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CHAPTER TEN
ON THE TRUE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE
It is time to update, to modify and to transcend the understanding of
the true purpose of life and human life in particular. The first definition
of the purpose of life was given in “Principles of Spiritual Hypnosis” and
it went something like this: The true purpose of life is to love, to be loved,
to give, to receive, to share, to be useful, beneficial, helpful, to be
productive, constructive, creative, to be content, to be satisfied, to be
happy, to enjoy life and to have fun and to have the knowledge that this
is the true purpose of life and thus to be wise.
However, there is a transcending understanding to this purpose of
life. In fact, and this is to the surprise of all, this is not the true purpose
of life but it is a consequence, an outcome, a result of the true purpose of
life. And, at that time, under those conditions, it was a very important,
crucial and vital step to realize that aspect or that consequence of the
true purpose of life without which we could not talk about the purpose of
life the way we are talking or will be talking right now. As mentioned
many times before, the Lord reveals the truth in steps and that step is
now being succeeded.
The second step which succeeded the previous one is reflected in a
statement in “Fundamentals of Human Spirituality.” It claims that the
true purpose of life, among other things, is to love oneself in order to be
able to love the Lord and to love others. This is a higher, deeper, more
meaningful purpose of life and the consequence of such love of self for the
purpose of loving the Most High and others is to love and to be loved, to
give and to receive, to share and so on and so forth, as it was reflected in
the first step of understanding the true purpose of life. However, neither
is this step the true purpose of life but again the outcome, consequence
and result of a higher purpose of life which is now going to be revealed.
However, before we do that it is necessary to briefly analyze the content
of the previous two steps.
Both steps still contain elements of egoism or self-love that is
necessary to repudiate in order to have the proper understanding of the
third transcending understanding of the true purpose of life. In the first
instance the element of egoism is contained in the very subtle, very
subliminal implication that one does it for oneself in order to be truly
happy and have a nice comfortable life. No indication is contained in
such a statement that one does so for the sake of the principle itself
without any other motivation or intention whatsoever. Such a stance and
attitude invalidates the true spiritual understanding of the purpose of
life, and the purpose of life is not in that. On the other hand, in the
second statement or step, when one loves oneself for the sake of the Most
High and the sake of others, one does it again, and this is an even more
subtle, more subliminal situation, for the sake of the opportunity to love,
which implies for one’s own sake. Neither can this situation be
considered a true purpose of life. Instead those are again, as pointed out
before, the outcomes and consequences of the true purpose of life.
In view of this fact then, what is the true purpose of life? The true
purpose of life surprisingly is neither of the above but, instead, the true
purpose of life is in doing the Lord Jesus Christ’s, the Most High’s will, in
a total, complete and unconditional surrender and relinquishment of
everything to the Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ, including one’s gifts
and abilities to make choices; including all one’s desires, wishes, wants
and paradoxically one’s freedom and independence so that you can state,
“I choose whatever the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most High, chooses for me.
I desire, I wish, I want whatever the Lord Jesus Christ the Most High
desires, wishes, wants for me and I do this for no other reason but for the
sake of the principle because this is the way it is supposed to be; this is
the structure, the dynamics, the order of the Lord’s Creation.” No other
motivation, no other intention, implicit or explicit, subliminal or
apparent can be part of such a choice. “I am not doing it because I want
to be happy, I am not doing it because I want to have an opportunity to
love and to be loved, I am not doing it because of anyone or anything else,
I am doing it simply because it is the principle, this is the way it is
supposed to be.”
Now such a conclusion and such an understanding of the purpose of
life — this is the purpose of life — to do that — contains within itself the
first and the second step. And the first and second step are the true
outcomes and consequences, the result of such a purpose of life and a
choice to follow such a purpose of life.
The question is why is it necessary to relinquish and to surrender all
one’s desire for happiness and love and anything else, including one’s
own freedom and independence and choices, to the Most High, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Why is it so important and vital to do so? The answer to
this question is: whoever is created is created from the Absolute Source
and therefore because we are created we are all relative and we do not
have absolute knowledge and understanding of ourselves and life.
