The demise of a close one in the prime of life can be dev­as­tat­ing to any­one -even to some­one who has been a teacher of pos­i­tiv­ity in life.  With the re­cent pass­ing away of her hus­band Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, the au­thor -Harpreet Kaur is work­ing hard to un­earth the mean­ing of life. With the back­ing of her hus­band’s love and eter­nal warmth, his ever-smil­ing face in front of her, she does a re­mark­able tryst with life in this piece which flows from her heart. 

IN A SEED THERE IS LIFE -In that Life, there is Death and more Life. It is a cir­cle of life and death. There is no start and end to it. So then How, When, Where was life cre­ated? What is LIFE? Is it the same for every­one or dif­fer­ent for dif­fer­ent peo­ple?

Is Life, ac­qui­si­tion of knowl­edge, or re­la­tion­ships, or a con­tin­u­ous process of learn­ing-growth and change, or about liv­ing joy­fully, or self-con­trol, or is it full of ab­sur­dity where each one of us is try­ing to find mean­ing ac­cord­ing to one’s own value, or it is just a jour­ney from womb to tomb?

The ma­jor­ity of us are search­ing for the mean­ing of life through ma­te­ri­al­ism. We are stuck in the lower three lev­els of the Maslow hi­er­ar­chy of needs. We never can rise above that. This has led to large-scale dis­sat­is­fac­tion and men­tal ill­ness.

We all plan and work to­wards a cer­tain way of life, but the re­al­ity is these are un­cer­tain times. The world has been turned up­side down by Covid19 and its ef­fects can be seen not only in every home but world­wide. Thou­sands of peo­ple have died and are dy­ing every day, many are deal­ing with on­go­ing health com­pli­ca­tions, in­comes have been af­fected, di­vorce rates have gone up and stress and anx­i­ety have in­creased many folds. 

Our life has turned out dif­fer­ent than what we had ex­pected and planned. Gone are times when we vis­ited friends and fam­ily, hugged each other, held hands, or en­joyed a meal to­gether. It is not sur­pris­ing that many peo­ple liv­ing a ‘Happy Life’ not so long ago now worry about life and the fu­ture. 

It is ironic how our lives have been turned up­side down in­stantly by a virus that we can’t even see. So, life can­not be planned -we did not cre­ate it and we can­not con­trol it.

It is ironic how our lives have been turned up­side down in­stantly by a virus that we can’t even see. So, life can­not be planned -we did not cre­ate it and we can­not con­trol it.

All liv­ing be­ings that are born, have to die and that is the law of the uni­verse. 

The ques­tion is what am I sup­posed to do? Just stand there and watch life go­ing by help­lessly, feel dis­ap­pointed, waste an in­or­di­nate time mourn­ing on plans that did not work out and on things that I lost. Al­ter­na­tively, I can work on my thoughts, ac­cept life’s sur­prises, cher­ish the small mo­ments and live in the NOW be­cause life is a per­pet­ual tran­scen­dence al­ways mov­ing into the fu­ture. 

Life is like a two-sided coin. Life is hap­pi­ness and sad­ness, joy and suf­fer­ing, cre­ativ­ity and de­struc­tion, beau­ti­ful and ugly, youth and old age, life and death.

Life is like a two-sided coin. Life is hap­pi­ness and sad­ness, joy and suf­fer­ing, cre­ativ­ity and de­struc­tion, beau­ti­ful and ugly, youth and old age, life and death. You choose which side you want to be, de­spite its un­cer­tain­ties and frag­ile­ness. To­day we have the op­por­tu­nity to pause, re­flect, and re­think. It is time to find a pur­pose and not just sur­vive. It is time to find and give mean­ing to our ex­is­tence. 

While there can be many pur­poses to life, ac­cord­ing to Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji,

ਭਈ ਪਰਾਪਤਿ ਮਾਨੁਖ ਦੇਹੁਰੀਆ ॥
You have been blessed with this hu­man body.

ਗੋਬਿੰਦ ਮਿਲਣ ਕੀ ਇਹ ਤੇਰੀ ਬਰੀਆ ॥
This is your chance to meet the Lord of the Uni­verse.

ਅਵਰਿ ਕਾਜ ਤੇਰੈ ਕਿਤੈ ਨ ਕਾਮ ॥
Other ef­forts are of no use to you.

ਮਿਲੁ ਸਾਧਸੰਗਤਿ ਭਜੁ ਕੇਵਲ ਨਾਮ ॥੧॥
Join­ing the Saadh San­gat, the Com­pany of the Holy, med­i­tate on the Naam, the Name of the Lord. ||1||

So, the pur­pose of our life is to live a God-cen­tered life. The Gu­rus stressed liv­ing within this world and con­nect­ing with uni­ver­sal en­ergy at the same time. They did not en­cour­age shun­ning fam­ily life and avoid­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Within the fam­ily, one comes face to face with the five vices –Kaam -lust, Krodh -wrath, Lobh -greed, Moh-at­tach­ment and Ahankar -ego. The Gu­rus stressed that we use the plat­form of the fam­ily to over­come these five vices and start prac­tis­ing Seva -self­less ser­vice, Sim­ran -a med­i­ta­tion on God’s Name and Re­mem­brance of God and Veechar -di­a­logue and dis­cus­sion. 

The in­flu­ence of these five vikars-vices weaken our con­nec­tion with the Di­vine and bring in Hau­mai -ego. Sikhism guides us to trans­form them:

Kaam is deep, ex­ten­sive de­sire, lust, and it can be over­come by be­ing in the pre­sent mo­ment and ho­n­our­ing the in­sti­tu­tion of mar­riage. 

Krodh is rage or un­con­trolled anger. It should be chan­nelled against in­jus­tice and in help­ing oth­ers.

Lobh is greed. Rather than hav­ing greed for ma­te­r­ial things, have lobh for Gu­ru’s teach­ings.

Moh is at­tach­ment. In­stead of be­ing at­tached to peo­ple or fam­ily, be at­tached to Guru.

Ahankar is ego. One should iden­tify one­self with the Guru and his teach­ings, rather than ac­com­plish­ments, sta­tus, wealth, pos­ses­sions, etc.

The pur­pose of every hu­man life is to con­nect with God-

ਆਪਿ ਜਪਹੁ ਅਵਰਾ ਨਾਮੁ ਜਪਾਵਹੁ ॥
Chant the Naam your­self and in­spire oth­ers to chant it as well.
                                                                   Raag Gauri, Page 288 -Guru Granth Sahib

Be­ing con­scious of this as the be-all and end-all of life will en­sure that we con­quer the five vices, stay in touch with God, and do what He de­sires us to do. 

Ti­tle im­age cour­tesy: the­hansin­dia.com

Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia, the wife of late Ka­mal Jit Singh Ahluwalia, is a cor­po­rate coach and men­tor, a ma­jor in eco­nom­ics, a pub­lic speaker on cor­po­rate af­fairs and an ex­pert ad­vi­sor in Em­pow­er­ment, En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Re­la­tion­ship Man­age­ment and Ado­les­cence chal­lenges.