Value of Our Life Span

We tend to think of our lives as a complete whole.  We are born, and that is what kicks off the clock for us, and we live our lives according to plans we establish for ourselves, and one day we pass away which we assume is the end.  Our idea of a successful life is one full of richness – both in terms of family and social relationships, as well as wealth.

In truth, this lifetime is not the whole cycle of life, but a small aspect of it.  When this body dies, all of the conditioning, habits, inclinations, and dispositions carry on.  These samskaras, as they are called, form the foundation for the next manifestation of our existence.  For human beings, it’s a scientific fact that the subconscious rules our behavior.  All of this past karma comes with us, life after life.  And in each life, we have a choice to live consciously, and work out these proclivities, or just run on auto-pilot, destined to follow the same patterns over and over again.

If you look around today, it’s easy to see that most people run on auto-pilot.  They simply let their inner make-up determine how their lives unfold, and the mantra is, “well, this is who I am.”  But clinical psychology and modern therapy are proof that deeply conditioned patterns can be changed.  Epigenetics also shows us that we are not slaves to the DNA we were born with.  And then there is brain plasticity, which similarly proves that the mind is not set in concrete and can dramatically change in its neural makeup.  Think about this – if we are born in a body that allows these changes to be made, and places those changes in our control, why would that be?  Maybe it’s because we are supposed to use this life as human beings consciously, to work out this old conditioning.

What most people don’t recognize is that this is the purpose of life.  We are here to uncover our inner programming: physical, intuitive, emotional, energetic.  We are here to see ourselves as these pure beings who have mis-identified ourselves with this programming, and then to nurture ourselves back to Oneness by releasing all of this old baggage slowly.  This is what inner engineering is all about, and all of the spiritual practices, and also therapy work.  The proof of this is in the level of well-being that is reflected in those who have gone down this path.  The highest levels of well-being are experienced by those people who have little left to release – love, forgiveness, and gratitude are their persistent experience.

Being born a human being is an enormous privilege that most people simply miss.  Instead of using it as a hedonistic opportunity to maximize pleasure and wealth, it needs to be seen for what it is – a gift of love enabling beings to melt away karmic impressions in a very effective modality.  We are physical beings on this earth, and conditioning expresses itself in our bodies, and emotions, as well as the planet itself.  There are non-physical realms where this level of efficient working out of compulsions is far less accessible.

As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said, “Everyday, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.”