Therefore, we do not know in the absolute sense what is the best for us,
what true happiness is, what true love is, true wisdom, what true
freedom is, independence and choice. Only the One Who is Absolute has
such knowledge. Therefore, only the One Who is Absolute, the Most
High, Jesus Christ, the Lord knows exactly what the best choice is for
you. What the best work is for you to do, what is to be desired, wished
and wanted for you; what your potentials and abilities are, the pace at
which you can move, and all other things that are necessary for the
fulfillment of the purpose of your life.
If you choose from your limited awareness of all the infinite number
and variety of choices and consequences, your choice, being that it is from
your own freedom and independence, that is from yourself, leads
ultimately to relativistic conditions and states that end up in some
disaster, negativity, incompleteness, unfulfillment and unhappiness. You
cannot be happy from yourself, by yourself, with yourself, through
yourself. In actuality you cannot be anything from yourself, by yourself,
through yourself, with yourself. This is the point. You cannot be free and
independent either from yourself, by yourself, with yourself and through
yourself. The reason being that you don’t possess and have all the
knowledge of all the available choices, the infinite variety and number of
choices with their infinite variety and number of consequences, in order
to be able to be happy or to love or to do anything for that matter from
yourself, by yourself, through yourself, with yourself and thus to be truly
free and independent. The freedom and independence that you have in
the relativistic condition from yourself, which is given to you by the Most
High, is, in the broader implication, an illusion. What that freedom and
independence is all about is the freedom and independence to give up
everything that you have, your choices and your freedom and
independence to the Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who, in turn, can
choose for you, can do for you from the Absolute state what is the best for
you, what is the freest, the most independent for you in an Absolute
sense. Thus it is impossible to be happy without the Most High. It is
impossible to be free and independent without the Most High. It is
impossible to love and to be loved and so on without the Most High. It is
impossible to love yourself for the sake of the Lord and others without
the Most High. If you think it’s possible just look at the history of
mankind and the history of the hells. You see nothing but misery,
suffering, unhappiness, temporality of states, relativistic conditions,
continuous breakdowns and all other atrocities and abominations in
which truly there is no presence of the Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s how it is to do things without the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most
High. Now this is the reason why, if you want to be free and
independent, if you want to be loved and to love and to be happy and all
those good things, it is necessary that you surrender any desires, wishes
and wants to be happy, to be loved and to love, to be free and
independent to the Most High and to do it unconditionally.
The point here is that you are surrendering it not for the sake of
being happy, not for the sake of being loved and able to love and so on
and so forth, but solely for the principle of it without expecting anything
in return because it is the order of Creation. This is what the Lord’s
Creation, its positive state, is like. There is nothing egoistic in it, nothing
selfish, nothing self-centered. When you do this, when you give up things
like that then it signifies that you truly love yourself. This is what love of
self is all about.
Of course, then it also implies that you truly love the Most High and
everyone in the Most High’s Creation. If you do it, this relinquishment
and surrender, for the sake of being happy and for the sake of loving
others, God and yourself, then, of course, in an ultimate sense you do it
for egoistic, selfish motivations because you do it for the sake of
something else instead of for the sake of the principle because this is the
way the universe, Creation is structured, patterned, built and functions.
