Any Kind of Freedom Is Made Possible Only by Spiritual Freedom
Questioner: Acharya Ji, before Mumbai vishranti (camp), I was not aware of seeking Truth being the most important work to be done. I valued freedom a lot, and freedom to me is financial freedom, not seeking permission or taking orders, traveling all around, not depending on others. I turned to spirituality to work on my restlessness and suffering due to some incidents in life. Once this problem is solved, I'm afraid I'll go back to my usual life. In fact, the usual life feels more attractive. I do not comprehend Truth. How can I feel an intense longing for it? From this stage, now how do I move in the right path of Truth, which is unknown as well as difficult and could be all-consuming?
Acharya Prashant: There are these many things that you are saying. One of them says that you came to spirituality to solve one particular problem and once that particular problem is solved, you fear that you may return to your old ways, your old life. The big problems that beset us are not incidental. They don't just randomly or accidentally come. They are a product of the kind of life we lead. Therefore, really solving a problem requires a life solution itself. Your life is your mind, your mind dictates your life; and if things are not proper, then you come across the so-called big problems. These big problems get noticed because they are big. Because only the big and loud and gross stuff gets noticed. So, we feel that except for these problems that have come to notice, all else is alright. Now, this is a big illusion. While the problem is certainly a cause of concern to you, what really harms you is the illusion that your problems are limited to the problems that you identify and count.
The entire lifestyle, the entire flow of life, the very center from where you are living is not right. That's why you keep occasionally bumping into big problems. The bumps are occasional, the mistake is not. The mistake is continuous. So, first of all, if you feel that upon resolution of a problem you will return to your old ways, then nothing has been solved. You will keep getting struck with one problem, and then the next one, and the next one. And really, if even one of your problems has been actually solved, then you cannot go back to being what you were. Because the real solution to a problem is a real change in who you are. If who you are has changed, then it cannot continue to have an attraction towards who it once was. So, if you go back, no problem has ever been solved. If you think that your problem is now solved and you can go back, then actually nothing has ever been solved. And if something has been actually solved, then you will find yourself incapable of ever going back. So, don't worry.
You have said that you do not appreciate what intangible Truth and Freedom are. To you, freedom means financial freedom, personal freedom, and such things. That's fine. Any kind of freedom is made possible only by real freedom. You have written, for example, "I do not like to take orders or permission, I do not like to depend on others. That's what freedom means to me." This is what you have written. Fine. But even this kind of freedom will be afforded to you only by real spiritual Freedom. That is spirituality that teaches you non-duality and faith. Non-duality means there is nobody else to depend on, and faith means that if the seeker has to depend, then there is only one worthy enough to depend on. If you are not spiritual, then sooner or later, you will find yourself inevitably depending on somebody. Similarly, financial freedom. Financial freedom is not merely about having money of your own to spend.
First and foremost, financial freedom is about knowing where to spend and how much to spend. No financial freedom is possible for someone who is not wise about spending. And the markets are endless, and the markets want you to, as they say, shop until you drop. Now, how can you be financially free if you do not have wisdom; if you do not have contentment; if greed overpowers you? Who will teach you abstinence from greed? Who will teach you discretion? Who will teach you what is essential and what is inessential? Who will teach what objects can give you and what objects cannot? Once you fully well know who you are and hence what your real needs are, only then can you control and channelize your expenditure. Otherwise, it does not matter how much you earn, you would always find that you are struggling to earn a little more. The man of Truth does not have to ever beg because he knows who he is and hence what his genuine needs are.
The world dominates you, you become financially dependent only when you do not know that no worldly object, nothing from the markets is valuable enough to be bought at the price of your freedom. So, these various kinds of freedoms that you are talking of, they too cannot come to you in the absence of spirituality. Spirituality affords you mother freedom. And all these other freedoms are offshoots of that. There are people who would come and say, "Oh, I do not need liberation or moksha (freedom). All I need is a simple peaceful life. I do not need to go deep into spirituality. I'm not that ambitious. All I need is a simple and peaceful life." They are heavily mistaken because this simple and peaceful life that they are asking for can come from no other source than spirituality. Look at what they say. They say, "We don't want liberation, we just want a simple life." What else is liberation? A simple life. And without liberation, how will you ever get a simple life?
What does liberation mean? Liberation is liberation from complexity, and therefore, liberation is simplicity. But people have this vague and erroneous and obviously harmful concept that spirituality is for those who are seeking something special. Somebody would come and say, "No, I'm a simple housewife. I do not want to go into the complexities of the scriptures. All that I want is that my little world remains happy. People do not fight in my home, my kids grow up to be loving and responsible adults, my husband does not drink, and my little nest remains colorful and cheerful. That's all that I want. I do not want to know what Krishna said or what the Upanishads say. I do not want to know all that." The lady does not understand that what she is asking for is essentially spiritual liberation. She is saying, "Members of my family should not fight amongst themselves."
