Life, living and livelihood are the three fundamental issues that humans grapple with. The explanations of these three issues are convoluted. They are defined and elaborated by confusion, chaos and suffering. One needs to go through trials and troubles to experience them in their entirety. Hazrat Ali (AS) has defined these three issues to simplify life, living and livelihood.
Hazrat Ali (AS) writes that happiness and sorrow are inseparable. Life consists of two days. One day stands in favour of you. When it stands in favor of you, don’t be proud or reckless and another day stands against you. When it stands against you, be patient and humble. Suffering should not make you bitter. It should not make you an acrimonious man and make you a bad person to interact with others. It should not make you a cynic. Life is uncertain and untrustworthy. It does not treat virtuous and vicious differently. It treats them the same. Both suffer. Both are unhappy with its treatment. Virtuous sometimes undergo pitiable sufferings and sometimes vicious advances by leaps and bounds. Hazrat Ali (AS) writes, “We have been born in such a wrongful and thankless period wherein the virtuous is deemed virtuous and the oppressor goes on advancing in his excess”.
The burden of life can be made tolerable only by accepting its true nature. Shade and sun go side by side. Joy and sorrow cannot be alienated. They are to be adopted. They are to be accepted. We need to keep them along as the two sides of the same coin.
Shaheed Mutahhari writes that we should not consume our lives to seek transitory gains. We should rather consume our lives by seeking those gains that remain with us post-death. Hazrat Ali (AS) knew the disingenuousness of this world. He abominated it and its deceptive charm. He advised us to use this world as a preparation for the hereafter. It moves towards its annihilation. Anything done to attain this world will end leaving no traces behind. The wisdom hence lies in doing things for the always-remaining life- the hereafter. This world is so uncertain that hopes end in destruction. Everything is chased by death. It is the end of every mortal and mundane thing.
Human beings suffer due to their struggle to earn a livelihood for living. They have immediacy in life. They want to do more in less time but death and disease cripple their movements and make them handicapped. Infinite desires and everyday-widening hopes busy us taking us away from the main goal of life.
The suffering of life cannot be eliminated while being in the world. At every step of life, man is tested and his forbearance is checked. He fails badly. Life begins in and with grief and terminates in annihilation. Every new thing is born at the cost of the death of an old thing. Young turn into old. Healthy becomes diseased. Happiness changes into sorrow. Every house is grief-stricken. When Kisa Gotami was asked by Buddha to fetch a handful of mustard seeds from a house where no one had died to cure her dead son, she went from house to house but found no house where none died. Where suffering was missing. Every single human suffers in one way or another way.
Accepting the uncertainty of life drives it and makes it composed. Thinking it does not treat anyone considerably whether rich or poor, religious or irreligious, good or bad gives courage and fortitude to live it and bear it. The burden of life needs to be carried on our shoulders till we are alive here on earth. The bitter-sweet nature of life is to endure. There is no solution to the problems of life except embracing them. If one explores the annals of history, he will discover the suffering of the greatest people in the world. It will wonder him but it is true and needs to be believed. Life does not spare anyone. Everyone has to bear the brunt of life. It rains and soaks everyone. Its shade disappoints everyone. It is to be taken as it is or it will appear to us unmanageable.
If life is lived as per the teachings of Hazrat Ali (AS), it will be beautiful and easy. One would not feed grudges against it. One would not have huge expectations from it. One would not be disappointed. One would not mourn its treatment of him. It will be worry-less and anxiety-less. We should comply with the teachings of Hazrat Ali (AS) to make life simple.
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Fida Hussain Bhat