The Purpose of the Human Life

The Purpose of the Human Life
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Tonight, the message of this program is a very simple one, a very humble one. The source of all of the problems of our world can be traced back to one problem- the bodily identification of ourselves.



Religion teaches us that we are not these bodies, but are eternal souls. The soul is in every single material body, whether it be a cow's body, a dog's body, an ant's body, or a human's body. The only difference is the development of consciousness in the species of the body. Therefore, what are these conceptions we apply to ourselves? We are all humans underneath the clothes we wear.

People generally think "I am American", or "I am European", or "I am Asian", etc. What are these labels, besides their physical location? People think "I am Christian", "I am Muslim", "I am Hindu", but what are these labels, besides their religious background? Or people are thinking "I am white", or "I am black", or "I am brown". What are these labels, besides the mere color of their skin?

We are all human beings. But because so many people are attached to the bodily conception of life, they are fighting over their illusions. To take it a step farther, every living being in this universe has a soul within their material body. Once we understand this, we are situated on the transcendental platform, not the material one. And one who perceives as such, actually sees.

Therefore, let us take it a step farther, and try to grasp the universal message of all religions. At base, religion teaches us that we are all eternal souls, eternal servants of God, and it is our duty to return to God at the end of this life, so that we can go back to the spiritual realm, the Kingdom of Heaven, and no longer have to rot in this material world. That is why the human body is so important, to not be wasted.

There is no other species on earth that is capable of realizing God, and thus we should not spend our times engaged in lower activities, like animals. The symptom of the modern man, is that he lives only for pleasure, only to satisfy his senses. Even animals have this much sense, but do you see your dog thinking about God? Therefore, this human life is very valuable, and it is nothing but a waste for us if we do not spend it in the effort of trying to surrender to God, trying to re-awaken our dormant God consciousness.

Many youths today are becoming disillusioned by the narrowness of fundamentalism, and are turning away from God. Because of the foolishness of the elders who are blind, the youth of today are turning away from God and turning to atheism, hedonism. Most youths are intelligent enough to see that the ideal of fundamentalism, "Our way is the only way, all others are going to hell", is nothing but dogma, and because of dogma, creates blind followers.

Too often this atheistic ideal leads one to the personal conception of God, causing them to think "I am God". This is insanity, to believe yourself to be God. To think that, is to insult God, saying that God has to take the form of a human, and has to suffer in the material world, and has to meditate to realize he is God again. If that is true, then God is neither all knowing nor perfect. A person who thinks "I am God" is a madman, and is fool number one. If they are God, why can't they manifest the infinite universal form of God? It is because they are not God, but a mere mortal under the influence of maya, the energy of illusion.

And too often, we see people with great faith in God, whether they be of the Christian faith, the Islam faith, or the Hindu faith, but far too often they do not have the intelligence to explain their great faith, and thus they are made to be fools in the eyes of the world. They believe in God, but cannot explain why. It is much to their benefit that they learn the science of God, so that they can logically explain their beliefs. Faith without intelligence is dogma, and it creates fundamentalism, and fanatical followers.

To understand God, you not only need sincerity and humility, but intelligence as well. There are too many people with sincere faith, but no intelligence, and thus their faith is useless. They claim to believe in God, but they cannot answer people's questions when tested. Thus, what good is their blind faith? They have no intelligence with which to explain their beliefs. They simply hold the childish notion of "My religion is the only right one, and all others are wrong". Well, if every single person in the world thinks that, then naturally, conflicts are going to arise. There is no difference between the Christian, the Muslim, the Jew, the Hindu. They are all children of God.

The real purpose of religion is to teach us our constitutional position in the universe. And once we are situated in this transcendental knowledge, we no longer suffer from the material desires that keep us enslaved in this world. As I mentioned above, the human form of life is so valuable, that we should not waste it like animals. We should refrain from the consumption of meat, and should try to refrain from intoxicants as much as possible, as well as controlling our sexual lust, which is the binding force of this universe. Simply because we want to have a few moments of sense gratification, the next thing we know, we have a child, and now we have to work like asses just to support the family we built. The proper purpose of marriage is to begot children who will become God conscious, to provide support for each other, to help one another cultivate transcendental knowledge. This should be the goal for the union of man and woman in marriage.

