“For not one of us lives for himself and not one dies for himself.”
BIBLE (ROMANS 14:7)
“So as to live the rest of the time in flesh no longer for the lusts of men but for the will of the God.”
BIBLE (PETER 4:2)
Acharya Prashant:
I’ll repeat.
[object Object]
So, Nidhi is asking:
Acharya Ji, what I understand from the above verse is – Live for the Lord and die for the Lord.
Yes Nidhi, well captured.
But what does it mean to live for the Lord or die for him? I am not clear. Also, what is the will of God that Jesus is talking of?
What does it mean to live for the Lord and to die for him?
That is already happening Nidhi. Jesus is already saying – For none of us lives for himself and not one dies for himself. What does it mean? Your ‘self’ is anyway continuously changing. If you are to die for yourself, I would ask, which particular ‘self’? People vouch that they are living to improve. Everyone wants betterment.
There is nobody who has no desires.
There might be people who might not know that they are still desirous. There are people who might have suppressed or latent desires. But desires are still there, and if desires are still there, it means you want to change yourself, right?
A desire means that you want the situation to change. And whose situation? Even if you want the world situation to change, you want your situation that looks at the world to thereby change.
Right? Desire means that you are not alright with yourself and you want something else to happen, correct? So, we are anyway not living for ourselves. We are rather living to change ourselves. And are these not two very different things? If you are living for yourself as you are, then why would you want change? Why would you say I want a bigger car? Why would you say I want respect, or a beautiful man or woman? Then continue being as you are. But you don’t want to continue being as you are. You don’t live for yourself. You live for a better self. Is that in?
You don’t live for ‘yourself.’ You live for a ‘better self.’
So we all are anyway desirous of a ‘better self,’ are we not? There is nobody here who’d not say that he or she is not desirous of a better self. Better self meaning a better you, correct? So now listen to this again. “For not one of us lives for himself and not one dies for himself”. We all want something better and different. The only obstacle is, that we want that better thing as per the definitions of this inferior thing that we anyway want to drop.
It’s like this. You have a servant. He has been exposed as corrupt, unfriendly, hostile, and also stupid. A servant exposed as corrupt, hostile, and stupid. And because you are now firing him you want a better servant. You don’t want this servant. Now, you want a better servant. But how are you choosing a better servant? You are asking this one who is being fired, to recommend a better servant.
What exactly was the charge upon him? That he is hostile, stupid, and corrupt. And now you are telling him – you will have to go, you will have to go, but the new one who will come will come upon your recommendation. That is the mistake the entire mankind makes. All of us want to get rid of this stupid servant. And this stupid servant is our current condition. But we want a future as envisioned by this same current condition.
We want a ‘new self’ as per the imagination of this ‘current rotten self,’ don’t we? We are saying – this current rotten self must go and a great new future must come. But what is the definition of our great new future? That definition is provided by this same rotten self that you want to expel. Haww…. Bad! Now who will return as the new servant? The elder brother of this expelled one. And if this one was corrupt, then he is a swindler. If this was unfriendly, then he is a brawler, an enemy, he has come with a gun. If this was stupid, then that one is moronest, whatever that means. And then you want to fire that new one. After a while you want to fire because you want to improve.
Man is continuously on a journey of improvement.
And now you fire him and before he goes away, you tell him, now that you are going away, tell me who’s the next one I must keep? He says yes, why not? Why don’t you hire my father? The younger one, then the elder one, and now comes the father. And he comes with a cannon, not a gun. And then we wonder, we have been trying for improvement since so long, but instead of improvement this is what I get. You see that cannonball, that is being cooked for dinner. And how is he going to spice it up? By putting in some gunpowder. Cannonball cooked in gunpowder. But I’m improving you see.
When you fire your current situation, then fire the situated one as well.
You fire only the situation, not yourself. You don’t fire the situated one. You are the situated one. But you are too attached to yourself to fire yourself. You fire this and that. You never have a breakup from yourself. Why not have a breakup party tonight in which you break away from yourself. The final breakup.
‘Living for the Lord and dying for the Lord’ means you hire your servants not upon the recommendation of the servant, but according to the wishes of the Lord. If I want to reach there, I would rather ask that to tell me how to reach there.
