Life Is a Jigsaw Puzzle

By first learning all about separation, right and wrong, friendship and enmity, wealth and poverty, emptiness and fullness, sadness and joy, darkness and light, etc., we become familiar with the duality aspect of life and nature. As a second step, we learn to integrate the diversities and contrasting differences into the harmonious whole that we are. The old saying ‘The whole is more than the sum of its parts’ reflects a truth that glorifies the parts but puts the oneness above them all.

The pieces of a jigsaw puzzle make very little sense when seen on their own in their separateness from all the other pieces, but once they have each found their designated place and formed a picture, their individual value suddenly seems to have risen to a collective value of wholeness. Before assembly, each piece is unique and different from every other piece. In fact, the emphasis of the game is in finding out how each piece is different from all the others. However, once the picture has been completed, the differences that make up each piece become irrelevant. Although the individual pieces haven’t disappeared, they have joined to become one with the rest of the pieces and formed a picture that is much greater than being a separate piece which makes no sense at all.

We are these little pieces of life’s jigsaw puzzle. While being strewn in every direction, we feel lost and lonely at first. As we search for our purpose and value in life, we begin to look for other pieces that fit our piece. We try to connect and sometimes we fail, but in the failing we learn more about why we don’t fit other pieces, or why they reject us. In time, we succeed in forming lasting bonds, friendships that remind us about the purpose of the game, uniting with others until the picture is complete. Little do we know what might become of us when we all find our respective place in the jigsaw puzzle of life, but the rule of the game says that completeness is our destiny.

We may be envious of others who we believe have found a better position in the game, but that sentiment is only temporary. Eventually, once the larger picture is revealed, we will value each other as equally important. Some of the pieces of the picture may be dark and dull-looking, for they represent the shadow sides of life. Nobody likes them, but somehow they cannot be avoided or ignored, especially by the light-colored pieces. Since shadows define the light, the light and dark pieces need to make friends and be beside each other in order to bring out their unique contributions to the picture.

One of the most critical moments in this game of life is accepting everything about us, i.e. our particular shape and form, our color, our qualities of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, how we behave with others and ourselves. Once we embrace our particular role as useful and perfect for this very moment, we are ready to find our true place in the larger picture of things. We begin to realize that we are the larger picture, along with everyone else. We belong to everyone and everyone belongs to us. Although we maintain our individuality, we become universal too. Everything out there becomes as important as everything in here does.

Our struggles on the battlegrounds of differences have not been in vain or without purpose. Each difficulty has served as a milestone on our path to fulfillment. Every person you have ever met in any of your lives has been instrumental in creating this very moment in your life. Like the separate pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, the different events and the numerous relationships and experiences in your lives may have no obvious connection with each other. Yet the closer you get to becoming the larger picture – the Oneness of the All – the more clearly you begin to see that no drop of love and no tear was ever wasted. All of this was necessary and still is to this moment in order to get you where you are destined to be. There are nearly innumerable ways to complete a jigsaw puzzle, just as there are an almost infinite number of choices you can make to become aware of your essential nature. How and when you get there is of no real importance. That you do get there is what counts.

There is a mighty force behind all ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thoughts and actions, the uniting power of love that brings together the most controversial issues and standpoints, and it allows us to perceive their underlying oneness. We are all heading in the same direction, although we often fall prey to the illusion that others are not, especially when they seem to do us harm. Every person we have ever had personal contact with didn’t just bump into us accidentally.

All relationships are based on a mutual agreement reached by incarnated souls to help one another on their life journeys. This is regardless of what mirror image he or she may reflect back to us and the kind of mirror image we assume for them. All mirror images serve as opportunities to grow. While other people show us what we are like, we show others what they are like. The true motivation behind all this is unadulterated love.