MAN, KNOW THYSELF — Purpose of Life

function. Afterwards he is buried in the ground, cremated or thrown into a river depending on the customs of the people concerned. A few days later, the body has been reduced to tiny particles and mingled with the earth in such a way as to be undetectable to normal vision. We witness daily, the extinction of live human-beings in this manner and find it difficult to comprehend how a form so totally obliterated can possibly be revived. The fact is that the word “Man” refers, not to any such bodily form, but rather to the soul which inhabits the body. As far as the physical frame is concerned, we know that it is composed of tiny particles called living cells. The position of cells in our body is like that of bricks in a building. The bricks of our physical structure, or cells, are continuously destroyed in the course of our daily lives and we compensate for this loss by taking in food. Food, once digested, produces various forms of cells which counterbalance this physical deficiency. Likewise the human body is constantly being eroded and altered. Old cells are destroyed and new ones take their place. This process continues daily until eventually total renovation of the body occurs, usually within a period of ten years. To put it another way, nothing whatsoever remains now of the body you possessed ten years ago. Your present physique is an entirely new one. If all the parts of your body severed from you over the last ten years were to be gathered together, then another human being identical to yourself could be constructed. If you are a hundred years old, then ten “You’s” could be formed which, despite their exact similarity to you in appearance, would be no more than inanimate lumps of flesh for “You” do not dwell within them. “You” have abandoned these old bodies and moulded yourself into a new frame. Every success gained in this world however, is trivial and mundane and will be of no avail in the afterlife. So the saga of construction and destruction is constantly being enacted within you without any evident change occurring. That entity which you call “Yourself” remains as it was. If you had entered into a contract with someone ten years ago, you would continue to admit that “You” committed yourself in this manner, although your previous frame is now non-existent. Neither the hands which signed the contract papers, nor the tongue which testified to it, are any longer attached to your body. Nevertheless “You” still exist, and “You” acknowledge the fact that this ten-year old contract was your own and continue to abide by