Sadhguru, What is the purpose of life? Why has God created us?
Fundamentally, what you are asking is: why creation? The same question keeps coming in so many different ways. When it comes to creation, you never ask why, because you are just a tiny speck in this creation. In the arrangements that you have made as a human being, I know you slowly started assuming that, in many ways, you are the center of the universe. But that is not the truth; you are just a tiny speck in the Existence. Tomorrow morning, if you disappear, nobody will miss you.
So, this tiny speck asking the question: ‘Why creation,’ does not make sense because the question doesn’t come from the right context. This question comes up because somewhere the experience of life has not become blissful. If the experience of life had become blissful, you would not ask. Somewhere existing here has become a struggle and a pain.
The question comes up because there is an inner struggle. Maybe you are not hundred percent aware of the struggle, but here and there it touches you. So now, the more intelligent question for you would be: How do I get beyond this struggling state? If you ask how, I have a way. If you ask why, then I have to tell you a story.
If you want I can tell you one right now. One day, Shiva had nothing to do and he was playing marbles – nobody else, no company. One marble fell this way and it became planet Earth. Another one shot up and it became the Sun; I can go on like this. Now you won’t believe this ridiculous story. But if I make the story more elaborate, and if the story is not told today, but a thousand years ago, you would believe it. You don’t believe anything that happens today, but you will believe it after a thousand years. It doesn’t matter what it is.
So, I said, A thousand years ago..you would believe the story. Stories don’t liberate you. Stories just equip you to speak with some sense of authority in the next dinner party you are invited to. It won’t liberate you in any way. So when it comes to Existence, don’t waste your life asking the question, ‘why?’ Because if you sit here for the rest of your life and go on thinking ‘why’, or consult every other person on this planet, all you will get is more and more fairy tales; you will not get a solution. If you are intelligent, you can see it right now. Different cultures will tell different stories; different religions will tell different stories; every individual can create his own story. Stories will not liberate you. But if you ask ‘how’, then we open up the path, we give you the method. Don’t ask why.
Isha Yoga 
6 comments
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May 6, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Farhad
In divine religion the answer is quiet straightforward. Answer is “God created us to worship him.”
God does not need someone should worship him but rather its for our salvation we worship him. Simple but has deep meaning.
March 23, 2011 at 3:45 am
deepak
again it is debatable whether god wants to create us or not , as per Ibrahimic religions god doesn’t want adam and eve to eat the apple of the tree, which was the only reason for the reproduction of human race.
April 20, 2011 at 10:28 am
sandeep
hello,
god is there or not? i didnt find till now, when i will get then i will post my comment.
if you ask this question to any religion all religion have there readymade answer.
blahm blah.
but no proof.
i suggest all human to search god by his own way. if god exist he will meet to all religion.
April 20, 2011 at 10:31 am
sandeep
Many religious scholars claim that God created us so that we could worship Him. If that be so,
a. God becomes nothing more than a praise-loving dictator suffering from superiority-complex.
b. It proves that God is inconsistent. He changes His habits. That is why since beginninglessness God was all alone, but then He suddenly thought of creating us.
Let us say, He decided to create us at point T1 in time. Now since time has no beginning and God was always present, hence time T1 or any other time T2, T3 etc are equidistant from origin of time which is infinity away. So if He can change his mood at time T1, there is no reason why He cannot change His mood at other time-points like T2, T3 etc. Also, there is no guarantee that He did not create and destroy us or other species at other times BEFORE time T1 of this creation.
Now all religions that claim that Allah created us so that we could worship Him also believe that Allah is perfect. Now if Allah is perfect, it means that at ALL points in time, He is equally perfect and operates as per the SAME laws. Perfection implies that there can be NO single-point inconsistency in God’ habits.
THUS, if God/Allah/Ishwar created us at time T1, He HAS to keep creating us at other time periods also IF He is perfect. Now He cannot create us twice! So if He creates us, He has to also destroy us so as to create us again.
Now if he continues to create and destroy us, how can He ensure that we worship Him when we have been destroyed. This means that either mood of God fluctuates with time, OR, He has NOT created us for worship.
CONFUSION: WHY HE MAKES US SUFFER WHEN HE HIMSELF CREATED US.
