Man is born a nobody. But man wants to die a somebody. Child comes absolutely alone. But man wants to carry the whole crowd with him to death. A Child comes emptyhanded. But man wants to die wealthy. A child comes from heaven. Hell breaks loose at him. He wants to go back to heaven. Child is born of blissfulness. Child is absolute bliss. He enters hell. Then keeps running for happiness and eventually dies unhappy. Man has made this world into the unhappiest place. Isn’t it a joke of life? Man is born a nobody. But he wants to be powerful. He is not born powerless. Why does he want to be powerful? He wants to equate a God-like existence. So that he is able to show others that he is a somebody. A child is told that he has to become somebody. The whole life child fights to become that somebody that he finds he was not. He wants to defeat others. He wants to be victorious. Why does he want to be victorious? To win is a basic instinct for survival. The present-day he no more requires that primitive constraints. He does not have to hunt for food. He does not have to travel far for food and water. He has machines that travel for him much faster. Food and water come on table. His survival instinct has evolved that has changed his surroundings but not him. He has become an urban civil and prosperous human but he has not changed. He has become far crueller beasty and wild than a wild beast was ever. Survival tricks in wildest predators never evolved into cruelty, violence, and treachery. Animal never deceives you. Therefore, man has annihilated the whole animal kingdom. It is easy to kill innocents with deceit. Animals did not kill their own race. Man did. Because he deceives his own race too. Man has deceived the mother earth. He has destroyed the earth, the forest, the wildlife. He has poisoned soil air water. If you ask him the reason he answers that beautifully and most plausibly. Progress and security. All types of senseless wars. Countries fighting countries over trivialities for hegemony. Wars are fought over the future of fossil fuel, arsenal, water, airspace not land. Every nation’s slogan is to be ahead of the other. How much wealth does a man want and at what cost? Wealth is a symbol of power, happiness, victory, security and security. Man creates wealth not as much as he needs to survive. He creates wealth as much that is not needed either for his next generation or for heavenly existence in next births. How did survival instinct evolve man into a sadist? He is enjoying making others miserable. Animals are godly no animal has evolved into a sadist. Man claims to be godly but he has become a sadist. Why does a man want to win? Why do you want to be happy? Why do you want to become the wealthiest? Because you are unhappy. Your yearning makes you unhappy because you feel you don’t have enough to make you happy. Whatever that you will have is going to make you unhappy. All that’s not true. You have presumed that you are unhappy. You have presumed that you will be poor if you don’t become wealthier. You have presumed that you have to defeat others to stay ahead of them. You constantly live in a sense of unhappiness, defeat and poverty. Society makes a child conditioned to think like that. Come what may you are destined to make your life hell. A man crawls up to his death burdened with unhappiness, defeats and poverty. You saw families expect huge gatherings at funerals. On a lighter note, once an ailing political leader died. A huge crowd attended his last rites. He said to himself. I unnecessarily languished for five years in hospital. Had I known as much crowd would arrive, I would have died long back. You say that you want to be a great leader a great actor or a great professional or someone who keeps the world in your pocket. That means that you are always oriented towards others. That means that your happiness and unhappiness depend on others. If others feel you are happy in your unhappiness you would rather be unhappy to make them happy. If someone asks you how would you be happy. You instantly narrate a list that makes you short of happiness. But you never ask yourself, are you unhappy in the first place? Happiness and unhappiness is a chain. It comes one after the other. Happiness is hidden in unhappiness. Hopelessness births hopefulness. You hope for something when it is not around. It makes you poorer by it. Psychologically, hopelessness is the mother of hopefulness. As much as you want to be wealthier as much you would stay in poverty. Poverty mothers wealth. You stay poor as much as you wish to be wealthy same proportions. Poverty will be inside you. One who is yearning for a big victory is a game for a big defeat. As much you yearn for as much you will be short of it. All hopes breed out of hopelessness. Victories out of defeats. If you are one with the nature you are in your own nature. But you go against the flow. Ego wants to go against the flow. You are but your name is not. You are born a nobody but you are named a somebody. That somebody is not you. An assigned code is assigned to you for usefulness. You are not it. You are a nobody. Ego breeds a false sense of unhappiness, defeat and poverty. You keep fighting against the flow of life in perpetuity. You keep fighting to be the wealthiest but it takes you farther from life. You are endowed with an abundant existence. Wealth is making you live under constant poverty. Look at you. Ask yourself are you unhappy enough to be happy. Why become a beggar when you are born a king. You are simply going against life. That’s what a life lost looks like and not a life lived. That’s what is a joke of life. At every point, you think of living but you die. Learn to laugh at the joke of life. What is the joke of life? The joke of life is that people are bartering their happiness with unhappiness, wealth with poverty, victory with defeat to make the world a better place to live in it tomorrow. Chances are that they will constantly languish in unhappiness, defeat and poverty and will never be able to be happy, wealthy and victorious. History is replete with such Alaxenders, Hitlers, Stalins of wars. All those who thought the world is below them are dead and buried. All Changez Khans, Timur Lungs, and Aurangzebs die of fear. Only a few who laughed at the joke of life learnt the lesson. Did you not see the statues of laughing Buddha. Buddha is laughing at the joke of life. To be life, be the flow of life. To go beyond the sense of unhappiness, defeat and poverty, change yourself to live in the world today and now. No one can defeat the one who never wants to win. Someone asked Bhikku, ‘what is the joke of life?’ Bhikku replied, “I am fighting to live. I don’t live for fighting. I may fight for the survival of this body which eventually will not survive. So what’s that I am fighting for?” This is the joke of life. The author is a spiritual teacher. He can be reached at arunavlokitta@gmail.com
