Man's Hope for God's Grace: On Life's Purpose and Struggles

I read the remarkable book Man’s Search for Meaning by the Austrian author Viktor Frankl almost four years ago while on a flight from Seattle to Delhi. The book chronicles his personal experiences in Nazi concentration camps. Two learnings from the book have stayed with me since then. First, most of those unfortunate souls who had lost a purpose to live, and were just scraping by the most miserable life imaginable in concentration camps, perished. Those who survived were the ones who had something to hold on to, as little as finishing a book they had begun or seeing their children again. It appeared to me from this observation by Frankl that having something tangible to hold onto in life—a purpose—something meaningful, does go a long way in keeping one’s spirit of life kindling, despite everything else around them shattering into pieces. Such is the importance of finding a purpose (to live by and die for) in life. As someone who has, since childhood, asked myself questions about the purpose of my life, this learning from the book resonated deeply with me.

Second, despite the horrible conditions in the concentration camps, in which every single act from sleeping, walking, speaking, bathing, eating, drinking, and indeed, relieving oneself was controlled, there was one freedom that the captors could not take away from the inmates. Indeed, this is the last of the freedoms that nobody except death can take away from us—the freedom of thought. Man is indeed free to think as he wishes, even though he may not have complete control over every aspect of thinking since his thinking is shaped by his unique life experiences, many of which are outside of his control. Yet, this final illusion of free will of thought is something that cannot be taken away from us as long as we are alive.

I think that humans, especially those who, by some miraculous feat of misfortune, go on to become engineers and thus are afflicted with the extreme vice of rational thinking, invariably prefer to have tangible goals in front of them. Such goals are much easier to visualise in the beginning—finishing a project, publishing a research paper, getting a degree, securing a job, learning to play a musical instrument, etc. The timelines for attaining each of these tangible goals may not be exact, but they are not too difficult to predict with a certain amount of variability. Once brought down from their Ivory tower and thrown into the real world, many take the well-trodden path of defining newer targets whose timelines become increasingly more blurry, but these targets may still have tangible checkpoints—getting a promotion, switching to a different organisation, finding a life partner, having kids, buying a house, making their organisation reach X value in revenue, etc. Such checkpoints are able to give them a purpose in life, and as long as they continue to tick them, they get a sense of fulfilment in their journey.

Unfortunately, those few who desire to chart out a different path for themselves, especially to work for the community at large, find themselves lost. More likely than not, every target that they think of working towards is shot down by them for not being “worthy enough,” or “feasible enough,” or “novel enough.” Even after they are able to identify a larger purpose that resonates with them, the path to it is neither linear nor filled with checkpoints and progress bars. Cold calculation is of little use in a dynamic world full of randomness and chaos. When thrown into the real world to find a cause solely based on rational thinking, rational thinking itself becomes their worst enemy, often pushing them towards inaction, at best, and nihilism, at worst. Knowledge, after all, is a curse. Many just become nihilistic to the point of pivoting towards all the wonderful luxuries that the world has to offer. Nevertheless, materialistic pleasures, irrespective of type and amount, are unable to fill the void that they constantly feel. Still others, unfortunately, offload their own suppressed desires on the shoulders of their children.

In many ways, rational thinking and decision-making driven by emotional attachments are at odds with each other. What else, other than their love for nation, humanity, family, religion, or community, can explain the sacrifices people make in their lives (and indeed, many sacrifice their very lives) for these bonds? From an absolutely rational viewpoint, all these institutions and entities are figments of human imagination. Yet, perfectly rational humans often take the biggest decisions of their lives based on that intangible intuition often referred to as “inner voice,” “gut feeling,” or “something just feeling right.” Indeed, those who are able to devote their lives to the service of others by connecting their life’s purpose with an institution or entity are the happiest. For many, this devotion takes the shape of working for an organisation working on social or religious ideals, a political motive, or causes like Global Warming, child labor, primary education, etc.

Pitiful is the condition of those miserable souls who neither have a tangible purpose in life nor have an inner voice guiding them towards finding one. Once one fully realises that day by day, the amount of time they have to make a difference in this world and others’ lives is shrinking, each day becomes a burden. Jaun Elia’s words aptly describe the sinking feeling that one feels every day:

बे-दिली क्या यूँही दिन गुज़र जाएँगे

सिर्फ़ ज़िंदा रहे हम तो मर जाएँगे

It is at such times of sheer helplessness that one sincerely hopes for a divine intervention to guide them. Inevitably, a life of service can truly be realised only when one’s inner spiritual quest of merging with the divine and their tangible goal in the external world can be reconciled. There is no nirvana without this reconciliation. Every action in the external world by their physical self must be a step towards realising God within them. The passion to realise the ultimate truth, perhaps, is the source of indefatigable and boundless energy that many people exhibit while working towards their life’s purpose for years and years. Of course, the journey is not all smooth and hunky-dory. After all, the Latin origin for passion is passio (suffering). The journey is also a test of their character, if they are swayed by successes and failures on the way, or if their passion continues to work as the force sustaining their struggle. Attaining the enlightened state prescribed in the Bhagavad Gita when one realises that they must act (rather than be attached to inaction), and that they have the right to their actions, not to the fruits of their actions, is indeed the ultimate goal. One can just hope to receive God’s grace to take some steps in that direction.