In the materialistic plane one person says that the aim of his life is to achieve a particular post and then help his family members. Some other person says that the aim of his life is to serve the mankind. We appreciate the second aim as higher than the first one. The highest aim of the human life can be known only in the spiritual plane.

The sole aim of this creation is pleasing God through the entertainment. Every human being is a part of the creation and so the same aim applies to every human being also. The human being becomes fruitful if it serves the Lord and pleases the Lord through the service. Service means the sacrifice of work and sacrifice of the fruit of the work. Service is the proof of the real love.

The mother serves her child by sacrificing lot of work like giving bath, dressing etc., for years together continuously. The father serves the child by sacrificing the fruit of all his hard work to the child. It is a clear practical point that the proof of the real love is only service. If you serve your family you love your family. If you serve the entire world you love the creation. If you serve the creator, you love the creator.

It is a very simple point. Love is the attraction of mind towards any body or any thing. When the illness attacks the body you take so much care to serve your body. You love your body. Similarly you serve your father, mother, wife and children because your mind is attracted towards them. What is the first pre-requisite for this love? When you love your child, you are aware that a particular small living being is your child and you have the differentiating knowledge of your child from other children who are similar.

Similarly, when you love God you must be aware of the form of God, who must be differentiated from other forms as your child is differentiated from other children. You are identifying your child by certain special characteristics like shape of the face, voice etc; you are not recognizing your child by the clothes, which it puts on. Other children put on such clothes also. Similarly, you must distinguish the Creator from the creation and then only love the creator.

You cannot love the entire creation as the creator. Do you love all the children as your own children? Therefore, the pre-requisite of love is the true knowledge and the inseparable identifying characteristics of an object by which you get attracted towards it. Therefore, what is the real form of God? And how it differs from other forms? What are the inseparable identifying characteristics of God? The answers for these questions constitute the detailed true knowledge of God.

Only such true knowledge generates attraction and love. When you know the separate special details of Bombay, which are not seen in any other city, then only you are attracted to Bombay and like to see it. Before proceeding to the identifying true knowledge of God, you must also know the purpose of your attraction towards an object. You love your child, and there is no purpose in it. You also love a doctor when you are ill.

But that love is not real. It is not love at all. It is only artificial apparent love exhibited for a purpose. You want the doctor to help you. Therefore, true love is that when there is no purpose in it. False love is that in which purpose is present. Generally almost all the people love God because God is omni-potent. He has miraculous powers to do anything, which is impossible for any body on this earth.

When a problem comes and when one fails to solve it by all the means existing in this world, one starts loving God to solve that unique problem. Therefore, you love the position or power of God and not the God. A poet shows lot of love and appreciation on a king in his spontaneous poetry because the poet loves the power and the wealth of the king.

He expects the king to donate some land or to give him some money after being pleased with his poems. The poet does not love the person who is the king. He loves the king only. Will he write the same poems if the king looses his kingdom and becomes a beggar? In his poetry the poet praised that the king is very beautiful with sweet voice and infinite wisdom. These qualities still remain with the king even if he has become the beggar.

But the poet does not praise the same qualities of that beggar because the beggar cannot donate anything to him. The post of the king and the kingdom are separable characteristics, whereas the qualities are inseparable characteristics. You can easily identify the person by these inseparable characteristics and if your love on Him is real, you will love him whether he is a king or a beggar.

Are you not loving your son and praise him whether he serves you or not? Sita garlanded and married Rama who will be the future king of Ayodhya. The love of Sita may be on Rama only or may be on the kingdom of Ayodhya for which she can become queen or may be both put together. Rama tested her love by discarding the kingdom and by going to the forest. Sita followed Rama to the forest.

Her love was only on Rama and not on the kingdom. Ravana further tested this. Ravana offered her to become the queen. But she refused. Therefore, the love on God should be analyzed and should be decided whether God is loved or His omni-potent miraculous power is loved for our advantage. Some people want to take advantage in this world and some others want to take the advantage in the upper world so that they can be protected from the hell.

