages have been talking about the cycle of reincarnation since ages. We take birth as a little child who struggles to learn and adapt to this world. Then we reach the best phase of our life, the youth. We are young, active and all ready to face myriad challenges of this world. Gradually we again start losing strength and turn senile. We struggle again to adapt with the world. And then one fine day we depart leaving all the sorrows behind. Is it not similar to the Sine graph? Rising from a given point to achieve great heights, and then again falling to the same point later in time? The only thing that is not certain is - do we rise again? 

Let's assume the theory of reincarnation to be true and that we return to this world (may be in a different form), to again live yet another life cycle. But why do people talk of getting rid of this cycle? Why do they want their soul to finally coalesce into the soul of the almighty? Is it not like desiring the whole earth to turn into a featureless peneplain? Come on I want to see the mountains too. The Sine graph doesn't stop. The air doesn't stop its continuous process of rising and sinking. Yes, I agree, there are hitches and glitches at times, but then who wants to shut the whole process?

What happens when your soul meets the soul of the creator? I mean, what's next? Is it the end? There has to be another task. There is no point in ending your cycle of life if you don't have anything else to do? One cannot just wait till eternity (after submitting his soul) for time to end, not knowing, whether time actually ends. Is it not scary? I don't want to get rid of this cycle, if there is nothing else to do after that. I rather prefer taking birth again and again without breaking this continuum to perform my tasks in every birth.  

On the other hand, there has to be an end as well. Till how long can we keep taking birth to struggle again at the same place? If the non-monotonic Sine graph keeps repeating the same unhindered cycles over and over again, isn't that in itself the monotony of the graph? What is the culmination point? What is the ultimate end? Is there an end? After we have performed all the performable tasks (in millions of births), are we to repeat them? Is there any answer to these questions?

I don't know whether I'll ever find answers on the cyclicity of life and death. But one thing that I am sure about is that nature is certainly based on a lot of patterns. If you still don't believe me, start from observing days and nights, the pattern of seasons and then move on to moon and its changing shapes. Even answers to many complex questions of mathematics can be easily found out just by observing the number patterns. You will soon start believing my idea of cyclicity. But the fundamental question still remains- Can the cyclicity of life and death be proved?