About the new year?

Question

What is your aim in the new year?
What do want to do to better yourself?

Answer 1

meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Answer 2

A basic question - whether there is a meaning and purpose to our existence — arises in, and perhaps bothers, the mind of every individual, whether the doubt is articulated or not, as he gets through his everyday life. Scholars and philosophers, since long, have mulled over questions regarding our existence.

Is our existence a random event in evolution or is there a greater principle in life with meaning and purpose? This inquiry served as catalyst for the history of ideas, the philosophical and scientific quests, a trigger for some of the greatest spiritual odysseys. “...These indestructible questions... cannot be kept simmering on a back burner for long. They will thunder loudly in the emptiness within you, in moments of personal crisis or when you’ve lost your social moorings”, wrote T Z Lavine.

Is there an all-encompassing Over-mind or Absolute Spirit, in which all concepts are unified? Is reality a complex totality of rational concepts? Hegel’s dialectical method of reasoning allowed him to view the world from a teleological perspective.

On the other hand, is an understanding of the structures of ‘consciousness’, as Husserlian phenomenology would have it, enough to gain insights into the mystery of the mind of man? Is there no meaning at all, as Sartre pointed out? Are we condemned to be free to live out our lives?

The Upanishads say, “neti, neti” — not this, not this — is that something beyond our intellectual grasp; is it only what lies in the stillness beyond the working of the mind, the Sat-chit-ananda or Existenceconsciousness-bliss of Vedantic thought?

Swami Sivananda pointed out that real yoga is to discipline the vikshepa or tossing of the mind which will enable one to experience the stillness beyond through meditation. This existence could be maya or illusion, as Sankara’s Advaita and Nagarjuna’s Shunyavada would have us believe; a vivarata, an unreal appearance only. Or, could there be a meaning to this phenomenal world?

Suffering, whether personal or otherwise, is at times a catalyst to go beyond surface realities and attempt to understand the purpose of life. Viktor Frankl, out of his personal experiences as a Holocaust survivor, wrote that “ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather, must recognise that it is he who is asked... each man is questioned by life; to life he can only respond by being responsible”.

He goes on to say that one can try and discover a meaning in life by doing a deed, experiencing a value or by suffering. For, hasn’t it been said that the road less travelled is the spiritual path, right next to the regular highway of life? By the very nature of its questioning and search, life is a difficult and arduous path. Prince Siddhartha took off on this path to search for meaning and purpose, which he found in the Buddha state of mind.

There are no universal answers, but each time the question is asked, it throws up a different answer, unique to each individual. It is this enquiry, “Athato Brahmn Jignasa” — now, therefore, the enquiry into Brahmn — from the first sutra of the Brahmn sutras, which is essential to be asked, for the search to start for a deeper and more enduring value. The philosophic quest is a call to that enquiry, and the answers may be as varied as nature itself.

Answer 3

Wait!!, there is nothing else I can do to better my self, but wait for HIM(God), to decide what to do with me., and I am ready. even to die, Happy. Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all, and let us prey for the best to happen to every-one-else. though, I will continue aiming for understanding?,

Answer 4

gain more wisdom and knowledge then teach others what I have learned in hopes that mankind will be a little bit better off than when I first came here.

Answer 5

I plan to see some ongoing projects come to fruition during this coming year.

Answer 6

One day is like the next....no new aspirations