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The Precious Human Life

A spiritual discourse on the value and purpose of human life, using parables and analogies.

"Whether you are liberated or not does not depend on anyone. Whether you are enlightened or not depends on you: how you will lead your life, how you will practice, how humble you will be."

"We need God, not that God needs us. If you do not believe in God, God loses nothing. Therefore, we need to go to the church, we need to kneel down in the presence of God."

The speaker emphasizes the precious opportunity of human birth, stating that consciousness either ascends toward liberation or descends into lower life forms based on one's karma. He illustrates this with a parable about a disciple testing his master with a bird, concluding that the outcome—like spiritual liberation—is in one's own hands. The talk covers themes of self-responsibility, the importance of spiritual practice like yoga and meditation for health and union with the divine, and the need to cultivate divine qualities to overcome human weaknesses.

Imagine that what I hold in my hand is a mountain. We begin from here to climb it. We reach the top. What will you do now? Stay there? It is too cold. There is no house. It is not your property. It is 8,000 meters high, but you managed to arrive. Now we go back. So we reached the highest peak, only to go back, or we liberate ourselves. When we are born, we have two paths: either to go down or to liberate. If you are not able to liberate yourself, if you have not gained Ātmā Jñāna, then slowly, slowly this consciousness will fall down. After some repetition of life due to karma, you may fall to another form of life. So it is in your hands. Everything is in your hands. There is a story I have told before. A disciple came to the master. This disciple was always angry inside; he had two faces. Outside he was very polite: "Oh dear Master, you are the wise one, I love you. I am so proud of you, my dear Master." But inside he was burning: "How does he know everything? He doesn't know anything. The day will come. I will find out." One day he appeared before the master, holding his hand behind his back. "Good morning, sir. How are you? You look great, my master. I am proud of you. I know, master, that you know everything, but how stupid I am. Though I know that you know, I still think that you don't know. And dear sir, it is stupid of me to ask you questions. For the last twenty years I have been asking you questions, and you have answered all of them. But this stupid human intellect is never satisfied. I tell you, master, this time I will ask you, for the last time, please. If you tell me the right answers, then I am completely satisfied. And I know that you know." Inside he said, "Today is my master's test, his examination." He said, "Sir, tell me, what do I have in my hand?" He had a small bird in his hand and was standing twenty meters away. The master smiled. He thought, "Naughty child, I know him." But the master said, "Oh, my dear son, in your hands you have one bird." "I knew, sir, that you know. How stupid I am, asking you a question." Inside he said, "How does he know? Someone told him. But I will ask a second question. I will ask such a question that he cannot move left or right. I will target him now. And then I will tell him, 'Sir, excuse me, you also have ignorance. You also do not know everything.' Because I will ask him a question where he cannot say A or B, and if he says A it is wrong and B is wrong. I will ask him, 'The bird which I have in my hands, is it alive or dead?' If he says it is alive, I will squeeze my hand; the bird will be dead, and proudly I will say with humbleness, 'Sir, you are wrong. You see, the bird is dead. Oh, it is a great day for me to defeat my master.' Or if he said the bird is dead, I will just let it fly and say, 'Master, your answer was not correct.' Answer? You are always right, but tell me, is the bird alive or dead?" The master smiled and said, "My child, whether the bird is alive or dead does not depend on my answer. That depends on your hands, the life of the bird. And therefore, whether you are liberated or not does not depend on anyone. Whether you are enlightened or not depends on you: how you will lead your life, how you will practice, how humble you will be. Therefore, human life is the most precious one. Do not miss this golden time. Many things happen in life, bad and wrong, but the most terrible tragedy that will happen to a human is this: that the human will die without self-realization. Do not wait, do not waste the time. Time will not wait for you. And there, pradhāna, the main thing in this life, is your karma, what you do. It is said in every holy book: Do not do to others what you do not like done to you—either to humans or to animals. In this universe, there is a mystery which we do not understand: Is there a divine consciousness, or God, or Holy Spirit? It does not matter who is who, but is there someone? And we are part of that one. How to approach that one? Love unites. What is love? Love is harmony. Love is clarity. Love is perfection. Where there is love, there is no fear. And where there is love, the same quality develops so that we develop in the individual the cosmic qualities. Then we can become one with that one. Otherwise, we can become one but still we will be separate. You are in the lap of your mother, but still you are an individual, separate one. Though you are in the mother's body, you are an individual one, developing in the womb of the mother. So what divides us from the cosmic Self to the individual? It is individual karma, individual destiny, individual quality. Change the quality. Develop the qualities from the human to the holy man, and from the holy man to the God-man. You can. Definitely you can. But we are too weak; we have so many weaknesses. Again, anger, jealousy, hate, revenge, selfishness, greediness, desires—these are all our problems. And that is not easy to take away. Sometimes even God himself, who incarnates in this world, has these problems. Also attachment. He is also bound to something. But his attachment is not everlasting. He is only playing. He is a liberated one. He is that one who is in the prison, only working there. He is not a prisoner. So a prisoner and a worker in the prison are both in the same room, but with different aims, different wills. Therefore, the Ṛṣi says, it is a long way and a golden chance. Therefore, we shall do something in this life. Protect this life. Keep this body healthy: nourishment, movement, environment. These three are very important. And so the yoga techniques developed through these three things—environment, movements, and nourishment—will give us good health and long life. And prayer, meditation, belief, help, service, kindness—that will unite you with God. And this we can do only through human life. Because the difference between human and animal is this: humans have buddhi, the intellect, to know good and bad, and through this, yoga is developed—so prayers, meditation, and all these things. You see, health is not everything, but everything is nothing without health. And it does not matter how much care we take, still one day we will die. So water is flowing, the river is flowing. Take as much as you can. It will not stop for you. Time is flowing. And therefore, whatever you practice, that is your win, your gain. What you do not practice is your loss. If you do āsanas, prāṇāyāmas, it is in your interest, in no one else's interest. If you meditate, if you chant mantras, it is in your interest. If you go to the church, it is your interest. We need God, not that God needs us. If you do not believe in God, God loses nothing. Therefore, we need to go to the church, we need to kneel down in the presence of God. It is we who need to meditate, it is we who need to pray, it is we who should maintain the relation. It is in our interest, and that is very important. So Yoga in Daily Life is universal.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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