And this is the true meaning of the statement in the New Testament by
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most High, that whoever loses his soul for the
sake of the Lord ultimately will find it. Meaning that, as long as you hold
on to your soul desperately, you will lose it to the negative state because
you don’t want anybody else to be there. Particularly you don’t want the
Most High to have your soul. If you don’t want the Most High to have
your soul I can assure you and you can be assured that the negative
state, the hells, will have your soul. This is the negative loss. However, if
you lose your soul to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most High, then you find
it, then you are free, then you are independent, then you are loving and
loved, then you are happy, you are content, satisfied, particularly and
solely if you lose that soul for the sake of the principle because this is the
way it’s supposed to be: To lose your soul to the Most High without any
attachments, conditions, manipulations, personal gains, personal
predispositions or any ulterior motivation and negative intentions. So
that you don’t do anything for the consequences, outcomes and results of
such choices to give up and to lose your soul to the Most High, to
surrender unconditionally everything that you have and what you are to
the Most High because that is selfish, that’s egoistic, because you do it
for the consequences. Instead you do it for sake of the principles because
it is the way it is supposed to be. Because it’s the law, statute, principle,
concept, category, idea, establishment of the Most High’s Creation. This
is the way the Most High is, this is the true nature of the Most High. The
Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ does it for the sake of principle. The
Most High loves you and wants the best for you for the sake of principle
because this is the way it’s supposed to be. No attachments, no ifs, no
conditions, simply unconditionally. And if you take into consideration
that only the Most High knows in the Absolute sense what is the best for
you, what the happiest thing is for you, then only in surrender to the
Most High can one truly find the true purpose of life, true happiness,
true love. Particularly if you don’t do it for that purpose but do it for the
sake of the principle and (I am repeating it again and again) because this
is the most important revelation from the Most High to you, to us, that
we have received so far.
A good illustration of this situation can be found in the very
interesting encounter that occurred between the Apostle Peter and the
Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection before He went back to the
heavens. This event is described in the last chapter of the Gospel of John.
I am told by the Most High that there is some distortion in translation of
that event which is going to be now corrected and the proper
understanding of that situation will be acquired.
As you remember the Lord appears to his disciples, to Peter, when
they are fishing. And as they are eating their fish, they are having
dinner or supper or whatever it was, the Lord turns to Peter and asks
him three times, now notice this please, three times, “Simon, do you love
me more than they?” And Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, I do and you know
that.” Then the Lord tells him, “Feed my sheep.” Then again He asks him
for the second time if he loves Him and Peter says, “Yes, Lord, I love
you.” And the Lord tells him, “Tend my lambs if you love me.” Then for
the third time He asks Peter the same question and here is where the
distortion in translation comes in. Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, I love you”,
with a sad voice because he was puzzled and confused why He was
asking the same question. And when he tells Him, yes, my Lord, the Lord
answers him: — Now the translation in the Bible is repetition of “feed my
sheep”, but the proper translation, I am told by the Most High, should be
— “give drink to my flock”. Thus, we have in the first statement, “feed
my sheep,” the second statement, “tend my lambs,” and the third
statement, “give drink to my flock.”
In this encounter the Lord Jesus Christ describes in the internal
sense the proper relationship of man, of humans, to God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Most High, to others and to themselves. These are three-fold
meanings that are contained in this description. You have to remember
that the Apostle Peter represented the faith of the church, the foundation
of the church and therefore in this situation the Lord describes on what
foundations the true spirituality, the true church, the true religion
should be built.
Now the first question, “Peter, do you love me?” and the answer “yes”,
then the request, “In that case, feed my sheep”, implies that it is not
sufficient to love the Most High by external acknowledgment, by external
means but the only way you can love the Most High, is by doing
something about it. And the question, if he loves him more than others,
signifies that one needs to completely, totally relinquish, give up and
surrender oneself to the Most High in order to be able to properly give
the fruits of that love. And what are the fruits of that love? Feeding the
sheep. However, feeding implies that you have to have something. You
have to have food in order to feed the sheep. This implies that one is
given abilities, tools and everything that one possesses by the Most High
to be able to do so. Therefore it implies that whatever one has from the
Most High, has to be given back so that the true feeding can occur;
sharing with all, this is the principle of sharing. You share what you
have with all, with “the sheep”. But you cannot do it unless you love the
Lord more than anyone else to the degree described in the first and
second steps outlined above. That is, you cannot love the Lord unless you
truly give up everything to the Lord. And you don’t give it up for the sake
of being loved, but simply because you love the Lord, period. This is the
principle. I do it because I love the Lord, I give up myself, I
unconditionally surrender myself to the Most High, to the Lord Jesus
Christ, simply because it’s the principle, because I love Him. Nothing
more, nothing less. I love Him for Him, I love everyone for them but
particularly I love everyone for the presence of the Lord in them and I
love myself for the sake of that presence of the Lord in me, for the sake of
those things which I have from the Lord for the purpose of being able to
feed the sheep. Feeding means giving love, sharing from love. Therefore,
the major principle of any religion, of any church, of any spirituality is in
sharing from love, that is from the Most High, through the Most High, by
the Most High, with the Most High for the sake of the Most High and
because the Most High is the Absolute Principle of everything, therefore,
for the sake of the principle itself.
