Who Am I?

Birds eat plant eating insects, worms poop inside the ground and make the soil fertile, whale helps in removing carbon traps from the environment, bee helps in pollination of flower, animals help in fertilizing plants, almost all the animals are part of food chain and keep the ecosystem in balance, there are many such examples where we can see how animals not only live for themselves but they do some or the other thing for their environment or society. All living and non living things in this universe exist because the nature wants them to be in that place at that time. This means if we are alive and are doing certain things then there must be some reason behind it. The nature must have assigned some work to all of us, so we are here. Why I am talking about all this today is because for last few days some questions are bothering me.

Who am I? Why I am here? From where I have come and where I am to go? Is there any specific purpose for my birth or I am just an accident in the nature’s evolutionary chains which doesn’t hold any importance, how can I find true happiness and joy in my life?

Every day when I step out my home, I see people running here and there. I see them in mother’s lap as a newborn baby, I see them going to schools, I see them going for job, I see them getting married, I see them setting up their family, I see them becoming old and finally I see them dying. But I guarantee you, if you will ask any of these people, why they came on this earth, what is their purpose to take birth; then certainly you will get a blank face. I am not able to understand how people live their entire life without knowing why they exist, what is their purpose to take birth, etc.

I asked few of these questions to my friends. 

Question: Do you know who you are?

Answer: Most of them replied with full confidence that he is Vivek or Rakesh. One of my female friend replied she is Sudhir’s wife. With great pride one friend said that he is an artist.

Question: Then I asked them, do you know why you took birth?

Answer: With little bit of doubt, my friends replied. They took birth to help their parents, to do something for their society or country. Few of them replied that their parents wished so they took birth.

Question: For your county or society what you want to do?

Answer: I didn’t get answer for this, so I said this means you just want to do something for your family or relatives? Happily with little bit of confusion they replied yes.

Question: when you would be the happiest person?

Answer: Most of them said when they will have lots of money then they will be the happiest person, because they want to fulfill their family’s dream. Different friends gave more or less the same answer with their own versions. Few of them said they will be happy when they will own a house or a car, some said they will be happy when they get a nice job with a good salary, on a lighter note one of friend said that when he get a beautiful wife he will be the happiest person.

The above answers which I got didn’t satisfy me, because I was not looking for such answers. 

When I asked them who you are? I was not asking for their name, or marital status or job title or their life history. Husband, wife, mother, father, teacher, writer, etc these only reflect who you are. But my purpose to ask this question was to know their true identity I wanted to know about the real human who is trapped underneath all this relationship. I wanted to know that when you close your eye and try to see yourself then apart from your physical appearance what you see deep inside you.

When I asked, when you would be the happiest person?” then I was expecting the answer from the real person walking around in your body who in reality is managing your life. Anyhow the answers which I got proved that today most of the people are self centered towards their family. People have become materialistic; they think that with money happiness will come to their life instead of knowing the fact that with a bag full of money they can’t even buy happiness.

Most of us today don’t know about our true self, reason behind this is the way we have been nurtured in our younger days. All of us have faced a common question during our young age, and that question is “What you want to be when you grow up?” I think if our parents would have replaced the word “WHAT” with “WHO” then all of us would have been a different person, because “what” is just a role played by “who”. Who is our true identity not the work which we do. So if we know the answer for, who we are? Automatically we will know what we are? And why we are?

When I walk in no man’s land and enjoy the wonders of nature then I see the world in two parts. In one part we humans exist and in the other the remaining living things. The plants, animals, and insects they take birth, they do their predefined job for which they take birth and die, but we humans, as always are confused. We also take birth like them but instead of fulfilling the purpose for which we took birth, we spend our whole life in accumulating wealth and money and in the end when our death comes we wonder why we have accumulated all these wealth because we rarely get time to enjoy our life. Paul Gauguin a famous French artist also asked the same question when death came to take his soul away from his rented body. Don’t become like him because it was too late for him to get the answer.

We all love spending time with our loved ones, but to know who you really are and what is the purpose of your birth you will have to spend a little time with yourself. Believe me, the day when you will rediscover yourself with these answers you will be the happiest person.