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of a waiting room in a railway station. He knows he is only there for a while, that he will be leaving shortly. So of what importance is the waiting room? It is of no importance whatsoever; it is completely insignificant. He tosses odds and ends about; he spits; he dirties it; he is thoughtless; he's not concerned with his behavior: after all, he will be leaving it in a while. In the same way, we regard life as a temporary residence.
The current tendency is to ask why one should bother searching for truth and beauty in life. But I want to emphasize that life will come to an end in due course, and then there is no escaping the reality of life. We can change our houses, change bodies, but the essence of our life remains with us. That is the Self, with a capital `S'. There is absolutely no way to be rid of it.
We are formed by what we do. Ultimately, our actions make us or maim us. They change our lives. They shape our lives and mold our souls. How we live and what we do with our lives formulates our futures. One's attitude to life guides the path of one's soul: how it will evolve, what hitherto unknown mysteries it will unravel. If man were aware that his attitude to life melodies his future, he would immediately drop this dismal view that life is discord, that it is useless and meaningless. Then he might realize the fallacy of the belief that existence is meant to be full of woe, that there is no scheme to things. Then he might come to know that everything that is opposed to life is irreligious.
But we are taught the negation of life in the name of religion. The philosophy of religion has always been death-oriented, instead of life-oriented. Religion preaches that what comes after life is important, but that what happens before death has no significance whatsoever. Up to now, religion has revered death, but shown no respect for life. Nowhere is the joyous acceptance of the flowers and the fruits of life to be found; everywhere there is an obstinate clinging to dead flowers. Our lives are eulogies on the graves of dead flowers!
The focus of religious speculation has always been on the other side of death -- on heaven, on moksha, on nirvana
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