By Mesha Oh
One way to describe us humans is that we are spiritual beings who are going through a temporary earthly experience. Our present stay on Earth is but for a short spell—a couple of decades at the most, after which we go where we have to.
Even though we are presently on Earth for a very brief period, while we are here, generally speaking, we become so Earth-bound in our thinking that we give the things of the Earth an exaggerated importance at the same time as we ignore the extra-Earth or wider, cosmic aspect of our being. We forget that we came from somewhere other than the Earth and that we may go back somewhere else after our stay here gets over.
For our temporary sojourn on Earth, we need certain things of the Earth to survive and to flourish—food, clothing, shelter, and so on. It is but right that we should seek to have enough of these things in order to live decently. But if in our quest for the things of the Earth we become so Earth-bound in our thinking that we go far beyond what we require for a decent life and make acquiring more of these things the very purpose of our existence, we make a giant mess of our life. Making the grave mistake of confusing what is a means for an end in itself, we fail to fulfill the actual purpose of our stay on Earth.
The purpose of our brief spell on Earth is for us to grow spiritually—to grow in our reflection or manifestation of attributes of the Creator. In order to survive and flourish while we are here, we need certain material things. Acquiring a sufficient quantum of these things is necessary for the survival of our body, as well as for our intellectual and spiritual growth. If we do not have enough of these material goods, our body cannot survive, and if our body does not survive, there is no question of us growing spiritually or fulfilling the purpose of our stay on Earth. These material things of the Earth are thus a vital requirement for our spiritual growth, a necessary means for fulfilling the purpose of human life on Earth. Hence, we need to make the necessary efforts to acquire an adequate quantum of these goods for ourselves, in the right way.
A major problem, however, arises when we become so Earth-bound in our thinking that we start to believe that the very purpose of our being here is to acquire for ourselves as much of the things of the Earth as we can. When that happens, what should be a means becomes for us an end in itself. And with that total inversion of purpose come all sorts of individual and social maladies that the world is afflicted with.
Making acquisition of the things of the Earth as the purpose of our brief stay on Earth leads one to ignore the actual purpose of our having been sent here—which is to grow spiritually. In this way, one fails to fulfill the purpose of one’s brief earthly sojourn.
What a tragic loss of this precious human life that is!
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