Right now, people are killing each other in Iraq because they are caught up in their own illusions, thinking oneself to be 'American' and others to be 'Iraqis'. Human beings are killing each other over false concepts of nationality. I wish I could ask each and every one of them, how much longer is this madness going to go on? Why are you acting like animals, like dogs, fighting each other? Now naturally, the American government has a crafty way of provoking attacks, so that they can have a reason to retaliate. The British used this same strategy in India over 50 years ago, attack unarmed crowds of Indians, trying to provoke them to strike back, to justify their repression. But the Indians were far too intelligent for such traps, because they had an intelligent leader, Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi preached that nonviolence is the only way of peace, that you cannot gain freedom or peace by killing people who do not agree with you. He said that he wanted to change the hearts and minds of the British, not kill them for weaknesses that we all possess.

Naturally, a government conditions through the forces of media, keep the public dumb and ignorant, full of apathy. We will realize the mistakes we are making, as we hand over our freedoms to governments. All governments are naturally evil, because they are organizations for power, for control. In ancient times, the kings of society were righteous and moral, but in this present age, crooks and thieves and murderers have gained power, and this is what governments are made of. Thus, it requires an intelligent and active public to keep the government in line, if they have any hope for their own freedom.

There are many activists out there, who are striving to change society, but neglecting the basic foundation of society, its spirituality. These activists and leaders could do far more good for society by helping spread genuine spirituality in America, because we have become so consumed by materialism, that although America is the richest nation in the world, we are also the world's most spiritually poverty striken country in the world. This country is so full of riches, but the people here are miserable, because they are neglecting their spirituality and their dormant God consciousness. If the activists would put all of their current energy into helping spread and teach spirituality, this country would be healed overnight. But they insist of trying to solve the problem at the surface, and neglect the ocean beneath the problem. The modern man has become so backwards spiritually, that it is no wonder that this nation has the highest depression and suicide rate in the world.

The youths are unsatisfied with fundamentalist religion, and are either turning towards atheistic philosophy, or even worse, towards a hedonistic way of life. And it is all because of the foolishness of the so called religious teachers. In Christianity, Jesus Christ says 'Thou shalt not kill'. Obviously, christians do not take this to mean all living creatures, since they continue to maintain their slaughterhouses, but this commandment is quite clear. 'Thou shalt not kill' means thou shalt not kill any living creature. If Jesus meant that thou shalt not kill your fellow man, he would have used the word 'murder' instead of 'kill'. Why do the christians continue to twist this commandment to their own liking? You cannot simply reject the part of the gospel that you do not like. You have to accept it as it is, unchanged, free from interpretation or mental speculation.

The violence that we inflict on the animals is manifested through the violence we inflict on each other through war. It is only karmically right that as we continue to keep such violent tendencies such as eating meats and flesh, we continue to kill each other in war and violent crimes. The amount of land that is used to feed one cow to be slaughtered, 20 times that amount could be grown in vegetables, beans, grains. So meat eating is not only argriculturally unsound, but completely selfish, when half of the world's population goes to bed hungry, or at best, with a small bowl of rice in their belly. What makes a person think that they have the right to eat meat? It is pure selfishness. It is this kind of selfishness that is causing the third world nations to hate the developed nations. The violence that is occuring in the world today is because of poverty, not because of religious differences, as the mainstream media would have you believe. And I believe that Gandhi once said 'Poverty is the worst form of violence'.

Governments also brainwash their populace into ideas of nationality, such as fighting to 'defend the homeland'. This is pure propaganda, and the poor unfortunate souls who believe these lies are used as pawns in warfare. They did not have the intelligence to discriminate, based on logic, the so called evidence their government put before them, and thus are tricked into joining the military. There are three modes of existence, goodness, passion, and ignorance. Generally, people living under ideas of nationality and military are under the modes of passion and ignorance.

So you see, if the intelligent members of society will simply try to preach and awaken people's dormant God consciousness, society's problems will be healed. It is the duty of the intelligent members of society to help preach universal worship of God, because if mankind cannot get over its petty differences, then we are going to destroy the world with our ignorance. This is the highest need for human society, and it is also the greatest humanitarian service that one can give to society, the preaching of knowledge that will help people become liberated from this material world, and so that they can go back home to God at the end of this life. That is the highest perfection of human life.

I welcome your feedback at my e-mail address, Muscles598@yahoo.com

 

I must say that some of your ideas are beautiful, interesting and almost equivalent with mine while others are rather reluctant and reprehensible.

This does not work, would not work, will not work and we starkly would not want it to work. Alas, are you expecting people from such contrary faiths ever to unite? Will the whale, the lion and the bird ever unite or do they all live on different levels? Just to give you a simple example, we have a people calling Jesus(peace b upon him) a liar or/and a bastard and then a people who call him a slave of God and a prophet and then finally a people who claim him to be God, are you expecting these to worship together and just overlook these differences?