This is a most perplexing question that no religious cult can satisfactorily answer. This is the genesis of atheism. Muslims believe that God has a book “Lohe Mahfooz” under his throne, in which all the future acts of all the species has been written in complete detail. But this defies the concept of free-will. If what I do is already written a-priori, why punish me for being a Kafir? Even the punishment is written already in Lohe Mahfooz!
Clergies answer this paradox smartly. For example, the neo-Prophet Zakir answers in following lines:
“ In a class there are all kinds of students. Some are brilliant and come first. Others fail. Now a smart teacher can predict who will get what rank. This does not mean that the teacher is forcing the students to perform in a particular manner. This only means that teacher is intelligent enough to know who will do what. And since Allah is most-intelligent, He knows everything that will happen in future.”
A very reasonable sounding answer. But only that it has a major flaw. The teacher can predict the performance of his students only because he has assessed the past and present performance of the students. But in case of God, it is He Himself who decides which student would be born intelligent and who shall be dumb!
So while Mohandas Gandhi was born on 2nd October 1869, Allah had already decided millions of years before his birth that this boy would remain a Hindu, but appease Muslims, and yet be called a Kafir deserving Hell by devout Muslims like Muhammad Ali. So right from his birth, Gandhi had no choice but to simply follow what was already written millions of years ago.
The teacher-student logic would hold ONLY IF the prediction regarding performance of the soul is made only after the soul has been created and developed to be mature enough to decide his course of action. So a Lohe Mahfooz that exists even before creation of souls only proves that Allah/God is unjust. Please refer the articles on Helpless Destiny in Islam and God must be Crazy.
PREMISE 2: HE CREATED US TO TEST US
This concept has already been debunked in God must be Crazy through several examples. Further, if He is testing us, He cannot have a Lohe Mahfooz or, in other words, cannot predict our future. If He already knows the future, there is no use of testing. And if He is doing both, He is acting only as a moody dictator fond of enacting dramas.
SO WHY DID HE CREATE US??? ULTIMATE CONFUSION
We have eliminated all implausible explanations that can answer this perplexing question. If not for testing and not for worship, what else can be the reason for creating us? It cannot be for giving us happiness, because we find so many brutal things happening in world. People even commit suicide tired of pains in life.
Further, why did he create in first place, even if to give happiness or grief or take an exam? Could he not have simply enjoyed his solitude that he decided to first create us and then play games with us? In helplessness, one is left with no choice but to say, “Allah knows the best”, or “Khuda Jaane”, or “ God knows”, or even “Goli maar bheje me!”
Buddhism is practical and does not even touch this question. It says that before even thinking of answering such questions, raise the level of intellect through practice of mind and sense control. No doubt, a very practical suggestion for those entrenched in worldly glitters to be blinded to see and feel things beyond.
But despite all this, the question keeps burning somewhere deep in us – Why did He create Us? And nothing seems to make sense or look purposeful unless a satisfactory answer to this question is obtained.
It is true that Only God knows the Best. But Vedas – the first books of humankind – throw sufficient light on this perplexing question for us to take this quest further. And the answer provided by Vedas is clear and unambiguous:
GOD NEVER CREATED US.
And because God never created us, He also never destroys us. Creation and destruction of soul is NOT the scope of work of God.
Thus, just as God is beginningless and endless, so are we. We have existed along with God always and shall continue to do so.
Q: If God did not create us, what does He do?
A: God does what He is doing today. God is managing us.
Q: Then why He made this world and universe?
A: God did not create the root cause of the world and universe. The root cause – called Nature (Prakriti) – was always present and shall remain forever.
Q: This is confusing – God does not create world and He did not create us. Then what does he do?
A: As told earlier, he is managing us. To explain in detail, God brings the root cause of inanimate nature (Prakriti) and modifies it to make the universe/world in same manner as a potter uses water and clay to create pots. He then integrates this universe with souls.
Q: But why does He do all this?
A: He does all this because unless he does so, souls cannot perform actions so as to maximize their happiness. Thus He integrates souls with the universe in a manner that Law of Karma holds perfectly at all times. Now soul can, as per its deed, choose to increase of decrease its happiness.
Q: But why He needs to do all this drama to give us happiness? Can’t He give us directly?
