THE ULTIMATE GOAL

What do I desire most???
Freedom? Peace? Love? Lucre? Fame? Fortune? Beauty? The list is endless almost as long as the realms of this universe…………….but the guiding factors are essentially the same………….the satisfaction of the self or the desire to define find and carve the self as per our personal ideal.
What is the personal ideal? Do they vary according to our personal idiosyncrasies and temperamental differences or abide by a uniform TYPE, since we all are essentially made from the same mould?
Believe me my friends these are questions all of us have asked ourselves at some point of time in our lives, and looked for the answers most often unsuccessfully…

Today I’ve come here with a purpose that was predestined to happen and which the universe has conspired to make happen.
What is the purpose of my being?
I, you and every individual is a part of the ever rolling order of events that enable us to partake of the magic and beauty of life both in this transient world as well as the other world.

It’s the chosen few who are lucky enough to experience this. And in being lucky we have to make sure that we justify and judiciously utilize this opportunity.
We have to power to make our mark in life and must not allow………

“Time like an ever rolling stream
Bears all its sons away
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.”

Some like Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Mozart and Davinci live on through their art, which was an expression of their freedom or probably the best way they could express their passionate intensities.
But does one have to be a Nadia, an Abraham Lincoln a mother Teresa or a Gandhi to acquire that freedom.
What makes perfectly ordinary men and women rise above the ashes of materialism like the phoenix, gain stature of awesome proportions and in the bargain our respect?
Aren’t we all capable of such feats or have we laid and defined mental boundaries which have clipped our wings.
There is a Jonathan Livingston Seagull in each one of us.
It’s only for us to find him and nurture him.

Abraham Maslow and his theory of the hierarchy of needs will hold immense favour with the rational individuals of this world who feel the need to clinically dissect a problem and then define solutions.
He ranked our needs as individuals in the increasing order of “urgency”.
First the basic needs of an individual need to be satisfied before he can think of anything else.

Basic needs are physiological needs, safetly needs, belongingness needs, and esteem needs (it is the feeling of moving up in the world, wanting recognition and having few doubts about oneself).
Higher order needs are Cognitive needs (like learning for the purpose of learning alone), aesthetic needs (at peace, more curious about the working of things), Self-actualization needs (knowing exactly who you are, where you are going and what you want to accomplish-a state of well -being) and finally, Self Transcendence (visionary intuition, altruism and so on).
Our societies are still deeply entrenched in the warp of the basic needs .I’m not saying that we skip the lower order needs and straight away take a giant leap to the self-actualization phase.

No! That’s not humanly possible. Or even if it were I wouldn’t think that would justify our existence. We are meant to be here to discharge our earthly duties as best as we can. Fulfill our needs and obligations. Personally I rather admire a person who is discharges his worldly duties loves lives and goes through all the stages of life with the dream of self actualization, towards which he is working continuously rather that one who isolates himself from the world and all it holds.
I’d rather weep, laugh, sing, dance, love, hate, and feel a multitude of all those emotions that celebrate my being a human. But more importantly when I walk through the sands of time I want to ensure that I have been instrumental in the attainment of that eternal goal for others too.

One doesn’t need to be Christ or Buddha to attain freedom. We can each find it in the obscurity of our mundane day to day lives. The real problem is…….
Are we ready to open our eyes and look at what so obviously stares at us?