What I had in mind in writing this was a Buddhist verse that was placed on one of my recent posts. "What you are now is what you have been; what you will be is what you do now." You are a culmination of your past and your future is determined by what you do this moment. We only live in this moment and so the present moment is what is most important. The past cannot be changed and we don’t know whether this will be our last moment or not, the future never guaranteed.
That’s good to ponder and good to apply to give meaning to the present moment, but let’s see what the Word of God has to say about living in the present, for in these matters “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” 1 Corinthians 2:13.
The whole book of Ecclesiastes deals with the futility of life without God. The verse in the Word of God that comes closest to this Buddhist concept is this one from Ecclesiastes: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (1:9) The part of the verse that makes this Buddhist verse vapid in comparison is what is added. “There is no new thing under the sun.”
For though the idea of living in the present is a good thing to ponder, to know that we are the culmination of the past, and that what we do in the present will dictate what we will be in the future, there is an existentialist quality to the idea that can lend itself to despair without the knowledge and wisdom that the Word of God ascribes with the additional sentence and the rest of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Because everything really is meaningless, how can you justify your existence, be satisfied with what you have, or have hope for the future if you know that this is so? The only way is to have Christ, trusting in Him with the hope that those plans of yours that you carry out today are in the will of the Father so that no matter what happens outside of your control will culminate in a future that does have meaning since the present that creates it also has meaning because of Him.
So let's look at the theme of this post for a second and identify it. It's about the futility of life without God, specifically Jesus Christ, the manifestation of God to us and how in Him we have meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence. I welcome your thoughts about Ecclesiastes and the meaing that God puts into your life.
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Comments: 14
Certainly, as a Buddhist, you're also welcome to comment to the content of the post; I didn't mean it to be so exclusive.
dehino ‘smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptir
dhiras tatra na muhyati
“As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.”
The idea is we are changing bodies all the time but the soul, the person, the spirit is the same. He does not change. Therefore the purpose of our life here is not to try and make a comfortable arrangement for things connected to the temporary body. If we analyze the body we will find many senses, and the different senses can be satisfied in different ways. Our eyes always want to see something very beautiful, the tongue wants to taste very delicious foods, the hands want to touch something nice, soft. These are the demands of the body. To some extent we have to fulfill the bodily demands, we have to eat something, we have to sleep sometime, we have to look after the body to a certain extent, but that is not the main purpose of human life. The main purpose of human life is to get off the bodily platform and understand, “I am not this body, I am the spirit soul, I am the person within and my business is to serve Krishna.”
I'm not Hindu, but it all sounds very familiar to the religion I was raised in:
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.
John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Matthew 22:37, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."
Revelation 4:11, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."
Mic 6:8 -- He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Jn 3:5-7 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
"The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.” Krishna
"and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Christ
The sprit remains constant even though the body ages and finally dies. What I would change about what you said is only that the spirit does change too if we can relinquish the desires of the senses. That's the main thrust of Eastern religions, to subdue the senses and live by the spirit. As a person who practices meditation and self-discipline becomes less ruled by the senses, the spirit becomes more alive and open to the importance of life beyond the senses. It's no longer ruled by the senses.
Although some are able to get closer to this goal better than others, without the Spirit of Jesus Christ, I don't think it's posslble to experience all that the discipline has to offer because no matter how much we try to relinquish the self of the senses, it is still us trying to do that so there is always a part of self that is active in the process. When we submit to Jesus Christ and His Spirit, admitting that we are powerless without Him, He takes over the burden for us and we can achieve a closer union with God since we are no longer encumbered by the exercise of relinquishing self by ourselves.
So let's take another look at the verse you chose. "As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.”
All the verses of the Word that you selected apply, but there are also so many more. Not only are there verses that instruct us how we must go about this, but there are Words of comfort and praise to God in the Psalms that put one in the realm of selflessness with no effort at all. There is never any bewilderment when we are in that place with God through His Spirit. We are one with Him now as much as we submit ourselves to Him, and are forever when the body passes into the arms of Jesus Christ and takes on His Spirit in a heavenly body, finally united with all the faithful. That's heaven, or as much as I understand of it.
It's no secret that I am not a church-goer. Although I realize that I am missing out on the fellowship of other Christians in that way, I also think that I do have that here on Gather with a few different people. Those are the ones with whom I prefer to associate because I think they are Bible-believing Christians. There are others on this site who claim Christianity, but they are often the same type I have met in churches. I can't relate to them and I don't want to relate to them in a way of fellowship.
I'll keep you in my prayers, Rosa.
I though, perhaps, you might find THIS interesting.........
When I was a senior at my Catholic girls' academy, we did a full semester study of existentialist philosophers, Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard etc., and I've forgotten a lot of it now, but that meaninglessness comparison chart brought back some pretty vivid memories of a perticular discussion much like the chart. Thanks for pointing it out.