Finding our way home
From point
of view, our ultimate aim in life is to draw closer to God. Our ultimate
destiny is to reside in the spiritual world, after we die, and live in nearness
to God. But we don’t achieve this nearness through denying this world, for this
world, though lesser than the spiritual world, was created by God and his light
is reflected in it. So, to draw closer to God, we need to see the divinity all
around us. The way to God is through this world, through service
and appreciating the beauty around us and within us. But to do this, we have to
extricate our eyes from seeing the world through our inherited sense of
worldliness. When we see the world with divine eyes, we don’t cling to it; we
don’t seek to control or possess it. We seek to find beauty and create beauty:
beautiful relationships, beautiful objects, beautiful clothing, cities, cars,
computers. But when we are surrounded by things that seem to lack beauty, what
do we do? Find the beauty residing within those objects, people, relationships,
experiences. In an angry face we can see the beauty of that person’s
perseverance. In a plain meal we can see the beauty of simplicity. In a
misfortune we can see the beauty of chance and destiny.
Building a
life in this world and enjoying this life is not inimical to building a life in
the next world. We can create a beautiful home that we own and this does not
need to stand between us and God; in fact, if done with detached devotion, it
can be a path to God. Home that is created for family and guests to enjoy each
other’s company is a beautiful home, one dedicated to God. We can enjoy vacations
and go travelling, if done with a sense of appreciation of God’s divine
bounties all around the world. It is when we cling to our home and possessions,
when we covet them, that they become a barrier between us and God. It is when
travelling is seen as an obsessive need to see everything that it becomes a
mere consumer experience that debars us from drawing closer to God. Almost
anything can act as either a barrier or path to God depending on how we
approach it.