Is this a material goal? From where will peaceful coexistence come? From where will love come? From common sense? From social morality? No, it cannot come from there. It can come only from a Krishna or a Kabir. You have to go to them. Even if you want something as basic as peace in your 2BHK flat, you still have to go to a Krishna, a Kabir. Otherwise, it is not possible. "I want my kids to grow up into loving and responsible adults." How is that going to happen? Through television? Through the stuff that school teachers teach in the expensive schools? Through radio? Through pop culture and pop literature and comics? How is that going to happen? The woman is saying, "I'm a simple lady. I do not understand moksha or sadhana. I only want some basic little things in life like my kids must grow up into loving and responsible adults." And that's what every woman wants and every man, right? — Mothers and fathers.
And they say, "No, no. Don't tell us the eternal infinite Truth. We don't want that much. All we want is a happy nest. All we want is to be caring and responsible parents." You do not get it, sir and madam. That which you are asking for is essentially a spiritual goal, and hence it can be attained only through a spiritual path. And now you see why all parents want their kids to be loving, caring, responsible, mature but most parents fail. They fail because they do not realize that what they are asking for is a spiritual goal. And hence, they do not adopt the spiritual path, and hence they obviously fail. And then they wonder, "What did we do wrong?" Have you never seen parents sighing and wondering, sometimes wondering aloud, crying aloud, "We did everything that we could do, still this girl and this boy have grown up to be villains and rascals. What did we do wrong?" This is the wrong that you did. You did not realize that no human being can grow up to be loving and mature without being spiritual.
You never brought the scriptures to your family, to your kids, to your 2BHK house. The television was there, the radio was there, all kinds of social propaganda was there. The neighbors were there, the relatives were there, and obviously the influences from the school and the peers were there. But Krishna and Kabir were not there.
So, now look at what your Nanu has grown up to become. Now you beat your chest. Nanu has grown up to become a useless scoundrel and mother just cannot figure out “where did I go wrong?”
No goodness of any kind small or big is possible without Spirituality. You are living in a fool’s paradise if you want goodness but not Spirituality and therefore, most people are living in the fool’s paradise. They want nice things but not through the right route.
So, lovers would sit in front of each other and talk of infinity, immortality, love, fidelity, devotion, commitment, oneness, utter unity but they would talk of all this in a totally godless - aspiritual context. The two of them have not learnt God. How will they ever learn love? But remaining godless they aim to still have true love? Will that ever happen?
And then they wonder when the relationship splits or causes suffering “where did we go wrong?” You never went wrong anywhere. Your very beginning was wrong. You are talking of love without love of God. You are talking of devotion without talking of Truth. You wanted the two of you to be committed to each other. You never asked first of all “are we committed to a Truth?” If you are the kind of people who are not committed to Truth, how will you ever be committed to any human being?
If you could not be really devoted to the One, who is the most beautiful of all, how would you ever be devoted to a man or a woman? No goodness is possible without godliness. No virtue is possible without being Spiritual. So, if you want even an iota of goodness in your life then you cannot go back to your old godless ways. Understand? Settled things for you?
Name one good thing that you want for yourself, and if you meditate over it you will soon realize that good thing even if it appears little can come to you only via spirituality.
Virtuosity is never moral. Morality is always social. Morality is always collective. There is nothing called an inner or personal morality. Morality is always that you accumulate from here and there. You may not know it. You may feel that your morality is your individual morality. But the fact of the matter is that you have gathered it. You might have unconsciously gathered it. But is never a less just an accumulation and morality will never bring real goodness to you. I am talking about goodness again and again because we all want good things in life. We all want something good to happen to us. Remove God from good and all you are left with is “o” (seekers laugh), and that’s how we live our entire life within an “o” (seekers laugh). It is almost like ordering cheese without milk. Asking for the good without God is like asking for cheese without milk. What you get is some fake kind of cheese- rubbery, sticky, loaded with chemicals and it destroys your insights.
Over the sacred fire the man tells the woman “I would always keep you very happy”. Does the bugger know the meaning of “happiness”? Has he been able to keep himself happy? But in that moment he actually does want to do good to the woman, so he tells her “I would always keep you happy”. Sir, you will fail in the next thirty five seconds. You want to bring good to her without inquiring “whether you have firstly brought God to yourself?”
I came to spirituality to solve a particular problem; once the problem is solved I will return. Return to what? A bad life. Your haggard ways.
Life will involve choices. If you have not known firstly to make the first and most fundamental right choice “how will you ever make right choices in day to day living?” And every moment requires that you make choices. What if your most fundamental choice has been wrong? Now how will you make the right choices moment after moment? Difficult!
