Authority, Religion, Guru and the Timeless || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Acharya Prashant: *Authority is definitely dangerous when the person becomes the authority. *
Authority is not only dangerous, it is blasphemous because first of all, you are trying to do something that you are not entitled to do. You are trying to act God.
It is only on behalf of the Truth that one can be the authority.
Unfortunately, that cannot be objectively verified whether you are acting to fulfill your personal agenda or whether you are acting as a soldier of the Truth that cannot be objectively verified. So that’s why all the perverts are having a field
Verification can be made only by the Truth inside you and only by probably the fruits of the actions. If you are dull, then you will have to wait to see the results of following somebody and if you are a little quicer and intelligent, then through your own attentiveness you will be able to figure out whether the fellow is lying or is really there. In fact, it can be verified, all you need a little longer time or little exercise of the mind. It can be verified, why not?
Listener 1: In fact, somehow it is easy, one of the parameters is that they don’t talk about duality.
AP: Yes, it can be verified. But again to verify it that way, first of all, you need to understand duality. First of all, you need to be so alert that you can catch the ring of duality in somebody’s lectures or sermons. If you are dull then somebody will keep talking duality and you will keep clapping in devotion. As happens with most Gurus and Babas, people are not even alert enough to really see what he is saying; saying and doing, if you can’t see what he is saying, at least see what he is doing.
L2: Usually they are celebrities, their doings are kept hidden. So all we have is what they say.
AP: Even that can be used to just expose them.
L2: Let’s say, if you are sitting and watching a video of somebody and you are trying to make out whether what he is saying is non-dual, I mean what is the content, what he is saying. Usually these satsangs that happen, these also include bhajan-keertan (Spiritual songs and activities) and all these stuff. So, at times I mean you can simply slip and can say that the content is okay.
AP: No, but why would a Real teacher include dualistic song in his whole offering?
L2: Because the guru, when after a point of time, after a scale becomes also an institution and let us say there are thousands of people working under you, you don’t have control over what’s getting produce there.
AP: No, if you don’t have control over that, then dissolve it.
What is the ambition that makes you grow in such a wild way?
These are the fundamentals—how you can have dualistic bhajans (Spiritual songs) being sung. It only shows that either you don’t know yourself or the whole thing has your own approval. If listeners can figure out that the lyrics of particular song are dangerous, why can’t the teacher himself can figure that out?
So these are very telling signs, if you find these happening then kindly do not think that it is happening because of expansion or because of oversight. It is happening then it is dangerous.
L3: Mostly it happens after a master is gone.
AP: Oh! If he is gone then he is gone.
See, there is no time on this earth when the Truth is not manifested. One flower is gone, there would be another one. Why do you need to conserve and preserve the old fragrance? The next season, the next flower and every season has its own flower. Summers have their own flowers, why do you want to keep thinking about the winter flowers at that time? Even winter flower won’t even look nice in summers. They won’t suit the whole environment.
L3: But Sir, in history it has always happenned that when the master is gone, when the work that has already gained some momentum, had been used in some malicious ways.
AP: *T*he expectation that a Master is an evergreen thing, this expectation itself is misplaced.
The core of what he is saying will be time-resistant, beyond time but everything else that he has said is time-bound and time-specific and will have no value after a certain time.
Either you are so intelligent that you has read his words, then you can go right up to the core, which is timeless. Either you have to be so intelligent or you must simply look around for the one who is present in that season.
When you read, let say Jesus then you clearly be able to figure out what is the core of the teaching not the periphery, not the wilderness not the outgrowths.
If you are so intelligent then you can figure out the core of the teachings of Jesus, then you are already a Jesus. A Jesus is not a rarity. Existence is producing them all the time. Truth is not selective or miserly. God does not decide to send a Prophet only once in twenty thousand years. Flowers are there all the time, blossoming. Our problem is that we want the old one.
Now, the old one cannot come back. The root of all flowers is the same. If by looking at the old one you can reach the root, then wonderful. While the root is same do the flowers remain the same? They come, they blossom and they wither away. Now you have taken a photo of some old flower, you are worshipping it and you have started a religion and that religion is bound to crush all the new flowers.
L4: Here in science, in medical science they have a practice of constant falsification and there is a filtering. I don’t say that what is left is Truth but it is nearest to the Truth but the religion is quite opposite, here we try to…
AP: Establish the truth.
L4: Yes
AP: And insulate it with time. We want to protect it from time. We say time may keep passing but this institution must not be get affected by time. This is totally totally foolish.
Only the timeless will not be touched by time, everything else away must go with time.
Nobody accept that the God has the right to stay permanently.
Everybody else must come and go.
