“I lust after your body” is the ego speaking plainly. Tell it the ego is false, and it rephrases: “It’s not lust, it’s love. And I’m not the ego, I’m Atma.” So the Buddha said even this Atma is false, and we turned Neti Neti into one more belief. A PhD student asks which of the two works better. The answer: neither teaching was weak. “You give poison to the ego, that becomes nourishment.” Which holy word is doing that work for us today?
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[From a session at IISc Bangalore, 2025]
Questioner: I am a final-year PhD student. So my question was, you mentioned suffering. So in terms of Advait and in terms of the Buddhist philosophy, both of them start off with the same kind of a premise. But are these the same? Are they telling the same thing in different words, or is there a difference in the way they approach? Because Buddha says that the root of all suffering is desire, and if you’re able to give up desire, you can be free from suffering. But here you are also mentioning that suffering will always be there. You just have to choose which suffering.
Acharya Prashant: Because freedom from suffering is desire, no? Suffering comes from? You said.
Questioner: Desire.
