To be or not to be- that is the question

Man’s concern for his existence is a struggle for identity and perfection. In his existential struggles what he records are his encountered experiences. When a child experiences the divorce of his parents, what can he think of that particular time of his history? - an encounter with reality (to see his parents separating) or a ‘miscounter.’ On 24^th of October 2006 I happened to be in Darjeeling town. I saw a boy begging to two shopkeepers who were selling apples. Perhaps the boy was very much hungry. He stood there pleading. There was no response from the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper whom the boy approached was so much indifferent and scolded the boy for disturbing him. Instantly the boy moved away from there out of fear. A distance away from there, the boy kept his eyes on a fallen apple in the ditch. He slyly bent down and procured the apple. But the hawker, seeing the apple in the hand of the boy unsympathetically asked him to put it back on the platform. The boy had no other option but to do as he is told. What must be the world around him? – Cruelty, indifference, hunger, rejection, meaninglessness? When Gujarat riot took place what must have gone through the minds of those who survived – they perhaps must have seen their own dear ones brutally being killed by the uncouth and merciless fundamentalists. Do they exist only to see the misery and blindly succumb to the law of fate? Do they feel that they are thrown into the world only to experience sadness and pain? They must have felt that it is better to have a horrific end than to have an endless horror. All the harrowing experiences haunt the mind and constantly ask the question ‘why?’ why a man kills his fellow man? A child, who has been subjected to emotional, sexual and physical abuse from his childhood, is definitely confused and accuses himself. He questions: Who am I? Why I am? – An existential struggle and a search for identity.

How can I become what I am meant to become?

Is there a way out? In man’s search for meaning, what can he cling on to? – To a God who is not visibly present to his immediate needs and sufferings? Or to an invisible God who hides himself in the midst of human sufferings so as to assure that he is an inviolable mystery and can be found only through hallowed acts? In the midst of amiss, how can one account for the human insensitivity, indifference, coldness and betrayal of trust? One reason for the human insensitivity and indifference could be thoughtlessness that would deny the golden commandment of Jesus: ‘to love your neighbour as yourself’. In this great commandment two things are involved: ‘yourself’ and ‘your neighbour’, in other words ‘the self and the other’. If one realizes that the love of self necessarily involves the love of neighbour, the ethical problem of relationship can be cured and better remedied for a world of the interhuman – between man and man. A human being is opened to two directions, vertically and horizontally. Vertically one is opened to God and horizontally one is opened to the other fellow human beings. And what makes life meaningful is this two dimensional relation to God and neighbour. Once we are aware that we belong to one family of humanity and under divine fatherhood, our identity as individual selves is carved and at the same time the others become traces to experience the ‘Infinite’ – the Ultimate Source of our existence. Hence, human connections are of utmost importance to make the truth universal that we are here only once to make the life better or worse. We must, therefore, treasure the present and live as if we are tied to a True Presence that cannot become past or future. Hence the question is not - to be or not to be, but being and becoming. Becoming is a process essential to the evolution of wo/manhood.