1 00:00:00,031 --> 00:00:08,581 How does one help another not to be terrified of the thought of the ultimate uselessness of all things? 2 00:00:11,084 --> 00:00:12,005 It's terrifying, no? 3 00:00:12,645 --> 00:00:13,306 Uselessness. 4 00:00:17,230 --> 00:00:22,777 Well, I mean, you can talk about how actually they are quite useful. 5 00:00:23,177 --> 00:00:24,238 Everything has a use. 6 00:00:26,521 --> 00:00:28,283 You know, like money has a use. 7 00:00:29,140 --> 00:00:30,221 Alcohol has a use. 8 00:00:32,585 --> 00:00:34,247 Everything has its use. 9 00:00:35,669 --> 00:00:43,139 The question is whether those uses or those purposes are beneficial or detrimental. 10 00:00:48,426 --> 00:00:57,898 So I did a video on this and my take on it that I think is whether it's perfectly honest or not, it's quite useful. 11 00:00:58,638 --> 00:01:12,673 I just mean some people might disagree, but the point being that when we say that the world has no purpose, or let's say life has no purpose, it's not something negative. 12 00:01:12,993 --> 00:01:14,415 It's actually something liberating. 13 00:01:15,576 --> 00:01:24,045 Because the Christians, for example, say that the purpose of life is belief in Jesus Christ, is to gain faith in Jesus Christ. 14 00:01:26,187 --> 00:01:26,788 And 15 00:01:27,562 --> 00:01:31,767 If that's the case, then we're all really in big trouble, right? 16 00:01:31,827 --> 00:01:33,268 And we've got very little choice. 17 00:01:33,709 --> 00:01:43,940 There's not much we can do with our lives, except our lives become a question of whether we're worshipping Jesus Christ or not, whether we have belief in Jesus Christ or not. 18 00:01:43,980 --> 00:01:44,761 Nothing else matters. 19 00:01:45,642 --> 00:01:50,127 You have no freedom. 20 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:58,533 If the Muslims are right, then belief in Allah is the only thing that matters. 21 00:02:00,076 --> 00:02:01,799 I'm trying to think of other crazy religions. 22 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:05,986 Most of the Eastern religions are pretty non-crazy, aren't they? 23 00:02:07,469 --> 00:02:08,050 Hinduism. 24 00:02:08,671 --> 00:02:11,015 Hinduism gets you stuck in whatever, I don't know. 25 00:02:11,677 --> 00:02:13,600 Not really. 26 00:02:13,850 --> 00:02:19,055 But as soon as you have a purpose, the point is you have a purpose, you get stuck. 27 00:02:19,155 --> 00:02:25,681 If the purpose of life is to make lots of money, then that's all you've got, is whether you make money or not. 28 00:02:26,302 --> 00:02:29,285 Saying that there's no purpose in life is completely liberating. 29 00:02:29,325 --> 00:02:30,305 You can do what you want. 30 00:02:31,086 --> 00:02:33,408 If you want to become a mass murderer, go for it. 31 00:02:33,468 --> 00:02:42,557 There's nothing intrinsically stopping you from doing it. 32 00:02:43,347 --> 00:02:54,181 The only problem with such a thing is that it goes against your own intentions. 33 00:02:54,662 --> 00:03:01,471 You do it thinking it will make you happy or it will be a benefit to you and it actually is to your detriment. 34 00:03:01,491 --> 00:03:03,935 The fact that these things contradict each other. 35 00:03:04,455 --> 00:03:10,283 We're not worried about purpose because we're trying to find benefit or 36 00:03:10,718 --> 00:03:14,665 clarity or simplicity and so on. 37 00:03:15,406 --> 00:03:34,077 So I think explaining it in that way that it actually brings freedom and allows you to worry less about what is right and what is wrong or what is the way and actually focus on what brings peace, happiness and freedom from suffering and what doesn't. 38 00:03:37,870 --> 00:03:41,374 What actually makes sense is maybe the best thing. 39 00:03:42,556 --> 00:03:51,707 What makes sense supersedes the idea of having a predefined purpose, which would of course be completely arbitrary. 40 00:03:53,509 --> 00:03:58,475 There's no reason for us to believe that faith in Jesus Christ is any better than faith in Allah. 41 00:04:03,361 --> 00:04:05,143 Nobody looks like they have anything to say on this. 42 00:04:08,870 --> 00:04:16,637 What would you do if someone was afraid of, you know, maybe we can be more general, being afraid of letting go, no? 43 00:04:17,538 --> 00:04:21,961 I have one meditator right here right now who's, you know, she's much better now. 44 00:04:22,002 --> 00:04:24,444 Today she said to me how much better she feels. 45 00:04:24,464 --> 00:04:29,568 And then I finally looked at her with this question in my mind. 46 00:04:29,628 --> 00:04:34,332 And it was amazing to think, you know, okay, what did she look like when she first came? 47 00:04:34,352 --> 00:04:35,173 What does she look like now? 48 00:04:35,293 --> 00:04:37,375 And you can see that she's a different person. 49 00:04:38,047 --> 00:04:45,817 She's radiant, she's much more alive, much less a character and much more a human being. 50 00:04:47,379 --> 00:04:51,604 But in the beginning, she was very afraid of letting go. 51 00:04:51,624 --> 00:04:59,835 Or she had these questions about, how can I convince myself to let go? 52 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:17,552 One classic answer that I would always give is that you never let go of the things that you don't want to let go of. 53 00:05:19,895 --> 00:05:25,803 Maybe that goes along with purpose as well. 54 00:05:25,903 --> 00:05:31,851 If you believe that X, Y, or Z is the purpose of life, then don't believe us that it's not. 55 00:05:32,151 --> 00:05:36,657 But certainly don't just take your own blind faith in it. 56 00:05:37,227 --> 00:05:42,113 If you believe that there's a purpose, look at that purpose and try to understand it. 57 00:05:43,235 --> 00:05:50,003 If it's just a fear, if the person gets the fact that there is no purpose to life, but they're just afraid of it, then the best thing is to look at the fear. 58 00:05:51,105 --> 00:05:53,268 Don't worry about whether there is or isn't a purpose. 59 00:05:53,368 --> 00:05:58,454 Look at this fear that you have and try to understand what's there as opposed to what's not there. 60 00:06:00,877 --> 00:06:03,721 I just think purpose has no place in ultimate reality. 61 00:06:03,781 --> 00:06:06,745 That's long and short of it. 62 00:06:11,618 --> 00:06:12,284 Nobody else? 63 00:06:14,766 --> 00:06:15,452 Stop it.