B.H.U: The way you define yourself determines your choices in life

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: I would like to join the army, but my family and friends are not very supportive. They say that when I could easily get a good job in Delhi or Bangalore, what is the point in risking my life as a soldier? What should I reply to them?

Acharya Prashant: You have to go to the fundamentals. When I say you have to go to the fundamentals, I am not trying to assure you that you will be able to convince those who are trying to scare you away from the life of a soldier; no argument is so absolutely persuasive that it can move even a diehard person committed to falseness. It is for your own understanding that you must know the fundamentals.

Who are you and what do you live for? That is the question to be asked. When those around you say that you can have a nice, cozy, comfortable job in Delhi or Bangalore, they are basing their argument upon a certain view of the self. They think of the self as entirely physical, as entirely bodily, and they think, therefore, that the purpose of life is physical-carnal gratification. These two things go together.

When you say that you are fundamentally just the body, then you will have to say, in the next breath, that the purpose of your…