Now the second point, when the Lord says “tend my lambs.” This can
be conceived as an individualized pluralism. Everyone is different.
Therefore, what does “tending” signify? Tending signifies charity, the
principle of charity. You give, you tend, you take care of everybody, and
yourself, because you are also a lamb, to the degree and to the extent
that every situation warrants. That is, you don’t feed more than is
necessary, than is healthy, and you don’t give drink more than is
necessary and healthy. Just give the right and proper amount and you
have the wisdom within you to do so, to distinguish, to discriminate, to
be able to measure the amount of love and wisdom that you can share
with a degree of perceptiveness, receptiveness and the ability to know
what can be utilized at any given moment by everyone who participates
in the Most High’s Creation. This implies that there is an infinite
number and variety of degrees, steps, and levels that are equally
important, equally special, equally needed, equally unique, but different
and, therefore, each situation, each step, each level, each degree requires
a totally different approach, “tending.” In such a stance, there is true
wisdom. Nothing is uniform, nothing is standard, nothing is finalistic,
nothing is rigid, nothing is one-sided. And this is the second principle on
which the true church, the true spirituality and the true religion is built.
And the third principle which the Lord gives to Peter, “give drink to
my flock,” signifies sharing only the truth. Give truth to everyone as you
are tending them to the degree, extent and level of their ability to accept,
perceive and incorporate the truth in steps. You don’t give them more
drink than they can take because it would kill them. Thus, good or love is
the fundamental principle, truth or wisdom is the substantial principle
and charity or faith is the consequential principle of the true church,
religion and spirituality and because this is a message to any prospective
spiritual organization and to all who read this we can say that these
principles should be the foundation on which any prospective spiritual
organization is built, and on which anyone’s spirituality should be built.
Notice, please, that in the process of this statement or encounter
between the Lord Jesus Christ and Peter, there are no promises to Peter
that if Peter loves the Lord that he will be happy, content, satisfied and
so on and so forth. Nothing of that nature occurs here. Just the opposite
is true. The Lord tells Peter, “when you were young, you did whatever
you wanted, you were free to come and go, but when you get older you
will not be able to do that, someone else will lead you where you don’t
want to go,” and so forth. Now this statement, although it has a personal
reference, (however, as you know, the Lord Jesus Christ never spoke only
in personal references because whatever He was saying, no matter how
personal it seemed to be, it always had universal implications) has a
universal implication.
It refers to that issue of giving up, being led by the Lord and not
having any desires, wishes, wants to be led by oneself. Therefore, it
implies the necessity to give up one’s own freedom and independence and
give it to the Most High so that the Most High leads you. Because only
the Most High knows in an absolute sense what is the best for you. And
this is true freedom.
Now in the true sense, from what transpires in this encounter
between the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most High and the Apostle Peter, we
can see very clearly that whatever one does, whatever one feels,
whatever one thinks, whatever one desires, does, feels, one wants it for
the sake of the principle, for the sake of mutual benefit, common good
and sharing without any ulterior motivations whatsoever. In such a
stance is the true presence of the Most High, the Lord Jesus Christ,
which presence assures eternal love and wisdom in a progressive manner
that can be continuously shared with all others, for the sake of all others,
for the sake of the Most High and, of course, for the sake of oneself to the
extent that one loves oneself for the sake of the presence of the Most
High in one and one loves others for the sake of the presence of the Most
High in them. This is the true love, transcending love above all and
above everything. This is what it truly means to love the Lord with
wisdom and to love others with wisdom and to love oneself with wisdom.
Source: REALITY, MYTHS AND ILLUSIONS
