Most humans will spend inordinate time defining success and finding its true meaning. Newsflash - all humans the second they are born are in a dead end job. Everyone dies. No two ways about it.
Some die peacefully while others die a gruesome or somewhat unpleasant death but in the end there is just that - the end. You cannot be deader than dead. Ask any deadee. I am dead serious.
So then what of the deadee? Can he or she define what it was like before he died? Not really since there is a paradox for those that are still around. If you are dead there is no more backward and forward looking statements to be made. That is it. You are simply DEAD.
Deadly idea I know - but then again no different than finding Moksha. Buddha had something to say about it -he came up with that invention. Attaining one that is. You simply cannot buy moksha at a grocer or street corner (the Colombian cartels might beg to differ), or a post office - its worse than a good score on a CAT or GRE even. It comes to someone with a special skill - like Gautam.
What it boils down to (at high heat for 115 min under a Bodhi tree) is that at the moment of dehydration you see the light. You do not need to keep chasing crap all your life because there is simply no point to it. Once you get this fantastic idea drilled on your duramatter then nothing else matters. Problem is we are called thick skulled for a reason. It ain't easy.
So going back to the similarity between being dead and being a Buddha is that at that point there is no mountain high enough left to climb. People get all caught up in saying its not important what you did while living but its after you are gone that matters. Really? I beg to differ. In the absence of Moksha, live it up because again how many deadee interviews have been published that indicate a party in the dead zone? Are the dead actually saying - man that is some party in my name - I am so thrilled beyond words. On another note, they cannot come back and say they don't like the statue or portrait recently commissioned in their memory. So what's with all these statues? Most become toilets for the birds anyway.
On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...
There IS a place called Moksha in Nagpur which is a popular haunt of party animals..So you can buy stuff at Moksha, but not Moksha itself!
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