A: God does not do anything which is not his property. For example, He will never kill Himself and create a new God. Now soul has certain properties: it is conscious, exists but devoid of happiness. It can do nothing on its own. It is like a microprocessor which can function only when hooked to a power source and motherboard. Thus God creates this computer system aka universe so that the microprocessor aka soul can function and exhibit its powers to achieve happiness.
Q: How does this Law of Karma work
A: Refer the FAQ on Theory of Karma. But basically, soul has following 6 properties: Desire, Repulsion, Efforts, Happiness, Sorrow and Knowledge. The source of all these is the core Will-power and the goal is to achieve ultimate bliss. Now as and when the soul exercises its will as per its natural properties, it is able to exhibit these properties even better and move closer to the goal. But if it acts unnatural, the properties diminish in expression and it would move away from the goal. Thus based on its deeds, soul achieves different states of its quality called Chitta.
Now what God does is that depending upon the quality of the soul, it provides it an environment which is most conducive for it to exercise its will and move towards its goal. Thus Bliss is a function of Actions which is a function of Thoughts which is a function of Knowledge which is a function of Will-Power. The reverse is also true meaning that if actions are bad, they lead to diminished knowledge and hence skewed will-power. And when one does extremely bad deeds, God puts those souls in non-human species where they can no more exercise their will-power significantly. This is done to clean up the soul of garbage in its Chitta.
This process goes uninterrupted by death. Death is merely a short stop in the journey where you get down the vehicle and replenish yourself with food and water to start afresh.
Q: This is too much to understand in one go. Can you summarize?
OK. Here is the summary:
a. God, Soul and Nature (Prakriti) are three eternal entities that always existed and will always exist. This is the actual concept of ‘Trinity’.
b. God never creates or destroys souls or nature. He only acts as a Super Manager who brings Soul and Nature together so that souls can put efforts as per Law of Karma to achieve ultimate bliss.
c. Whatever is happening with us in our life is as per our own efforts till last moment. And we can change the course of our destiny through present and future efforts.
d. Death is never a final stop. It is just a short break after which journey continues unhindered.
e. When we say that God is creator, we mean that he brings souls and nature together to give them this non-random well-planned shape. He then maintains the universe to help the souls. Finally He destroys the universe and then again starts the process of creation. All this – creation, maintenance and destruction – continues to happen just like night and day continue to follow each other. There was never a time when this process did not exist nor shall there be a time when this process will cease. That is why He is called Brahma (Creator), Vishnu (Maintainer) and Pralaykarta (Destructor).
f. No property of God changes ever. So whatever He does at ALL times is for benefit of souls.
g. Souls have free-will. But that is subject to their knowledge which depends on their deeds. This forms the basis of Theory of Karma.
h. Put simply, God is always with us and he is always helping us. We need to simply follow the core will and attempt to accept truth and reject falsehood every moment. This act of truth-seeking is the natural property of soul and purpose of this universe. When we do so, we rapidly progress towards ultimate bliss.
So God never created us from nothingness. He however developed such a marvelous world for us to help us. And we can help fulfill our destiny and purpose of this creation through truth-seeking. This is the core message of Vedas and sole essence of life.
Q: One final Question – How does one ascertain that this also is not yet another creative theory and not the truth? Why should we believe you?
A: Several reasons:
a. Whatever has been said is as per Vedas – the oldest and unchanged texts. Refer the text below and you shall find several references and details.
b. This theory is intuitive and as per common observations in life. It does not talk of a miracle that needs to be accepted blindly. Law of Karma is seen working everywhere. You need not go far to test it. Simply become positive and cheerful and enthusiastic for 30 days, refuse to be negative, refuse to indulge in wrong acts and note down how whatever happens in life or you feel. You would find your level of bliss to be way higher in this small experiment. This theory is at least more plausible than things like theory of evolution which no one ever witnessed, or stories of miracles which no one ever saw.
c. Vedas do not even put a restriction that you need to believe in it blindly. However the action points that derive from this theory are such that every sensible person would agree – that accept truth and reject false to best of intentions. And perform good acts as mentioned in Vedic religion in brief.
Remember that Vedas have a very organic intuitive approach. There is no compulsion in believing. What Vedas say instead is that as and when you continue accepting truth and rejecting false to best of your intentions, things will automatically start becoming clearer. So call it whatever if you are not convinced. But you would have to agree that there is no other theory which is more logical, intuitive as well as motivating than the theory that –
“God has always been and shall always protect us and nurture us and give us opportunities and work only for our benefit all the while giving respect to our free-will without deviating even a bit!”