In both cases the love on God is not true. It is only the love on his associated power. Sankara says that the true love on God should not have any desire related to this world or to the upper world (Ihaamutra Phala Viragah). If the love is on the power of the God only what is the use of the real form of God or the inseparable characteristics of the God? The poet loves anybody as the king.

For him anybody on the thrown is beautiful and is very wise. In such case if the king donates the desired land or cash by seeing the poem written by a poet, the poet does not bother to see or talk with the king. Therefore, when we love God’s power for some advantage, we need not worry about His form or in seeing or talking with God. You can just chant the prayers. He responds to your prayers and your desire is fulfilled. In such case one need not see the God and the God also does not want to see his or her bloody face.

When a mother wants to see her child, she is not thinking about any advantage out of it. In fact the mother presents some cash to the son as a gift and if the son needs, she will even sell all her jewels and sacrifice for the sake of her son. Similarly, if the person is having true love on God, that person wants to see God not for any advantage, but even at the cost of disadvantage. For such person only God appears and such person only can see, talk, touch and can even live along with the God. For such persons only there is need of the enquiry of the real form of God.

The real form of God is unimaginable as said in Vedas and there is no question of seeing or talking or touching the God. Gita also says that nobody can know God (Mam tu Veda Na..). Such unimaginable God cannot be said to have a form or formless. The Creator is beyond the creation, which is a four-dimensional network of space and time along with matter and energy. The creation contains both formless items like space, energy and air and also formful items like water, earth etc.

If you say God as formful or formless, then God becomes a part of the creation and not beyond the creation. Veda says that no item in the creation including the pure awareness or life energy is God (Neti, Neti…). But there are real devotees who have real love towards God and want to see, touch, talk and live along with God for no selfish advantage either in this or in the upper world.

The God who has infinite kindness and infinite love cannot reject such real love. The God is omni-potent and can satisfy the desire of such real devotees and the real devotees are crying for such fortune of vision etc. The God is capable and the devotee deserves. Nobody can put his finger between these two. To satisfy the real devotees God comes in human form and all these four fortunes are blessed upon the real devotees.

If God comes in the form of space or energy, which is formless or in the form of statues, He cannot grant these fortunes. He can talk, touch and live with the devotees when He comes in the human form only. Only the human body can do such things as per laws of nature. The nature is His creation and the laws of nature are the rules of His own administration. He will not violate these rules except in the case of inevitable emergency.

Why should He use His special power (Maya) and talk or touch or live with you in the form of space or energy or statues? When the purpose is served through the normal routine, why are you so rigid about the abnormal way? God need not heed to the foolish rigid behaviour of some human beings. Infact they want to pray the formless God or God in the form of a statue for the sake of their selfish convenience only. You can offer food to formless God or statue and then you can eat the entire food.

You are satisfied as if you have given meals to God and at the same time not even a grain of rice is lost. There are many inconvenient losses and troubles with the human form of God. But the real devotees are not worried about such loss and infact they are happy to loose if God can enjoy by that. They feel happy when God eats that food. The mother visits her son and pays him some cash. When the son is happy with that she derives infinite happiness and does not feel it as a loss or trouble.

The mother will stay with her son and serve him day and night if necessary and feels very happy about it. Similarly, these real devotees feel happy to serve the Lord and they are happy about the loss incurred in it. Lord came to the human form as Krishna for the sake of Gopikas only and not for others. Only Gopikas could recognize Him and served the Lord by offering butter and they felt happy in such sacrifice.

They did not feel such sacrifice as loss. Krishna was not their child. But they loved Him more than their children. They did not give butter even to their own children and offered it to the Lord. Their love to God crossed even their love to their children. When such real love exists, God comes in human form and reveals His identity to you. Your love must be real and must be practically proved by the sacrifice of work (Karma Sanyasa) and sacrifice of fruit of work (Karma Phala Tyaga) as emphasized in Gita.

Sacrifice of words, mind and intelligence, which are freely supplied to you by God is like offering drinking water to the guest, which was freely supplied by the municipality. But sacrifice of work and fruit of work are like offering the meals to the guest and it is sacrifice of your hard-earned money. Of-course the meals must be associated with drinking water also and at the same time mere drinking water is almost nothing.

