Such short attention spans?
Acharya Prashant: We are adults only in name. We keep treating ourselves as kids; else, why would we toy with our own life? And all these things are just toys you have accorded yourself—the products of technology, the avenues for entertainment: TV, radio, the theater, the mobile phone, the entire expanse of social media, relationships, jobs, money, sports. What are these?
We kid ourselves, we kid ourselves, and then we feel surprised why our attempts at kidding ourselves don't succeed. Because within you sits an adult with a very adult demand. That adult does not want toys; he wants the real deal, the authentic thing. Now tell me, is there anything authentic in the average life, in the usual day?
How is it surprising then that nothing really appeals to you, that you don't find anything worthy of—let's come to that word—love? And except for love, what is it that can hold you for long? Greed, attractions, good foods, good clothes, nice odor, prestige, excitement—these are small things that will not be able to keep you for long. However, to compensate for their lack of quality, they proliferate in quantity.
So, as we said, U1, U2, U3, U4—the mother U, huh? The "U" stands for ugliness. The mother U knows fully well of its deficiency in quality, and to make up for that, it proliferates; it expands in quantity. That, obviously, is a deception.
I know I cannot hold you—that's a law of existence—because I am not the real thing. Only the real thing can hold you. So what will I do? I'll create a copy of myself with some little apparent deviation. The difference between the first and the second copy is superficial, but I will present it as fundamental. I will say, "The next choice you are being presented with is something new, original, and therefore, all the grudges that you had with the previous choice will not be found in the new one."
And for a while, the next choice will manage to entertain you. But sooner than later, you will discover that the next thing is fundamentally just the previous thing.
But we do not learn our lessons. We hop onto U3 with the hope that U3 will bring us a new dawn. And again, we are disappointed. We are disappointed but never disillusioned. Hope remains, hope survives, and that's the reason why man has made hope into such a tall virtue. Otherwise, hope is actually a great problem.
This is what the wise ones have taught. This is what Vedanta tells you. You have to come to the end of your hope. Your hope is your real problem. You know what you actually hope for? You hope that you can be better while remaining who you are. Your hope is an impossibility. Yes, obviously, things can change for you. But for things to change for you, first of all, you have to change for things.
If you remain to things who you currently are to things, how can things change for you? Things have no capacity to change. Things are dead. Things are mere material. Material cannot change. Only a conscious entity can change.
That which is not conscious is called, classically, by a greatly indicative name—Jada. Jada not only means that which is unconscious; it also means that which is incapable of changing. But when we find that life is bitter to us, then instead of changing the conscious one that we are, we attempt to change our material surroundings. And that's an impossible task. The world cannot change. The world is Jada—unconscious.
You have to change. Only you have the power, the choice, the capacity to change. But change is anathema to the ego. The ego wants to believe that it is already perfect. And if is already perfect why would it change and that's the reason we all avoid change or even if we acquiesce to change it is only superficial change we agree to.
So instead of changing within, all the energy of humanity is directed at bringing about external change which is an impossibility. It is an impossibility yet it can be attempted and we all attempt that and what do we produce in return. We produce slightly different versions replicas of the same thing, the same thing because remember the world cannot change.
Its forms can. Ice can turn into water then vapor. Material can take one form, then another and we believe that by giving more favorable and attractive forms to the material, life would change. But material is just material irrespective of the form that you give to it, it cannot improve in its fundamental quality and its fundamental quality is of unconsciousness. That which is unconscious in itself how can it raise your own consciousness and that, mind you, is your fundamental inner demand. It's your need it's the need you live for.
You are the mind, you are Consciousness and you are an imperfect Consciousness that seeks Perfection. How can the imperfections of Consciousness be healed by something that is unconscious in itself? How can the world the unconscious world rescue you?
