A lot of times we keep wondering why we face so much difficulty in life...obstacle over obstacle...struggling to overcome them. Trying to figure out why...why does it all have to be so hard. Why can't and don't we have an easy life? We keep searching for answers as to what we actually want to do, never ever resting in that quest. As inquisitive souls we seek answers and are desperate to find them. The moment we find an answer to one, there's another question, another struggle that we have to deal with. What is the reason for this struggle? This eternal struggle of life?
There's an answer, an interpretation, which seemingly is plausible enough to realize our purpose.
Our soul, our self, our spirit or whatever you wish to call your 'Being', is INFINITE in nature - meaning, we are free, boundless, beyond space or time, there's no beginning to our selves and no end. We are infinity itself in its purest form, that is, without the body. And our body, an accumulation of matter and substance, is FINITE, meaning, it only serves as a tangible medium for our shapeless soul, our formless self, the true 'Being' within.
So think about this for a second. What will happen when something so powerful, so vast, so vast as infinity, that is, our SOUL is put into something as small, as finite as our body? Yes, there's a conflict...not just a conflict, a struggle that starts right from the moment when the soul enters the germ cell in the womb all the way to when the body dies. So it is a struggle much bigger than anything we see tangibly, because this kind of struggle is invisible, unseen, unrealized by our conscious selves. So when we feel like doing something OUT OF THE WORLD, we feel confined, trapped and are bursting with emotion to do it. The ones among us, that realize that we can DO IT, actually get closer to doing it or even succeed. We keep trying, struggling to become our EXPANDED SELF, that is, our TRUE SELF, which leads to infinity.
We are born to be free, liberated from our minds or bodies that trap us although the body is that which gives us a finite shape. So what is the lesson here? Just be yourself, just try and be whatever you imagine yourself to be, because that is the truth. Reach out, become your Expanded Self, don't confine your thinking to what you think only your body can do. Never compromise on what you can achieve...because inside your finite body, is your infinite self, the true you.
This is not something that I just concocted out of the blue, but rather my interpretation from the teachings of Swami Ramakrishnananda in his booklet, The Universe and Man, a beautifully compiled thought process.
