Make the Best use of Your Lifetime

There was a man who was walking along a riverbank before daybreak, not knowing how to spend his time until sunrise. In the dim light he stumbled upon a bag containing stones. He sat down and started taking the stones out of the bag and throwing them into the river one by one all through the night. The first rays of the rising sun gave him a shock. He stared at the last stone that was left. What he held in his hand was no ordinary stone, but a gleaming diamond. The bag he held had been filled of diamonds and he had just emptied it! You can imagine the plight of this man. He had simply thrown away so much wealth. Are we too similarly throwing away our precious wealth?

Nature blesses us with the exact same amount of precious wealth in our life – 1440 to be precise. The 1440 precious diamonds that nature gifts us each morning are nothing but the minutes in 24 hours. Every morning we wake up with our pockets filled with the wealth of these precious minutes. Be it man or woman, child, youth, or aged, rich or poor, each one of us has this gift, this wealth of time every single day. Interestingly very few of us gather a complete view of how we spend this wealth of time, our entire lifetime in this school called Earth.

Let’s take a quick look. We all would agree that we spend almost eight to nine hours at the workplace, maybe even more for some us. Students spend this time in studying for their future. Another eight hours are spent in sleep, two hours in having our meals and to freshen up. Two hours on entertainment. With all this we are hardly left with just four hours. However, if we observe closely we will find that we spend these remaining hours in anger, conflict, depression, worry, and wishful imagination.

How would it be if we could spend the remaining 20% of the time (the four hours) trying to figure out the real purpose of life, rather than spending time in conflicts, anger and other such emotions. How can we achieve the happiness that is permanent and doesn’t dependent on anything?What could be the key to lasting happiness?

We may argue that we hardly have time to understand the real purpose or true happiness of life. It may seem to be of lesser importance as we have to complete out daily chores or activities that we need to adhere to. We all feel there isn’t enough time in the day to complete all. But let’s consider an example that will help us understand the importance of spending our precious time in knowing why we have come on earth. What is the real purpose of life?

Suppose that a man is using a faulty calculator for his work, which wrongly calculates 2 + 2 = 5 instead of 2 + 2 = 4. If he continues to use such a calculator, all his calculations will go wrong and his work will be ineffective. Ironically, when you try to tell him that his calculator is faulty and that he should first repair the calculator before using it, he tells you that he does not have the time to repair the calculator. All his work will suffer if he gives it for repairs! Having said this, he continues to use the same faulty calculator for his work. But we know that it will not serve the purpose.

Can you see the connection?We exactly do the same thing with our life. We give similar responses too. When we are asked to invest some time to understand the real purpose of life, we say that we don’t have the time. We reason by saying that we have many other important priorities like earning money, buying a home, looking after the needs of the family, ensuring that the children get good education and settle down in life the and so on. The list is never-ending. By doing so, we continue to lead our life just like using a faulty calculator for doing all our calculations. Our values of life and the key purpose for which we are alive is compromised. The result at the end will be that all our calculations will eventually go wrong. In other words, we will never attain true and lasting fulfillment in our lives. Agree that we should certainly fulfill our responsibilities, but we should also set aside some time on a regular basis to understand the real purpose of life and allow that to permeate into our daily living.

There comes a moment in life, when this precious gift of time on Earth comes to an end. It is only at the very end of life that most people realize that they never lived. Most of them spend their entire life caught up in various false and limiting beliefs and die with these beliefs without knowing the real truth. Many don’t know the purpose of life on Earth.

The point is that we need to understand some vital truths about life before that last moment arrives. Let’s commit to ourselves to set aside some time of the day or week in the pursuit of truth. Let’s pledge together to seek God, seek truth. Be sure that this investment will surely prove to be of immense worth in life.After all it depends on US whether we made the most of the time we had on Earth.

WHY SEEK GOD EVERY DAY

People claim that they have been seeking truth or seeking God since many years. But the question is whether this quest is going on each and every day? Do we remember God only when we’re faced with difficulties? If we truly desire to attain the Truth, then the quest for God should relentlessly go on each single day. By force of habit, the mind may question the benefits of spending time everyday for this purpose.

Here’s an example: A little girl was pleased to receive a set of four handkerchiefs from her friend on her birthday. However, during her birthday party, these spotless handkerchiefs got stained with paint that was spilled by accident. The little girl felt glum and began to shed tears. A great painter who happened to be in the party went up to the little girl and said, stop crying and bring me a paintbrush.’ With just a few strokes of the paintbrush, he transformed the colored stains into pretty flowers, bringing back the smile on the girl’s face.

The question is: Has the greatest painter, who has painted the universe, touched our lives as yet? It requires the touch of this painter to transform the stains that we see in our lives into flowers. For this, the quest for God should be pursued every day. The more sincere and relentless our seeking, the stronger the conviction we develop that problems come, not to trouble us, but rather to make us stronger and present the gift of life. When our life is touched by the divine painter, all our problems turn into priceless gifts.

Summary:
Every morning when we wake up, our pockets are filled with the wealth of 1440 precious minutes. Be it man or woman, child, youth, or aged, each one of us is gifted this wealth of time every day. Interestingly very few of us gather a complete view of how we spend our lifetime in this school called earth.We must allot at least some time for the real purpose of life – the quest for God. There comes a moment, when this precious gift of time on Earth comes to an end. It is only at the very end of life that most people realize that they never lived. Many do not come to know the purpose of life on Earth.Many go through their entire life being caught up in various false and limiting beliefs. They die with these beliefs without knowing the truth. We need to understand some vital truths about life before that moment arrives. We should schedule some period of time at least on a weekly basis to devote to the pursuit of truth. This investment will prove to be of immense worth in our life.