Page 372 - Mystic Pathways through the Bible

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366 Mystic pathways through the bible
also to keep up appearances, his pride spurs him on to continue bragging and advising others on how to attain success in life.
The implication here is that you may acquire wealth, power, relationships, etc., but these worldly attainments will never genuinely provide the ultimate ful llment of joy you are searching for. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven should be your primary focus. For if you have Liberation as your goal, everything in your life will have value and signi cance. If Liberation is not your goal, then none of these attainments, after a time, will have any lasting meaning. You will eventually have the experience of emptiness. You will be like those hypocritical thieves, shaking their hands after being stung by the illusions of life, yet asserting, “What a wonderful experience!”
A mathematical illustration given by a teacher in India may help you understand this point from a different perspective: If you have worldly attainments without the aspiration for God-realization, then all you have are zeros. In mathematics, whether you have one zero or a thousand zeros, it still amounts to zero—nothing. But, if you place just a single “1” in front of the zeros, you give value to whatever zeros you have. One zero becomes 10, two zeros become 100, three zeros become 1,000, etc. Every zero has meaning and signi cance. Similarly, if you