Questioner: How do we understand the purpose of our being?
Yesterday we had a puja at our place and the priest said that even when the leaf moves, it moves due to the will of God. So, everything that exists has a purpose and there is a will of God. So, how do you understand or follow the purpose?
Acharya Prashant: Does the leaf follow any purpose? The leaf just is. When the wind comes, the leaf dances. That’s it. When the heat is too strong, the leaf dies, withers away. That’s it. And it’s so disturbing to many. “Oh my God! Nothing to do.” When the wind comes, then move and dance, and when your time is up, then go away. That’s it.
It’s a joke. Jokes disgust but they also amuse. That’s what life is. There is nothing to be attained here, except to get rid of all that you have already attained. Attain a particular lightness. That is the only thing you have to attain. Float like that leaf.
The priest knows only a particular version of his own imaginations. What does God have to do with all these things – how a little leaf is moving and all that? This entire system is godliness. A leaf is part of that. So, do not say that the leaf moves by God’s will. Leaf moves by its own will, which is God’s will.
The language of the priest is the language of duality. What he is saying is that there is the leaf, there is the world, there is the wind and then there is somebody who is dictating all this. There is nobody apart from all this who is dictating all this. This is it. And what you are seeing as leaf and wind, and this and that, are nothing but mind. Mind moves by its laws. These are the laws of the mind. Mind is rooted in the Truth and the Truth has no laws. So, the wind, the leaf, this, and that are just shadows. Go for the real things, not for shadows. Do not look at these things and say that God is dictating all this. God does not dictate anything.
