Look at Life

The Buddha said that he didn’t want to discuss concepts like death. He wanted to discuss what do we do when we are alive. What do we do to live life here?

We can look at our lives in a scientific manner. Look at life as if it were being inspected by a scientist through a microscope. Look at what has transpired so far. Look at it critically but without being biased. Look at it and be open to truly seeing.

It will become very clear to you how you want to live this life. It’s your choice. No one has the right to tell you how to live this life.

This is your life

it has to be lived in a way

that satisfies you.

Life can be lived in such a way that, when the moment of death comes and our body is not going to be here anymore, we can go with strength, power, and wisdomand without fear.

Or are we going to be trembling? Are we going to say, “I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that, I need more time?” I hope, I won’t find you in that kind of situation. I find many people in that spot, and the fear is beyond imagination. The fear is very intense.

Poonja-ji said there is no effort required. There is nothing to do. At the same time he said that there are some things to do. And sometimes that statement is confusing.

There is nothing to do

to that part within us

that will survive death.

That part is perfect. There is nothing to do about that. But what we have to do is to try to become wiser in our life here while we are in this form. That wisdom requires some work. It doesn’t come with a snap of the fingers just because we say we are going to be wise.

We cannot be wise unless we look at our life.

Then we either make certain changes

or we live with the way that we have been

in satisfaction.

Just looking at our life doesn’t mean that we have to change it. After we look, then we can decide within ourselves that this is what we want or this is not what we want. This is not just a one time look. It has to be done on a continuous basis. Maybe we’ve agreed to something six months ago, but today we may feel differently. So every day we look at these things.

After a while it doesn’t take very much time to assess the memories and descriptions of who we are. It doesn’t take much time to see if we are suffering from some addiction, if we are not kind, if we’re dishonest, if we’re doing some things that, when we’re alone by ourselves, we know are not right. And we know when something within us says that enough is enough.

All these things are very private conversations. These conversations are not held because we want to impress somebody by saying all these big things. It has to be private and it has to be honest. It doesn’t matter if what we discover is not good. It has to be honest.

Then slowly we do things. Slowly. We can’t take on the whole world in one day. We do things slowly and we change. Every slight change that we make based upon a larger perspective of what really is gets us one step closer to our Beloved. It gets us one step closer to things that we think of as being Consciousness, God, Freedom, and Enlightenment. It gets us closer because we are starting to be lighter. We don’t have to carry so much weight with all kinds of definitions and defenses.

When we look at ourselves and we start to review our own history, we will notice that we have all kinds of memories that come from many different things. So we go back in time and look at events that took place which have had a gigantic negative impact upon who we are now.

As we remember these things we get a sense

of being the same person with the same feelings

that we had when we were five years old

or whenever these things happened.

But we are totally different now.

Totally different!

Every seven or eight years every cell in our body changes completely. There is not a single cell here that was here seven or eight years ago. There is nothing about us that was there seven years ago. It’s all different. All these things are different.

We can look at prior history and use it to our advantage

by putting into perspective

all kinds of events that continue to hurt us now.

That process is very different from analyzing things ad infinitum. We can spend years in psychotherapists’ offices analyzing all kinds of events, examining who did what to whom and the reasons why we are behaving the way we are nowand on and on and on, instead of looking at an event and having a slight amount of wisdom to say that it took place when I was eight years old. What ever it was, it took place when I was eight. That is not me now. That was somebody that was eight years old and now I am thirty-eight. And we drop it. We drop all these things.

As time passes,

we will have less and less history

that we think is so important.

But many of us want to have a lot of history. We carry our history like a whole bunch of medals on our chestall the things we’ve accomplished and done. And, God forbid, anybody should want to take away one of those medals!

We are going to have to be the ones to drop those things. Who cares about all those accomplishments? Nobody does!

Out of the billions and billions that have lived, how many people in history can we remember who have accomplished something? If we get buried in a cemetery, after 300 years it is legal to take us out of there and make room for somebody else. Why did they come up with a number like that? Because after 300 years no one is going to be around who has known us. No one is going to know the physical body and all the memories it has generated.

Also I think we have to decide to become gamblers! Whether anyone believes the things I say or not, it’s a situation of pondering the two opposing views:

One viewpoint is that when the time comes

that my physical body is going to be gone,

a mystery awaits me.

Another way of looking at it is

that when my body is gone

that’s the end of everything.

So which one of these two views

would make your life here more beautiful?

You decide!