Those who have first of all not chosen Truth will find themselves choosing the false not once but again and again in their daily lives. And then they will wonder “why do all our choices backfire?” All your choices backfire because your most fundamental choice is wrong. And that is the reason why when you choose clothes you can’t choose properly. When you choose a vehicle for yourself you cannot choose properly. You can’t choose a school for your kids properly. You can’t choose a restaurant. You can’t choose the words to use. You don’t know which “Self” to choose. You are not able to choose the right eye. The right eye is not there! The right eye is not there! But you want to choose the right eyewear. How will that be possible? So, day to day choices go wrong for you.
You talked of financial freedom. You will be spending wrongly, if you are spending wrongly, “is there financial freedom?” Tell me, please? You will be earning wrongly, if you are earning wrongly, “is there financial freedom?” It’s not about how much you earn. That’s what we equate with financial freedom, “how much am I earning?” No, financial freedom is first and foremost about “how am I earning?” You might be earning lakhs, and still find that you are financially unfree. And you might be earning just a little, and still find that you are financially very free.
It’s not about the quantum, it's about the quality of the earning. And if the quality of earning is right, then very importantly the quality of spending will also be right. When you talk of financial freedom you often conveniently gloss over the major issue of spending. Is earning an issue ever an issue in absence of spending? The issue of earning arises only because you have to spend. If you know how to spend wisely, if your spending choices are right, that contributes greatly towards your financial freedom and that enables you to earn rightly.
If you are loaded with all the bad spending choices, “will you be able to make the right decision in terms of earning?” Please tell me. If you have loaded yourself with lakhs of unnecessary though ostensibly compulsory expenses every month, “will this fixed expense allow you to make wise choices in the domain of earning?” You are left with no option you will have to somehow, anyhow earn because you have loaded yourself with expenses.
Who will teach you not to be attracted by that new car launch? Who will teach you? Except for a Kabir who will teach you? You will have to go to the saints. And if you are not with the saints every new car launch will be such a great temptation. And they have series M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6. You managed somehow to buy M6 on EMIs and even before you can proudly declare it on social media M7 is here. All your enthusiasm has been dampened. Same with laptops, mobiles, wives (crowd laughs loudly).
Who will teach you nothing in this world lasts. That too search for peace using worldly objects specially objects from the markets. It’s foolish. Who will teach you this? If you are not Spiritual then you are just a slave of the markets. Fullstop!
Great things may keep coming to you but you will not know how to value them and you will value all rubbish. To rubbish you will be attracted like an ant to sugar, like a fly to jaggery and the great valuable might be fully available to you but you will be ignoring it even be contentious of it. Why? Because so much of life is about right valuation. If you cannot value the first One and the final One, the real One, how will you know what is valuable in life?
Therefore, please see that the Spiritual path is not a luxury. It is not an option. It is mandatory. It has to be like your breath. Spirituality is not a medicine. It is not a pill that you can occasionally pop in. It has to be like the air that you continuously keep taking. You cannot say that I came to Spirituality for a particular reason and now that the mission is accomplished I am going back to my usual world. The Spiritual world is not a hospital that you sometimes visit when you are unwell. The Spiritual world must be your very home. You have to continuously live there. Scary!
A session once in a while is alright. Will I have to be continuously in session? Yes, if you don’t want to be continuously in suffering. Do you see that all these things that you want can come only from the saints and the scriptures? You say “I do not want to be jealous of others. I do not want comparison. I do not want to be affected by external people and situations”.
Do you see that what you are after is a Spiritual goal. The Spiritual goal necessitates a Spiritual path.
Questioner: From this stage how do I move in the right path? It could be difficult as well as all consuming. I have a tendency to stop when something becomes complex.
Acharya Prashant: Stop! You stop not because the thing has become complex. You stop because you see that the gains to be had from proceeding are not significant compared to the pleasure that comes from stopping. That’s the equation that you come to- if I proceed in the spiritual direction then it requires effort.
What I expect from proceeding in that direction does not seem worth the effort so I decide to stop. Let’s see whether your equation is well balanced. Let’s see whether it is indeed better to stop. Yes, of course movement in the right direction would require time, effort; an investment of yourself. You may even call it a sacrifice. But are you better off by not proceeding further? If you move it requires effort. Your body pains. But what if you do not move? Does that really give you peace? There is a trade-off; measure well.
If you measure well you will find that stopping is not an option. Every time continuing with the journey appears difficult just ask yourself, “If continuation is difficult is it any easier to stop?” The moment you ask yourself this question ”what is the price that I pay if I stop?” you will find that sufficient energy has arisen again to continue. When continuation seems bad just remind yourself that stopping is worse and then you wouldn’t stop. Simple!
What is the right path? Rightness is the path. Invest greatly in knowing what is right and then boldly courageously do what is right. That’s the path. You know your life. You know the decisions that you have to take. Put utmost effort in finding out what the right decision is and then with utmost courage and boldness execute that decision.
Once you know something is right don’t you ever avoid it. And once you know something is not right don’t you ever fall for it. Is it complex? Is it complex?
