While discussing a related topic today with a friend of mine, I remembered this image I posted a few years ago. I just wanted to add gist of what I wrote to him here.
Who am I?
While I don't expect scientific dissection of these philosophical concepts I find some of the religiously views very elusive to understand. You listen to them for an hour and ponder over what was said, you tend to get confused because most of it is not amenable to reasoning and questioning. I think they make sense only if you are already
bought into them and you blindly accept them.
The two best answers I know to the questions like "Who am I?", "What is life?" are:
1. The question does not make sense
2. I don't know
I think I have no reason to believe I am very different from an ant or a crow on this mother planet which itself is an atom in this universe of trillions of stars. If the "liberation/moksha" does not make sense for an ant or an elephant, it does not make sense for me too. Of course, needless to say, I don't know what makes sense for an ant or an elephant. The so-called "higher order thinking" of us humans has only been endorsed by us, the humans. For all we know the so-called "laws of nature" may be a much bigger super set of the laws of nature that we humans know. To me the cycle of birth and death is not bad, it is just marvellous and beautiful. That is what I see everywhere in mother nature. If it is good for nature, it is good for me too. It is the law of Nature (or God). Who knows what the "truth" is? I think, if we keep aside morality and ethics, religious philosophy may be left with just views and opinions.
In this context these words by Einstein makes profound sense to me:
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead - his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness - Einstein.
There may be something behind this magnificent construction which we (insignificant creation of Nature) don't understand. The best we can do is to wonder about it, during our lifetime.