One Can Be Purposeless Only When The Purpose Of Life Has Been Met

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, what is the purpose of life?

Acharya Prashant (AP): The purpose of something, is the end of that thing. And life, as we know it, anyway has a predefined end; the predefined end is physical death. It’s well known, it’s an obvious thing, no? But, we still ask this question and that shows that we do not quite like that end of life. We would not quite like life to just amount to death and that gives us an insight into what could be the purpose of life?

Death is the inevitable reality of the physical self and we don’t like just fading away. It is as if there is something waiting to be done; a project to be completed, a mission to be accomplished, and therefore, one must stay put and not go away, therefore death appears dislikeable. How can one just pass away, when something important is still pending? If all were settled, one could have retired peacefully. If the climax of life had been achieved, death wouldn’t have been dislikeable.

You don’t like calling it a day when the day has not been fulfilling, right? You don’t like pulling down the shutters if the sales have not been good for the day. Whereas if the day has been fulfilling, you may even shut…