Our labels are what we feel we are. Saying and practising my label for instance, "I am a muslim" most certaintly gives me the tranquility I am in need of, knowing that I belong to a nation not because of the color of my skin nor the language of my tongue but rather for the faith within my breast. Finally I end this with the words of my prophet, may peace and blessing of Allah be upon him.

"All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."

 

"The real purpose of religion is to teach us our constitutional position in the universe. And once we are situated in this transcendental knowledge, we no longer suffer from the material desires that keep us enslaved in this world. As I mentioned above, the human form of life is so valuable, that we should not waste it like animals. We should refrain from the consumption of meat, and should try to refrain from intoxicants as much as possible, as well as controlling our sexual lust, which is the binding force of this universe. Simply because we want to have a few moments of sense gratification, the next thing we know, we have a child, and now we have to work like asses just to support the family we built. The proper purpose of marriage is to begot children who will become God conscious, to provide support for each other, to help one another cultivate transcendental knowledge. This should be the goal for the union of man and woman in marriage. "

this is disgusting. However, for one to need explination of this would mean one is never going to see the other way.

I believe it was god who said to moses, thou shalt not kill. im sure jesus said it too, but he killed animals for sacrifice.

you obviosuly have no point in life, so you fint your only purpose be to fulfil god's will. I mean cmon, being christian is one thing, being that obsessed with christianity? its throwing away all the pleasure you can get in this life. Oh but i guess your just waiting for your death eh? Pleasing god so that you can have a good afterlife.

If god told you 'thanks for being so nice, but your damned to hell, sorry' would you still praise him as your creator and savior of all the other good people in the world? to abstain from pleasure only to be threwn into hell?

 

Although it remains, that all ideas of nationality, religion, race, are simply artificial. It is the duty of the intelligent members of society to try to understand what Krsna consciousness is about, and if nothing else, to not interfere against it. I see a lot of bitter atheists, which simply because they had a bad experience with religious fundamentalism, insist "All religion is bullshit". They are guilty of a far worse form of 'closedmindedness' than they accuse fundamentalist people of having. Although this is not blind religious sentiment, or fundamentalism, keep that in mind as well.

 

Good friend, what is the point of a life centered around sense gratification? Even animals do this much, but are animals capable of self realization? A lot not dedicated to self realization is nothing just a wasted life. Just because you had a bad experience with christian fundamentalism doesn't mean that you have to reject a personal form of God, and turn to the impersonalist philosophy and the madness that accompanies it, or even reject that much, and become fully athiest and turn to a hedonistic way of life.

 

dreamer girl....I do not understand...you say christians should not kill animals anymore based upon the argument "You cannot simply reject the part of the gospel that you do not like. You have to accept it as it is, unchanged, free from interpretation or mental speculation."
But you also say that it is wrong to say 'my way is the only way' but Jesus said He is the only way. So that contradicts cause you say 'take the whole gospel' but you dont take it yourself 'cause you say universal spirituality/religion is the way.

absolutely no offence, just want to understand what you're saying.

 

Dutch, I am the author of this post. I just had dreamergirl post it, since my old account was banned. I was under the screen name "God".

Well, the philosophy I am spouting is this- Let's stop killing the animals, let's start chanting God's name, and let's see how nice the world becomes.

 

but how can you ask christians to take the whole gospel, but you don't take it 100% yourself since you don't believe Jesus when He says He's the only way?

 

about the animal thing.. I wonder why the Bible says 'thou shalt not kill" (=living beings=humans and animals).. instead of 'thou shalt not murder' (=humans only). If God meant only that it isn't ok to kill other humans, why doesn't it say 'murder' instead of 'killing'? It's the same in every translation.. I wonder what word the source texts uses and if the is an ambigues meaning to translating it.

There are non-canonic (?) books wherein it is said that Jesus was a vegetarian, but ofcourse no one wanted to have that written in their 'manual'..

 

Jesus meant only can you reach God through the guru. I'm sure he didn't mean "Unless you accept me fully and 100 percent, free from questions, then you will go to eternal damnation". He didn't say those words. I just got done reading 1st Corinthians, and Paul never mentioned the word Hell in there once. He spoke once of conquering death, but never "You are going to hell unless you follow me". To answer your question, I do not take religious fundamentalism literally, because that is what has ruined the whole world.

 

So true Velvet. See, if people stopped eating meat, I think we would see a huge drop in violence around the world. But selfish Americans continue to insist on eating their meats, while half the world starves, using tons of gas, while half the world barely has a home or none at all. For the amount of land that can be used to feed one cow, 20 times that amount can be produced in beans, vegetables, grains. So meat-eating is not only selfish, but agriculturally unsound, too.

