Being human, we already find ourselves engrossed in a million mundane things, before we have even had a chance to look around, to understand our context, or to contemplate our existence. It is almost as if we are thrown in cold water, not being taught how to swim and we splash around, trying to keep alive and find our way back to the shore. Except in this case, we do know how to swim, we just need to remember and relearn it!

The cosmic context of our being human

The cosmic context of our human life perhaps begins with the birth of our universe. What is the beginning of this universe? All we know is a shroud of existence, extending all around from one point, a circle ever expanding to infinity from its centre, as the birth of our beginningless universe!

Our universe is speckled with trillions of galaxies, each abound with billions of stars and their myriad planets. We happen to find ourselves being human, a complex living being with limited intelligence, on one such planet, in the only observable universe we can possibly ever know.

We, who claim to be superior to all living creatures that we know of, are only one of the millions of diverse astonishing life forms, that our planet earth has evolved in its short life so far. Our transient life-span as a human in our fleeting bodies, is only a tiny speck in the vastness of the totality of space and time, that surrounds our current existence.

We live short lives, we may live for a hundred years, but that is still short! If we look at the time that stretched before our short lifespan as the body-mind, and will stretch after, our complete life is only a tiny speck. Our whole lifetime and that of many human generations, is not even noticeable on the enormous time scale, that extends before and after our physical life! This is the cosmic context of our being human.

And yet, the amount of struggle, conflict and misery we manage to generate for ourselves in this little while, is astounding!

The worldly context of our being human

As a human being in this world, we have a tiny field of experience, our perceptions limited by our few senses. Living in a narrow sliver of eternity, we infuse it with our individual joys and sorrows.

We take care of our body-minds, dealing with our environment, interacting with other people, making a living. We like, dislike, react, regret, reject or choose, considering ourselves decision makers and doers. We make mistakes, learn, improve, adjust, adapt and go on tumbling along the waves of life clumsily until our time is up.

We carry on with our daily grind as if there is something major at stake. We fight our way through this world for every morsel, struggling to survive, collecting, hoarding, gloating, while we cling to it for permanence, against all odds. We go on rushing and racing with a maddening urgency towards something that we have decided we need to achieve.

We change goal after goal, weighed down by our ever-changing desires, running from one landmark to the next, carrying the load of our social and personal conditioning, because that is what everyone else does, that is what most of us have been raised to do.

All this makes up a messy complex life where we try to do our best at any moment, guided by our apparently rational thoughts, various emotional responses and spontaneous intuition. We find some happiness in between as we scramble along, few calm islands of contentment, in the middle of the simmering ocean of constant chaos.

We may even flourish in the material world, running fast towards an imaginary fulfilment, but we lose it all in the face of our inevitable mortality. In the end, our bodies fall tired, old and dead. Our physical life-time is merely a transient bubble popping within the blink of an eye in the eternal flow of existence.

Death of our current form is a certainty, the only sure thing in the vast unknown. We fear the end of our ephemeral lives and vaguely pretend that it will never come, despite all evidence against it. We try finding comfort in beliefs, that we do not even know to be true!

We continue to run at a feverish pace, until there is nowhere left to go and the journey abruptly ends, without our say in it.

We are thinking beings who can observe, contemplate, analyze, wonder and investigate. Yet, a majority of us for most of our life-times, do not ever pause. We never rest for long, for then we are racked with guilt. We are afraid of inactivity, we are incapable of just being, without doing anything, even for a few moments- we label and judge ourselves for being lazy.

The journey of being human, often involves suffering

There is suffering all around us. Suffering to any observant human being is a stark reality of this world, that cannot be denied. We know it intimately in our own lives and in the lives of others all around.

We have known suffering of diverse kinds and depths. It has a way of catching up with us, no matter where we are, no matter what we do. It is so blatantly present everywhere, that to be free of it seems mythical.

We are like fugacious leaves on the immense eternal tree of existence. Our lives fluttering with the wind of time for mere moments, then falling to the ground, merging into the ever-moving cycle of eternal continuance. So much fuss and misery we create in these mere moments! So much suffering and pain, for ourselves and everyone else around.

We have only one chance, one priceless gift of life. Life is valuable, every moment that we are alive is precious. We know it deep in our hearts, despite the habitual waste that we constantly bring about.

Can we afford to take this chance and possibly waste away one precious life that we have, in mere trivialities? Do we not owe it to ourselves, to find out how best to live, given the immense importance of this understanding? Is this matter so frivolous that we carry on in the mechanical fashion, without ever investigating the truth of the matter for ourselves?

The wise attitude towards being human

We can adopt the wise attitude towards being human, by honouring this enormous gift that we have, by shifting our perspective from the narrow, zoomed in view, focussed on our individual, egoistic personal concerns. By occasionally zooming out, to view our wide total context.

We only need to remember the whole context of our human existence, to appreciate the astonishing position of the enormous privilege, that we are in. By being aware of our whole context, we are inspired to marvel at the tremendous fact of our existence as the conscious, aware, thinking, knowing beings that we are!

We can begin, by admiring the awesome sequence of apparent chance events, that brought about the occurrence of our being human here and now. By acknowledging the immense beauty, value and wonder, in simply being alive and being able to appreciate its importance!

We can begin a search within, by listening to the truth that echoes from deep inside our own intimate being, rather than getting lost in hundreds of different voices and pointers from the outside. We can start by turning inwards, because each one of us has our own internal reference, our anchor, our own inner guide.

It is our silent awareness, our being, our inner sky. It may be masked with all the noise of ignorance and the clouds of various worldly influences. We may have forgotten it is there. It may be hidden underneath all the clutter that we continuously toss over it. But we can find it again, unsoiled, undisturbed and always present  in its original purity, in the depths of our being.

It is felt as the most intimate presence within us, as our reality, our true nature, our pure essence. We can recognize and tap into the treasure of this most profound wisdom always available inside each one of us.

We can slowly learn to attune and align with this pristine presence within each of us. We listen to its message, receiving its quiet whisper in our silent alert awareness and follow its directions. Inviting and following this subtle presence in every moment of our lives, we may find the way to our real happiness, our most appropriate actions, our true inspirations and motivations.

Then we can live with a genuine admiration and gratitude, no matter how or where we are. We can align our individual lives with the inner flame of awareness that ceaselessly illuminates our path, no matter where we find ourselves as a body-mind.

We refer to this light of awareness within, at every moment, to lead us out of the darkness of any suffering that we may encounter.

Each and every one of us, has the essence of our whole context within us, as our reality. It is always available to us, all we need to do is turn inwards, to find the contentment that we are always seeking. We only need to remember that we always carry within our core, our absolute freedom, the destined purpose of our lives and the true meaning of our being human!