Jab paar utarna chahiye , (When you intend to cross the river)
tb kevat se mili rahiye. (Be friends with the boatman)
Ah! strange. Because he knows the other shore. If you want to reach there, then better be friends with someone who knows the other shore. Kabir says:
Jab paar utarna chahiye , (When you intend to cross the river)
tb kevat se mili rahiye. (Be friends with the boatman)
If you want to crossover, then better be friends with the ferryman, the rower. But you say – No I like only those who are like me. I like only those who are like me. And if you are like me then you belong to this shore. Which means that it is guaranteed that I will never cross over. To change you will have to befriend someone who is not at all like you, and therefore like you.
If you are afraid of aliens, then you will forever be afraid of God. Because God in some ways is a total alien to you.
Being afraid of aliens is the same as being afraid of change, being afraid of the new. Living for the Lord and dying for the Lord means that if I want to really change and improve, then my destination is the final improved version of me called ‘God.’
God is nothing but your ultimate potential.
When you are refined, and so very refined that you have disappeared, then you are nothing but God.
You are always God, but before you were God plus a lot.
That lot is anyway false, but still there. Life must be a journey of continuous refinement of yourself. And remember that in refinement you don’t add. What do you do? How is crude oil distilled? What happens? If hundred kilograms of crude is distilled and finally the weight of all the remainders is taken up, how much would it be? Less than hundred. Far less than hundred. Refinement, or distillation, or sublimation is a process of losing yourself,
That’s what the aim of life is. Continue losing yourself. Continue losing yourself till none of you is left, and that is what is called the God presence.
That is what is called God’s presence. Nothing but that is now left. And if you are to lose the inessential, that cannot happen as per the wishes of the inessential, as per the advice of the inessential.
When you are hiring the new servant, ask God, not the previous servant.
If you want to change, do not ask yourself how to change, rather shut yourself down. Now the change has begun.
Please understand this. It’s a very common and very fatal mistake. We all are desirous of change. Our lives are proof of that. Nobody is stagnant. We all are desperately pushing, shoveling, elbowing, trying to somehow be something else at somewhere else. That is evident that we have a thirst to change. But still we do not find any real change happening. So you must investigate what is happening. This is what is happening. It’s like trying to do away with the flies without doing away with the dirt.
If you really love improvement, then walk continuously and be prepared to sacrifice everything. Living for the Lord means I have no other purpose than to materialize my utmost potential. Your utmost potential is called as God. And dying for the Lord means, that to realize that at the utmost potential I am willing to drop everything.
Living for the Lord means that I have only one purpose in life — “To be better.” What is the definition of being better? What is the definition of being better? How will you know you are better?
How will you know that improvement is happening? You become lighter. Moments of anxiety reduce. You become more stable, equanimous, fear reduces. You are no more prone to domination, and you no longer want to dominate. A certain silent love is always radiating through your being. You are not easily nervous or jittery.
One lives only for that. You are mistaken if you think that there can be any other goal in life. All other goals that you have are for this goal. If you want money, it is because you think that money will give you sureness. Money is just a medium in your eyes towards confidence, towards staying firm in front of the world. That sureness can be obtained even without money. Money is too long and circuitous a route to take. That which can happen more easily, why try to make it happen through money? So that’s the definition of being better. Not being limited, not being captive, not dependent — One lives for that. And if one is living for that, the quote says, one is also prepared to die for that. And that means, that if only that is precious, why am I carrying all the other things? If only that is precious, then for that I am prepared to leave all these worthless things behind. That is what is meant by dying for the Lord.
And she asks what is the will of God that Jesus talks of?
The will of ‘God’ is ‘God.’ ‘God’ wills that you be godly. And the will of God is that you be godly in your freedom. Because godliness by definition cannot be imposed. ‘God’ is patiently waiting for you to be godly. He has infinite patience, like everything else that he has, infinite. He desperately, yes I am using the word ‘desperately’, he desperately wants you to be godly. But he’ll not force you. Coercion is not his way.
He’ll just keep you showing the mirror in some way or the other. He was keep sending you help. Sometimes in the form of situation, sometimes in form of a book, sometimes in form of a person. He’ll keep doing these little and silent and subtle things, but he’ll never impose himself upon you, though he can do that. But if he does that then he’s no longer God. That’s the will of God.
Will of God is that you return to him.
That’s why Saints have often talked of him as the ultimate lover. You must return to him. That’s his will.
Go to him. Be one with him. Be merged in him. Be God. That’s what God wants, nothing else.
And only in that lies your so-called improvement. There is no other improvement. Use the word improvement with caution.
