All promises are false promises || (2017)
Questioner: We’ve seen enough of the false promises or could there be another. Sure does seem like a promise that would be fulfilled, it feels that way, it seems too long to point. There is more life that would be... and so have this idea that it is a huge temptation. When we're touched, when we’re choosing of the material world... okay another lifetime some other lifetime. This is powerful.
Acharya Prashant: One can simply discard the possibility of being cheated once again. One does not have to go into the question of whether or not the next promise is a genuine one. There are no two types of promises. There aren’t false promises and true promises.
There are only false promises. Promises by themselves, by definition, are false because every promise takes you deeper into time. It takes you into the future. Promise says, “Fulfillment lies in the future.”
Hence there are no true promises, which means the way to detect the false is to just see whether it is promising anything. You don’t have to ask whether the promise would be kept. You just have to ask whether there is a promise involved. These are two different things.
We try to inquire into the authenticity of the promise, right? We ask, “Will this fellow, will this new hope keep its promise?”
That is the question we ask. That is not the question to be asked. The question to be asked must be, "Is there a promise involved somewhere? Am I being promised something?" If you are being promised something, you already have been cheated.
The real is not the promise of the future. The real is immanent, immanent and imminent both. It is all-pervasive and right now. It does not belong to a far-off land. It does not belong to a distant day. It cannot be a matter of promise. It is your living reality. It is either the living reality immediately or it is a total sham.
Either it is right now, or it is not at all. It is not a result of a process. It is not a beginning that will result in something after a few days.
You are not upon a bridge that will take you to the other side. Either you realize that you do not need a bridge or you will continue to be on a false journey forever. A journey that is not needed, a journey that is not actual, a journey that tires you down without taking you anywhere.
"Is there a promise somewhere?"
"Is there a future somewhere?"
"Is there a distraction somewhere?"
"Is there an imagination somewhere?"
"Is there an assumption somewhere?"
Be alert! Check out for these things.
"Is there mental activity somewhere?"
"Am I imagining and assuming something?"
"Am I being asked to posit something?"
"Am I believing in stories?"
"Am I being asked to buy theories?"
The Truth is not some theory. The Truth is neither a story. The Truth just ‘is’.
If you come across a fancy story, about the origin of the world and the ways of God, if you come across a teacher who tells you about God’s 'benevolence' and 'large-heartedness' and 'fine justice' and such things, immediately stop.
Truth is not a story. Truth is not anything that can be written on a piece of paper. Truth is not anything that comes. Truth is not anything that goes. Truth is not anything that can be remembered by way of memory.
If you can think about it, if you speak about it, it is not the Truth.
Truth is not a handbook of stories meant to regale infants. Many of our so-called wisdom books are nothing but that - holy imaginations meant to temporarily calm down an afraid mind.
That is the reason why spirituality is all so direct and simple and easy. It is nothing, and whenever it becomes anything, something, a thing, you don’t have to think twice before discarding it. You don’t even have to think once. You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is discard, discard, and discard.
That makes it pretty easy for us, isn’t it?