 

20 times is an exaggeration, and most land that cows graze on is not land you can grow crops on, it's scrubland. I agree with you on the point of feeding grains to cows, but then again, feed grain isn't very high quality grain.

By the way, in the bible, in the original Hebrew...is it "kill" or "murder". Things can get lost in translation, or changed, so I wonder what was originally implied by that word.

 

The original was Kill, not murder. And to answer your first paragraph, it is also a matter of a civilized human society. until we stop eating animals, we cannot call ourselves a human society. There are four classes in society, the intelligent, the administrative, the farmers and traders, and the workers. without these four class separations, it is nothing but an animal society. And without religious principles, humans are nothing but animals.

Now, I do not mean religious dogma, or religious fanatism, but I'm talking about basic ideas such as having one wife, having a meat-free diet. But once a society loses it's morals, they have reverted back to animal civilization. As fringe members of society, if we are intelligent enough, we must keep that in mind. this human life was not meant for merely having sense pleasures like animals, but for self realization. No other creature on this planet is capable of self realization, thus this human form is very valuable. please do not waste it.

 

Tell that to the hunter-gatherer tribes who have no such divisions. Are they merely animals, not fully human?

Anyways, I wasn't disagreeing with your point about eating meat. I was just pointing out the grain-to-cow ratio wasn't that high and that cattle land isn't necessarilly crop land. If you want more crop land, become an activist in stopping urban sprawl, we are paving over a hell of a lot of good farmland, that's where most cropland is being lost.

By the way, humans have long supplremented their diets with meat. Again I'll point to the hunter-gatherers, some which still exist today. But we in America eat WAY more meat than most cultures ever have, and spend a shitload of resources to do so (rather than just graze them in the hills, or go hunting, we have industrial meat). I'm not sure eating meat is entirely a horrible thing that makes us "animals" (which we are regardless), but I do agree it would be good for us as a society to scale it way back, for health reasons, spiritual reasons, and environmental reasons.

 

Life is an umbrella...

Casper

 

To clarify what many people have brought up- The philosophy of true christianity and the Krsna consciousness movement is really not that much different.

The problem is, so called Christians nowadays do not follow their own religious principles, such as 'wait until marriage for sex', and intoxicating themselves, as well as eating meat. And it is because of this faulty theory, "We are saved through faith, not works", which is true, but that doesn't mean you can live like a creatin and still go back to God. I mean, this movement is taking athiests, and turning them back to God, which fundamentalist Christianity has not succeeded in doing, for the most part. And, this teaches people how to love God, for the sole purpose of loving God, not "I'll love you if you give me salvation", like most so called christians do.

The science of understanding God is all there, in the Bhagavad-Gita, the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Caitanya Caritamrita. These are authorized scriptures, just like the Christian's Bible, the Muslim's Qu'ran. All seem to have the same message- We are all eternal servants of God.

 

Compare the average intelligence of the 'hunter-gathering' man, as you put it, to the average intelligence of the civilized educated man. As for becoming an activist, this is the highest activism you can give to human society. Instead of just scratching the problem at the surface, you can heal the source of human society's problems, its spiritual poverty. Thus you solve all problems, and this is the most efficient use of an activist's energy.

I am glad that you see how far out of the way that Americans go to have meat, how we maintain slaughterhouses, just to keep our diets filled with meat, while the rest of the world starves.

 

The true teachings of the bible is not only contrary to these paganastic beliefs but it admonishes it severely, thus it rejects it. It is impossible to interpret the verses of the bible which speaks about meat-slaughtering into a message of vegetarianism, albeit the most important message in the bible as well as the quran is clear:

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.Mark 12:29

Say: "I am only a human being like you. It is revealed to me that your God is One God, therefore take straight path to Him and obedience to Him, and seek forgiveness of Him. And woe to the polytheists.[Fussilat 41.6]

 

If you think that Krsna consciousness is propagating demigod or idol worship, or 'polytheism' as you put it, you have not studied the philosophy of the movement in detail. Yes, God is one, there is one God, and different cultures call Him by different names. The Krsna consciousness movement establishes worship of ONE Supreme Lord, and it strongly speaks against the polytheism demigod worship that fundamental Hinduism engages in. To give a source of the Christian teachings against polytheism, demigod worship, read 1st Corinthians, chapter 8.

All religions place a high importance on the Name of God. This movement is merely saying that the chanting of God's names are the only way to liberation for the common man in this age. Complicated and difficult methods of yoga and meditation are nearly impossible in this age of Kali, the age of quarrell and hypocrisy.

Please, kindly read more about Krsna consciousness. www.vedabase.net is a good site to start with. Thank you

 

You call the leaders of this nation of yours for divine, this alone shows that you are a paganastic people.