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Why does man go wrong? || Acharya Prashant, on Jesus (2014)

Acharya Prashant

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Why does man go wrong? || Acharya Prashant, on Jesus (2014)

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

– (Bible, Romans 14:17)

Question: Christ says, ‘The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink’, but on every special day, all I see is meat and drink. That is how people celebrate. So where did it all go wrong?

Speaker: If Christ is saying that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, then why do we only see meat and drink? And his words are both figuratively and literally true. Millions of animals would have been slaughtered just for the New Year eve celebration. And you know, statistics are that forty percent of that meat, chicken, ham, beef, bacon, all that goes to go waste. Because in festivals people tend to buy more than they need, then they throw it away. Of the millions of slaughtered animals, millions have been killed, just to be dumped in a waste basket.

Where did it all go wrong?

It didn’t really go wrong at any particular point, it is always continuously going wrong. It’s not as if something happened in the historical context and because of that mankind is suffering.

It is always, continuously going wrong.

Whenever man will fail to, or refuse to understand the essence, he would start living in the peripheral, the inessential. A Jesus comes, he says a few things. What he says arises from his essence. He never wants followers.

What a Jesus wants is more Jesus.

Because only when you are a Jesus can you understand Jesus. So even if Jesus wants his words to be understood, he will have to first create more Jesus. So he speaks. But he has made his body the medium of speaking. The words are coming from the corporeal mouth, they have their limitations. The body is limited, and the life span is limited. In spite of the trueness of his essence, in spite of the sincerity of his desire, yet there is not much that a Jesus can do, not much that any Jesus or any Buddha can do.

Jesus was not born by another Jesus. The birth of any Jesus is always a mystery. The same mysticism that a Jesus alludes to is also responsible for his birth. Just as God is unknowable, similarly, the father of Jesus is unknowable. And it is no coincidence, therefore, that God is the father of Jesus, and both are unknowable.

Now, a Jesus is fathered by God and Jesus is trying to create more Jesus. How will he do that? With all his limited means and resources, and all of thirty-two years of life, how will he do that? There is nothing else that he will try. He has no expectation other than wanting more Jesus. Nothing short of that will satisfy him.

But, you know, had God wanted more Jesus, he would have simply produced them. Why would he leave it upon Jesus to produce more Jesus? Surely God has not undergone some family planning program. He is not obliged to have only one son. It would have been great if he had a few daughters as well. Jesus is trying hard. But how can he go against the wish of his own father?

In Christianity, this is taken as the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus. In Christianity, it is said that God loves you so much that he sent his only son to redeem you and you killed his only son. India looks at it a little differently. India says no suffering, no sacrifice! Just Leela!

On one hand there is the force of maya, on the other hand there is the call of truth and the continuous interplay of these two is the world, the ego and the centre. What else is the world? The two centres, that is the world.

So, it never really went wrong at any place. Whatever is happening is continuously happening. On one hand we suffer, on the other hand we also realize why we suffer. So the equilibrium sometimes shifts a little to this side, and sometimes shifts a little to that side. And nothing great happens on either side. Existence will continue in its ways whether or not you suffer.

Even if the entire mankind is wiped-off this planet, that makes no difference to the universe. Let everybody be killed, it makes no difference to any grand plan. Things will continue to be what they are and how they are.

But it makes a difference to you! To the total, it does not make any difference. But it makes a difference to you! The game is on! There is maya and there is the call of Jesus.

To God it doesn’t make any difference because just as God sends Jesus, maya too has been sent by God. So to God it doesn’t make any difference that who wins, but to you it makes a difference. If you are not with Jesus, you will suffer. Are you getting it? You will suffer! So you better choose your side carefully.

Jesus was not preaching to existence. Jesus was not preaching to God either. Jesus was preaching to you and me! We better be careful. We must know that festivals are not about meat and drink! We must know!

-Excerpts from Clarity Session held at Advait Sthal. Edited for clarity.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant.
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