The Perpetual Search for Meaning
Death is inevitable, but it is not necessarily the end of existence. Our
time here on earth is just a temporary phase, a sort of learning period to get
to where we are going. The old adage ‘you never stop learning until you die’
rings resoundingly true. Life in all its unpredictability is a great teacher; we
falter and stagger, sometimes more often than we want to. We question our faith
from time to time, and ponder over the purpose of existence and that’s only
natural. We are subconsciously seeking Him, the one who makes us whole and
that’s why nothing on earth is ever going to satisfy us completely. All the
questioning and ponderings are a way of growing closer to the divine. He did
say ‘Seek and ye shall find’ and that’s probably why life feels like a
perpetual search for meaning; it actually is a perpetual journey to find Him,
to know Him, to grow closer to Him.
For ages, people have been trying to find the divine without realising
that He exists right inside us. Of course, all religions will give Him a form,
a name, a status, and along the way the real meaning of the divine being gets
distorted and lost in the annals of time. One element of truth still lingers in
all religions though, they all agree that His fabric is pure love, pure
unadulterated love. That’s why everywhere you find love, you encounter Him.
Love in the little things, the little deeds, the little moments that make this
life worth living. Our everyday life is chock full of these little moments; the
smile of a child, the lick of dog, the tiny sapling emerging through a crack in
the sidewalk, the sun rays peeking in, a kind word, the rugged bark of a tree,
a friendly wave, ants marching in a line, scrawling words on a paper, dipping a
paint brush in paint… every time you feel or do something with love you
encounter Him. So in a way life is just a series of encountering Him in everyone
we meet and everything we do.
This is what makes life meaningful, gives it that ‘wow!’ factor. We are
not alone, He pulses in all of creation. We might not always see it, the daily
grind of existence might be too much to bear, but through it all the creator is
ever present. Imagine the creator working on this giant tapestry, and we stand
below wondering what He is upto. From our point of view, we see only the knots
and the tucked in patterns, the spare ends, the corrections and the general
chaos of thread work beneath the woven tapestry. We have no idea the kind of
design He is weaving at the top, all we can see is the underside of the cloth
that doesn’t make sense. Well, one day our eyes will see the beautiful patterns
He keeps weaving into our lives, until then we trust and believe that He’s making
a masterpiece . For now, everything might seem like a mess, but from where the
Creator stands, everything is slowly falling into place stitch by stitch. We
are all being woven into this fabric of life and as long as we go on searching
for Him, we shall find Him… I don’t think even we realise how much He really
wants to be found.
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(This is an article I wrote for my church magazine a year ago, came across it recently and thought of putting it up here)
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