The Four Quarters of Life

One, two, three, four
Life has Quarters Four
Our journey is made of four parts
Not just smiles and hearts
Life is not just to learn and earn
Then leave behind wealth for others to burn
Let us learn to live and die
In a manner that others will cry

Everybody in this world must die
When the body dies, we depart to the sky
But who is that one, who is that ‘I’
That moves on after we die?
The journey of life starts at birth
There is a purpose for us on earth
If we don’t Realize this, we suffer pain
And we will come back again and again

For every living creature, there’s a plan
How long they live, what’s their life span
A human being lives for seventy years
But our dog dies at ten, filling our eyes with tears
But why cry, why question, ‘Why?’
Why can’t we accept the will from the sky?
Whoever is alive on earth must go
Such is God’s Divine show

But many of us, we just sleep
Finally, we wake up, and we weep
We think life will go on and on
But in a flash, the treasure is gone
Every moment is a gift to spend
Realize this before your end
Wake up to life’s Quarters Four
Before death pushes you out of the door

The First Quarter of life is to learn
Every small child must pages’ turn
And then the Second Quarter is to earn
Earn money that others will burn
Most of us just live these Quarters two
Those who go beyond are very few
The Quarter Three, the few who seek
They reach life’s ultimate peak

But most of us just live and die
Don’t discover the Truth of ‘Who am I?’
Why did we come to planet earth
Why were we blessed with a human birth
Only those who take an exit from achievement
Move onward and find Enlightenment
They escape from the cycle of death and rebirth
Become one with God, don’t return to earth

What is this Quarter Three all about
Nobody showed us this Divine route
Quarter Three must be in silence spent
It is to Enlightenment an advent
To leave behind our passion for wealth
And try to improve our Spiritual health
To know we are not the ego, body, and mind
In Quarter Three, this truth we must find

Don’t you know, it will be time to go
After Quarter Three, it will soon be end of the show
The earth is a stage, we are actors that dance
Everything has a purpose, nothing happens by chance
And now, the Law of Karma we must learn
And then, for the Divine, we must start to yearn
Very few are blessed to take this path
When will we, this Divine journey, start?

How many of us will live to see Quarter Four
Very few, you can check the score
Thus, in fact, we have only Quarters Three
Before they are over, we must be free
From all attachments, we must depart
To heaven our journey we must start
God is not in a temple or church
When are we going to start our search?

Is it difficult to understand…
Nothing is ours, this is not my land
With empty hands, we come and go
This world is a drama, it’s just a show
There is a purpose for us to find
Do it now, time we can’t rewind
Moment by moment the life we spend
Before we realize, will come to an end

In the ancient centuries that have gone by
Man’s Third Quarter was to question, ‘Why?’
The first two Quarters were not different
But the third in a forest, it was meant to be spent
So, after his children had taken over
Man would leave home and forests cover
Wandering in the woods, he would seek God
And try to become one with the Lord

Everybody in those ancient days
Had to follow these prescribed ways
They were not just meant to live and die
But to find life’s purpose, discover ‘Who am I?’
After learning and earning, they would start a search
And not in greed they would just lurch
In a Quest, their life they would spend
And do nothing else, till their end

In those days, the purpose was God
People lived with the fear of their Lord
In sunshine they would work, in darkness, they would pray
Their last days were meant to find a way
They did not want to return to earth
They did not want to take rebirth
And thus, they were seeking the ultimate goal
To Realize the Truth, that they were the Soul

The sages that lived in those ancient years
Lived with bliss, without any tears
They found a way to eternal peace
A way where all suffering would cease
They found a way to peace and bliss
How to get everlasting happiness
It was this reward, that man strived to find
Spent his old age, transcending his mind

But today’s man doesn’t know of Quarters Four
He just wants to sing and dance on the floor
He doesn’t realize that soon he will die
He wants to laugh, but then he will cry
For everything that he thought he did own
Soon would be gone, this truth is known
And so, he lives with the fear of death
And the unknown, that lies beyond his last breath

Man is busy in a rat race
Trying to be successful, to be an ace
Before he realizes, he is caught in a maze
He does not discover God’s grace
He does not discover his purpose on earth
He loses this treasure of human birth
And then, to settle his Karma he is born again
To return to earth for another journey of pain

It’s time for man to leave the myth behind
To find out that he is not the body, the ego, the mind
To Realize the Truth, he is the Soul
And to unite with God, is his ultimate goal
Then man will be free from misery and stress
And he will have eternal happiness
Overcoming the myth that success is happiness
He will discover true peace and bliss

So let us all discover the Quarters Four
Before it is time to go out of the door
Before this precious life does end
Let’s start a Quest, it’s time well-spent
The ancient wisdom that our forefathers told
Let us pursue that, let us be bold
And leave behind this life that we waste
Eternal bliss and peace, let us taste.