If world was simple and transparent, feelings would become monotonous and sad, eventually.
The world is complexed, layered and hence it calls for judgment and constant improvement on thoughts and actions. All actions result in the desire of achieving an objective. An objective, once achieved, becomes boring and hence rises a desire for a new challenge. The catch lies in treating every achievement as a solo project and not trying to achieve something bigger than the last one all the time. We live everyday and sometimes, getting up from bed is a bigger achievement than anything else we accomplish in a day. I have had days when I have just remained in bed, for no purpose.
The feeling of purpose arises because of the desire to enjoy the feeling of achievement. The fact that we have achieved something fulfills our personal ego of being better than many people around us who complain all the time about their sorry jobs and irritating bosses. But, the basis of all the desire of having a purpose and enjoying an achievement is an illusion. The illusion that whatever we do matters. The bitter truth is that it doesn’t.
Spirituality teaches us to live in the present. Religion teaches us to live for life after death. Parents wish for us to live uncomfortably now to live comfortably the life that awaits. Children wish for us to live for them. Boss demands from us to live for the company’s profitability. Friends think we live to spend the weekends and for partying with them. Enemies think we live so we could harm them. Dogs think we live so we could let them lick our faces. Cats think we live so we can pamper them. We are not surrounded by people or animals, we are surrounded by billions of illusions.
How to breakfree of illusions? It is the same effort you require to become a positive person. First you get negative about everything, then you learn from those negative things and then you become a positive person.
If you dig deeper, you will realize that every action of ours is a result of illusion. A friend calls you for help because he has an illusion that you will help him. He calls this illusion hope. When you don’t help him, he calls it rejection. Same goes for the person who is hunting jobs during his final year of college. He has an illusion that he will land up with a handsome paying job that will take care of all his financial worries for life, he calls this illusion a dream. When he ends up in a petty company doing the job he never studied for, he calls it job crises, whereas it is his reality.
Nobody accepts the reality, ever. We hope and the moment we do so, we give birth to illusions. Life demands nothing else than existence, just exist and you are real. Wish for an exotic meal and you have created an illusion that you want to turn into reality. Hence, the cycle begins. Fulfill one illusion and you will have the next one waiting in line. It is a vicious circle. Existing is like breathing, it is extremely simple. But illusions are like breathing only the air filled with rose fragrance and to do so, you need to plant a garden, work needs to be done, unimportant work, purposeless work. It doesn’t matter whether you breathe in regular air or scented one, you will exhale carbon dioxide in any case, but just to fill the nostrils with the fragrance of rose requires unnecessary effort.
If you put a thought to it, keeping things simple and real requires more effort than running after illusions, but still we do, because reality is simple and we, the product of several realities, are way too complexed.