The phenomenon of a birthday is rather peculiar when we think about it.
Birth takes place continuously and everywhere…almost everywhere on our planet at least as far as we know for now…
And among all forms of life, humans developed a way to demarcate the continuous flow of time based on the movement of our planet around the sun and its rotation…
We mark down the time of our birth, and celebrate our lives when it is the anniversary of the earth’s rotation around the sun from that time. Our age and birthdays seem so important to us, but in the grand scheme of the universe it is one among an uncountable number of birthdays.
Does it mean our birthday is meaningless? No, not at all - it is a day to celebrate our lives, for family and friends to celebrate and connect with us..for us to reflect and re-energise ourselves..
But then again, we are on this relentless march towards death, to the moment when the body we hold so dearly to ceases to be our vehicle of choice. While we wish that moment is after say a hundred birthdays give or take, truly speaking it can be at any moment.
This is not satisfactory to us. We have dreams, plans, ambitions and desires to fulfil. Visions that we are building towards. Visions which sometimes stretch beyond the limited hundred years. Death is an annoying and uncomfortable distraction to our vision…
The vision of humankind is astonishingly vast. We meticulously study the history of our ancestors, our nations, of humankind, of life. We seek to peer deep into history to understand why things are as they are. We seek to see far beyond into the future and try to do our best to make it a good one.
Why? Why do we dream of dreams that are far beyond the limitations of our body and mind?
Why do we seek answers to questions that do not concern our day to day living?
Perhaps, this seeking is what it means to be human..to be unsatisfied with the incredibly short lived and limited body and minds..to dream of breaking our physical limitations, to dream of the limitless…
What is the use of such dreams? We do not ask for the reason when we see a beautiful sunset..we do not question why we enjoy the sound of waves..we do not wonder why we enjoy a beautiful musical rendition…
For it just resonates with us, we become one with that experience..it is a part of what we are, and that is beyond our physical limitations…a glimpse of the unlimited peace and joy..the peace that goes beyond our understanding…
What happens if we dive deeper into that experience? If we work on making it a continuous undercurrent in the midst of our daily lives? Is there a possibility of it awaking us to a limitless reality? A reality unhindered by the constraints of space and time?
Seers, sages and poets have sung songs indicating this..what if there is truth in this?
Shouldn’t we be relentless in pursuit of It? In pursuit of the state beyond birth and death, our true Self, beyond all birthdays…
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