Sacrifice becomes complete, which is the complete proof of your real love only, when you sacrifice mind, words, intelligence, work and fruit of work. Sacrifice of words is prayer and sacrifice of mind is meditation, sacrifice of intelligence is the spiritual discussion. Therefore, meditation alone is the sacrifice of the mind i.e., supplied freely by God. Sacrifice of anything, which is hard earned by your work, is the real main sacrifice.

When the Lord exposes Himself as the source of all infinite super natural powers, all the people will run to Him with same speed and will sacrifice to their maximum. In such case you cannot differentiate the real devotee from a fraud devotee. The reason is that the super natural power attracts all the people with equal force. When acids are dissolved in water they show equal strengths because water being high polar solvent attracts the hydrogen ions from all acids equally so that their extent of ionization becomes same.

The strong acid cannot be differentiated from a weak acid. This is called as leveling effect. When the same acids are dissolved in glacial acetic acid, which is a weak solvent, the acids will ionize to different extent as per their inherent nature. When an official asks for some amount of money, all the merchants will run to him with equal speed and give that amount. In this case you cannot differentiate the real donor from the real greedy merchant.

But when a beggar begs for some money, a real donor donates whereas a greedy person refuses. The real nature of the individuals comes out in the case of the beggar only. Similarly, when God comes in human form and exhibits the super natural powers all the people rush to Him with equal speeds and show equal love on God. Even if God recognizes the real devotee by His power and rewards him, the other devotees will find fault with the God.

They will argue that even though the extent of devotion is equal, the Lord showed partiality. Therefore, God in human form will not exhibit miracles and will exhibit only His inseparable special knowledge, which projects Him as Guru only and not Bhagavan. Datta means God donated to the devotees in human form. His right half is Guru and the left half is Bhagavan. The right half is only projected and the left half is hidden. In such case only the real devotees can be filtered.

It is easy to approach the human incarnation and praise Him as God. But the most important part is to retain the same faith through out the life. When Datta becomes inconvenient in practical way the faith should persist. The faith should be practical and permanent. The recognition of human incarnation must be done with the help of the sacred scriptures like Vedas, Brahma sutras and Gita.

You must take a long time to decide the human incarnation. Once you have decided you must stick to that in spite of all the troubles and inconvenience, which you face practically. There is no use of catching somebody in haste and then withdraw by the next day. You will continue like this through out your life. Therefore, you must study all the scriptures and be thorough with the divine knowledge, which generates the devotion or love.

If your devotion is real you must prove it by your service. The real love is only one-way traffic. Attaining the God, seeing Him and talking with Him are useless. Demons have seen and talked with God by doing long penance. What is the use of it? They were finally destroyed. Even if you don’t see or talk with God, if you please Him through your proven real love, you are blessed. Rama never saw Lord Siva. But He was blessed. Ravana saw and talked with Siva, but was destroyed. Therefore, pleasing the Lord should be our final aim and not mere vision or conversation.



At the Lotus feet of Datta Swami

ANIL ANTONY
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org
http://www.universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace

I don't think pleasing the lord is all that imperative, unless to please him is to learn as much as possible, and take all of life's lessons to heart. Because I think that's what the purpose is.

According to my faith/religion/beliefs, the purpose of human or any kind of life is to prolong LIFE itself. But as we see the purpose of human life seems to be destruction of all LIFE.

1.) You seem to refer to 'love' a lot in your post. Love is simply dependence, and embrace that people make with eachother so that mankind may live on. That is all our insticnts, to help mankind further carry out it's existence here.
2.) Many men and women say that God had put us on this Earth for an experiment, like having live rats in a ratcage, to prepare for the 'actual' coming of his 'perfect' creation. That, is one theory out of many.
3.) Every second of our life, it is a test. Each and everyone of us are given a test, and it is called life. Some are given harder obstacles at sometime, but all in all we either fail or win. If God takes the life of one of our close relatives, we must overcome the obstacle. He is always testing, watching, and writing. We are the lab rats, he is the sciencetist.

