Brenda Shoshanna once rightly remarked, “Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness”. So, who are you? If you were stripped bare of the tags of your name, nationality, ethnicity, what would your true identity comprise of? We all are distinctly aware of a “life force”, the vital impetus manifested in all things and which is in every one of us. And this awareness keeps driving us to deeper existential questions. Why am I in this world? Do I have a purpose or am I an accident? From the earliest monks and philosophers to present-day scientists have been trying to join these dots and even our advanced search systems which can get us answers to most queries are silent over these tough questions. Where then shall we turn to?
In the novel ‘The Fault In our stars’, the character Hazel Grace says that there will come a time when there will be no human beings left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra- and everything humans ever did, built, and wrote will be forgotten. If that is the case, then everyone should just eat, sleep and one day perish. Yet, we all have a deep and inarticulate desire to know why we are here and to leave behind a legacy in this world.
Does it all end here? What happens to us after our death? Do we just descend into a vast abyss of nothingness? Are we just random outcomes of a million possibilities, mere accidents of evolution or is there something more to this life? Who are we really!? The undeniable vacuum in our hearts, and these questions that arise out of it are nothing less than a pursuit for the truth. Our strongest philosophies can be proved false tomorrow, our best technologies may fail us in the future, but truth cannot fail. As we look in and around to search for the truth about life, don’t you think, dear friend, that the Maker would know the creation (you) best? Maybe, just maybe, it is worthwhile to turn to that Higher Power who created us and the sense of whom we all seem to have in the depth of our beings. The Bible would say that this higher power is a person, God, who wishes to have a relationship with each one of us. If this is true, don’t you think it may be worthwhile to turn to this person for answers to these pressing questions? Think about it and try it if this feels like a good idea. A life committed to a sincere pursuit of the truth will have nothing to regret at the end of the day.
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (Bible)
