This is the first of a three part lecture series on the teachings of the Christ in the light of Vedanta, Yoga and Tantra. Today, we take up Jesus' message of renunciation. Above all, the Christ, like all the avatars before and after him, exemplified total absorption in God and uncompromising renunciation. What is renunciation, anyway?

You see:

We all want to be happy. The goal of life is happiness and fulfillment.
Now consider this carefully:
We do so many things in a day. But if take the time to stop and carefully consider why it is that we do what we do, most of us will find that we are motivated by pleasure, money, power and name and fame. We work to make money because we crave financial security and because we think that money will bring us new experiences, new pleasure. We seek out company that increase the overall pleasure we feel in our life. We work to increase our followers or find praise and validation to feel a sense of belonging. And we pursue learning because it is a subtle form of pleasure and power. Notice, our motivations are most “worldly”. That is to say, our fundamental orientation towards life is to look for fulfillment and happiness. What good has that done you? Did you actually get what you were looking for from acquiring all of these things? By studying your own experiences and also the lives of people who are successful in a worldly sense (top professors, billionaires, rock stars etc.) you come to learn that an increase in pleasure, money, fame and power don’t at all mean an increase in happiness. Often the opposite! So then, understanding this, why continue to pursue things you know won’t make you happy?

Contrastingly, the happiest people in the world are often holy men and women who have renounced their fascination with the trinkets of the world and instead spend all of their time enjoying the inner fulfillment of spiritual life. These people devote their time to spiritual practice and study and when they work in the world, they do it as an act of worship, not to make money or be praised. And as a result, they are free, happy and genuinely fulfilled in a way that most of us aren’t! Understanding this, we must resolve to devote every single hour of our day to spiritual life. We should radically redefine our orientation to life. The goal of your life is enlightenment, not pleasure, not wealth, not power, not name and fame. If you have this conviction, yours will be a beautiful life. The only fulfillment here is in the Spirit.

In this video, we sketch out the two "axiological" arguments above as well as three more arguments, one from the point of view of epistemology, the other from metaphysics and the final one is an appeal to a corroborated claim by all the major world religions for a total of 5 arguments in favor of devoting every single moment of your life to spiritual practice.

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#272 - Kingdom of God - Is Near