PS. I really don't know if any of these are true, but they are only theories.

One is not capable of true love for any other person, if one does not have love for one's self. There is a god in each of us which we can find and embrace if one hold's the correct tools and concepts to discover this joy. It is what living each moment is all about, and not about who we love to make us complete. It is not a bad thing to love someone and to have that someone make you feel special, but first we must "be" before we can have. This is why we have so many people in this world that have lost their way, because they look for things to make them feel happy, but they never consider to look within...

I recommend, this post for the record books (for being the largest one).

Purpose of human life is - 'Live and let live' i.e. Sustenance of life with the realisation that 'I am going to die one day.' Just having 'the visitor' sense makes lot of difference. An analogy - How do you feel when you go on a holiday tour? You enjoy everything because you focus only on good things. Anything which displeases you is ignored as they are treated as temporal by your mind. I hope, you will get the point.

(Keeping away from the debate on 'Love', its endless)

Dinosaurs were put here to make oil...So it's obvious we're here to make plastic.

We're here to make the plastic! Ha-ha-ha! Now, there's a thery that I can get wrapped up in!

I think that the true meaning of life is to learn to fly. Please, go to the airport and find a flight instructor before it's too late.

Life is meaningless the meaning it has is the meaning we give it individually and collectively, IMO this is a great construct, it says i am all that i could ever need , possibility is unlimited anything is possible, one person can affect change that i'm an integral part of the system. namaste Sheri

I agree with Sherri:

The purpose and meaning of your life is that which you choose to give it.

I think we created ourselves out of curiousity, and like everyone else has already said, the purpose in life is what you give it.

I hate getting in late on threads. Ah well..

This is also my viewpoint, but if someone absolutely, positively must have a universal 'purpose' for mankind, then there is one provided by our evolutionary background, and that is simply to live and breed.

What about the airplanes? You forgot the part about the airplanes! I'm not going to let you post for me anymore!

Ha-ha-ha-ha! (JK)

The "Oracle of Injection Molding" doesn't lie...It is truth.

I have no idea what Knot up there is talking about.

The purpose is plastic...With "The Oracle of Injection Molding" great things can be created!

It can make plastic a Jesus as easily as plastic Satan! Don't you see? The versatility of creation? It can create anything!!! And what if It makes something doesn't quite turn out right?

Throw it in the shredder, recycle it, and try again!

Edit - Basically what I'm getting at is purpose is meaningless to ask of you don't even know HOW we got here...Without knowing how, who's to say why?

Real Worship of Lord

Mostly people love Lord for their desires to be fulfilled. If something goes wrong or if things are out of control then we rush to lord and start prayers etc. This devotion is like a prostitute loving her customer. If one really loves Lord without any desire, then only Lord will be pleased.

When a beggar approaches us, we generally offer him whatever is least useful to us. But, when a relative comes to our house, we provide him with good food, facilities and even ask him to stay for some more time. Why is the difference in our approach? Beggar comes to us for what we give. He is not having any love to us.

Whereas a relative has not come for our food and facilities, he has come to see us. This shows the love. So, our approach to Lord should be with love and affection as relative but not like beggar, who approaches us only for satisfying the desires. We should not worship lord only to satisfy our desire. Prayers by words, meditation by mind and intelligence in spiritual discussions form a preliminary level of worship.

The devotee should search for a Satguru or Lord in human form (like Jesus, Krishna and Prophet Mohammed) to learn the divine knowledge. After gaining the divine knowledge from the Lord in human form, at His directive only he should participate in His service in the mission.His mission is to uplift the human beings by preaching the divine knowledge. Service consists of donating money and physically participating in His mission of divine knowledge propagation. Such real service is the only proof of our real love towards Lord.

We are serving our family by spending hard earned money for them and also serving physically. Where as when we come to Lord, we express our love by prayers, meditation and spiritual discussions only, which are given freely by Lord to everybody. Hence God is not even comparable to family members but in prayers we project Him on top.