The global bestseller “The Secret” merely scratched the surface of this marvelous theory and changed lives of many. Imagine what would be the potential of the complete theory! We, at Agniveer, would attempt to present it to best our our understanding.
Note: For more details on this topic, I strongly recommend Chapter 7,8 and 9 of Satyarth Prakash or Light of Truth. If you can read Hindi, go for the original Hindi version which is attached here. Though the language is 125 years old, it contains concepts not found elsewhere.
January 18, 2013 at 10:59 am
Madhukar
Well the most common and a very tough question- Why God created us? In an order to attempt to answer this questions, many more things needs to be discussed. If you friends are ready to understand my opinion without prejudices of your own religions, thn u will find it easy to understand. In other words, jst forget all belief which u have mugged up since childhood, and try to understand it with fresh mind.
To start with answer, first let us know who are we? We are not a body, but we are a soul. So there is no sense to talk abt body, we will talk only abt our self (soul). Second, let us all accept that God is perfect. This means that he don’t behaves randomly! He behaved in same manner even before past and will behave same even after future. So if we say that god did this or that for first time, means god changed his mind and start/stop doing things randomly. So if we say that god created us for first time, which he nvr did before, means god acted randomly. If he acts randomly, means he dnt have anything sure! This means God is not perfect, rather he is moody or do random things like creating us etc!
But, god is perfect! he acts same always!. So this means god never act random, and hence it means God never created us! We are subset of god and we existed with god and continue to exist with god. So we (soul) are never born and a thing which is never born, it shall never die! Yes we are a part of God! We have existed in past and will continue to exist in future, the only thing is that we (soul) keep changing, is this body, jst like a person discards old cloths and put on new cloths! So the question that y are we born, is not valid, because we were never born . We are part of God and existed along with God since beginning! So what do people means when they say world will come to an end? It merely means that world will go in unmanifested form and manifest again frm it! So simple! Every thing is a part of God, it jst keep manifesting and unmanifesting. Nothing is destroyed or created new. This has been done always, and God never made this universe randomly! This whole universe itself is a part of God, so it had always existed and will continue to exist! For example, bricks makes a building. Whn u remove bricks, building is gone, but bricks always remains there because it is the cause of effect (building). Cause always remains, but effect can have temporary existence! So souls are forever. It jst keeps on travelling in different world and diffrent bodies, ultimately they obtain bliss by their actions and go into God! All soul have one aim, to go into god…but aftr going into God, soul never get destroyed….because it was never born! It is jst like a drop of water which don’t cease to exist after mixing into ocean. So we were never born and we will never die. A man with little knowledge see the birth and death of soul. A man with evn more little knowledge see only birth and death of this body!
So now you can easliy get answers of question of something which you may have never thought…like- Does soul always remain in heaven or hell? Means, does god gives infinite punishment/ rewards for limited number of actions performed on earth? No! ….god is merciful….he gives soul freedom to act and constantly move up or down in terms of purity of soul. A soul take birth in a body and situation, based upon his previous actions! The actions of soul in repeated births, makes it good or bad! So action theory is valid everytime. This also help us to answer the abruptness that why God do partiality (act as imperfect) to put one soul in good body and other soul in bad body without any previous action of those souls. Actually God never do partiality and he is equal to all. We just get good body or bad body depending on our own previous actions! Hence God is always impartial and always perfect!
Morever if u believe in heaven / hell to justify action and result theory, remember that whn the results of actions are nullified, the soul comes back to perform action. So no one can say that soul will always remain in heaven or hell till infinity because of the action he performed during , say just 100 years of life!
Also now we have understanding to reject the belief if a person says that we can go to heaven by asking mercy by god whn we are in hell. If it is correct, thn why dnt enjoy a lot here, do all bad activities, go to hell and ask mercy frm god and go to heaven?? So simple shortcut! But asking for mercy in hell dnt gives u heaven. However God shows his mercy and gives u chance everytime to go and perform and get its result! Even a person in heaven has to return for performing actions, after he finishes enjoying the result of good actions!
July 10, 2013 at 10:53 am
Muthuselvi
How to ask questions to sadhguru…Am in probs