Looking for the Seeds of a Fulfilling Life?

How do we get out of our pitiful lives and experience the life to the full? How can we say that we are truly alive and not just existing without meaning or purpose? How do we make our lives fruitful not only for us but for others as well?

Let us see what the wisest man who ever lived says about having a fruitful life. “"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If in case you do not know who said this, it is the God-Man Jesus.

Now let us see what we can learn from a seed. If the seed remains in its shell or coat, it remains idle and alone. It is trapped! Many of us like the seed is trapped in our own egos. We live in our own little world detached from experiencing the world. Because we desperately try to protect our ego, we put barriers. Barriers like the seed’s coat, which blocks people from having a real relationship with us and us with them. Jesus was right, “it remains alone”. I have noticed egoistic people are mostly lonely because they are not fun hang around with. They are trapped in themselves.

So how do we break out of this sad and lonely place? The ego must “falls into the earth and dies”. The ego must die. The pride must die if we really want to live. If we want to experience the world in all its fullness we must stop containing it in the narrow confines of our own ego. Once we realize that the world does not revolve around us, and then we can start to experience it more realistically. Once we give in to the mysteries of life that is when we start to experience the awe of how BIG life is. Our ego is the box we place ourselves and live in. That is why many of us are jaded living inside the box of our egos. But life is to be found outside the box.

“A grain of wheat falls into the earth…. it bears much fruit.” The last part of experiencing a full-filling life is mixing with the earth. No man is an island. We are social beings. Only in giving ourselves to others can we have fruitful and meaningful life. We only need to observe the lives of the great people of our time to see that their greatness came from living a life bigger than themselves. Their life was not about them. People like Ghandi, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa lived not for themselves. They lived their lives trying to make this world a better place.

It is ironic that when we stop being egoistic, self-centered, self-absorbed and eventually selfish that is when we start to really live life. Unless we break out of our narrow confines of our ego we are trapped and alone. Self giving, self donation and self sacrifice are the only way to have a fruitful life.

But whoever loses his life will preserve it.