LIFE

Here is a wonderful poem by H.W.LONGFELLOW

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;--

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.



I like to call this poem as “THE RESURRECTOR” because it gives the reader a new lease of life by providing a healthy alteration to his/her attitude of life.
Sometimes small things matter a lot. A good example is LIFE. That tiny word- just four letters. It bothers so many people. Many people complain about it-yet, nobody(well yeah, almost nobody) feels like renouncing it.

Probably you may be one of the millions who contradict with me saying-"LIFE is BIG.EIGHTY YEARS man-not a joke".
Yes i agree. EIGHTY years IS BIG.
To a little child ONE year is BIGGER!!! To an Octogenarian EIGHTY is small-afterall eighty is smaller than HUNDRED.(TOO MUCH RELATIVITY??)

Well RELATIVITY is everything. When You say you "live”, the statement involves relativity; You know that you are "living" because you are unlike the inert stone there; and since It is unlike you, you say it is DEAD.
Observe that "DEATH" is longer than "LIFE".
"What do u mean by DEATH IS LONGER? You mean the time between two births??"
"Well probably yes-If at-all there is another birth"
"What if i don’t have a rebirth??"
"How can u be sure??"
"Prove me wrong"
"Well, there is this thing called karma......"
-Whoa this sure drive me crazy. Its CRAP.

That’s what actually happened in my mind while i was thinking about what to write next- and by writing that LO!!i have another five lines or so to my blog!!:-)

Relativity too drives me crazy. So I revert back to the main topic LIFE.

People say, When you have lived the greater part of your life, It will seem like a dream.(There is a connection to these things in HINDUISM known as the concept of 'MAYA"-but talking about that would make this an abstract discourse that even I would fail to understand :-P).

So why take all the pain for a dream??

The best answer i thought would be-"If you don’t work that hard for your ‘dream’ (=life), It will prove to be a NIGHTMARE!!!"


So, lets take it that LIFE IS A DREAM.
So are we sleeping??
Then how do we wake up??

Before i tell you how to wake up, tell me what you mean by "WAKING UP"? (HAHA!!! GOTCHA).

What is a dream? It is something that we are very much involved (at least sub-consciously) in yet we do not realise until it is over.

Isn’t that what we are exactly into?
So what do we do to come out of this trance?? -We gotta start living.
Can I say that "LIVING" means to realise every moment of our existence??
I can’t speak anymore for I have neither the knowledge nor the experience.

I quote Longfellow again :
“Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!”

That statement is typical of the one I gave previously. Acting in the living present is to be alert.

Longfellow also tells:

“Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.”

Let us not get disheartened about our sorrows; instead we shoud strive to make ourselves better with each passing day.

Lord KRISHNA says in The BHAGAVAT GITA:

“SUKHA DUKHE SAMAE KRUTVA LAABAALAABHOU JAYAAJAYOU”
[Handle happiness, sorrow, success and failure with equanimity]

So, Lets quit complaining about how life is and start accepting things as they are for that is the key to “LIVING”.