Do We Really Have a Choice or Is It All an Illusion?
Questioner: Namaskar, namaskar. Sir. You explained that everything in Prakriti is just a process. So ego being a part of Prakriti implies that ego is in itself a process and hence it is deterministic. Maybe the inputs are many, or like millions of inputs that we don't know, but those inputs get translated to some output.
So, in other sessions and also in this session, you also talked about choice, sir, which is the choice to side with truth or falsity.
So I'm confused as to how choice fits into this deterministic process. Is it that it is like, something outside the field of Prakriti that will affect these inputs and, as such, the process? Or is it like... I'm totally confused. Can you shed some light on that, sir?
Acharya Prashant: Did you pay attention that we talked of human beings as seeds rather than pebbles tonight? You remember that? And we said that when you just look at it, even the seed can appear like a small grain of sand or a small pebble, but there is a difference between a human being and a pebble or boulder, which is that the seed has a certain potentiality.
And we talked of how the work of Hitler was different from the work of Krishna, right? So that's where the choice element is. But most people never see that they have a choice. There is no choice. They just keep flowing. Or you could say that their choice leans almost absolutely towards the Prakritik side. They choose to side with Prakriti. You could put it this way, or you could say that they don't decide at all, they don't choose at all.
You are alive when you make that difficult choice. You could call it the unnatural choice. If Prakriti is to be talked of as nature, then you come alive when you make the unnatural choice. And that's where we talked of surprising yourself. That which appears right, instinctively right, obviously right in the Prakritik sense, has to be observed. And when you observe it, the observation itself is the choice that leads to detachment.
It's still not clear. I cannot see that on your face. What's missing?
Questioner: Yes, sir. No, I... I get it. So, uh, just to rephrase it, is it that just the seeing of "okay, I have the choice" is itself making the choice? Is that correct? Is that what I'm looking at?
Acharya Prashant: To first of all acknowledge that you are not somebody who has to go by your chemical nature is the first step and that's very close to the last step. The moment you see that you are not helpless in this regard, the power to choose awakens.
Most people just pretend to be choosing, and it's quite interesting—the less you choose, the more you need to pretend to choose. That's why there is so much emphasis on choice in the modern world. Everyone says, "I live as per my choice." We talk of freedom so much, right? When you really don't have freedom, then you talk too much of freedom. Are you getting it?
So, for example, I choose between a tumbler made of glass, one made of aluminum, one made of steel, copper, or some other spiritual alloy. But ultimately, I'm choiceless when it comes to the thing it contains, which is water. But I have entertained myself thoroughly. I have said, "I have chosen." Have I really chosen? I have been choiceless when it comes to the thing being ingested, which is just H2O.
But see how much I pamper myself. I tell myself, "You know, I could have chosen any damn element, but I chose a nickel-titanium alloy. It is the latest in neo-spirituality. The moment you sip water in the nickel-titanium alloy, your 12th chakra gets activated, especially on a Purnima night."
Did you get this? Don't you see that you are just utterly choiceless, and all this facade is just to continue to keep yourself in the dark? It's water inside, that's all. Water, nothing else. Real choice is when you see that this is chemical, and this is chemical, and in spite of all that appears to happen, nobody is doing it. It's automatic. And then there is something that rebels against that helplessness. That's the first step towards freedom. Are you getting it?
When you can, like an adult, keep aside all the pretensions of choice, then you acknowledge how helpless you are, how choiceless you are, and that acknowledgement awakens the real choice. So the chooser is the ego, and the ego keeps on choosing all its life, but all its choices are fallacious, sham choices. It is choosing between things that anyway do not matter and are therefore all identical.
For example, I'm choosing between 0.0 and 00.00 and 000.000, and an entire day I have spent choosing between all these. And I have been soliciting counselling from all kinds of experts, and one of them comes and says, "No, you should take 00.00. That's the best thing for you." That's the kind of choices the ego makes. There is no choice, yet it pretends as if there are a lot of options.
You want to marry, and pics of 40 girls are shown to you, and you pretend as if you are choosing, while the decision has already been made by your hormones. Why are you pretending then? Does not matter which particular pic you put your finger on; ultimately, you are choosing sex and lust, which is all so deterministic. Why do you pretend at all that you are choosing? There is no choice. There is no choice. Are you getting it?
There is no choice, but the ego is a constant chooser in spite of having no choice. That's such a joke. Nothing to choose from really, yet I'm busy choosing the entire day. Have you not seen people who are shopping the entire day? Shopping the entire day? Choosing between this, this, and this... this, this, this, this? There is no choice. To fill up your inner hollow, you will put in anything there. There is no choice. And it's kind of known in advance what you will pick up. Why are you fooling yourself?
So when you have these lots of choices, all of them are sham choices. There is only one real choice to make, which is to acknowledge the nature of the chooser. Once you see that, then the real choice has been made.
Now, you can substitute the word "choice" with "battle" as well. The hollow ego, the empty ego, is busy fighting hollow battles throughout the day, whereas there is nothing in those battles. Even if you win them, you get nothing. And the real one says, "I'll push all these battles to oblivion. I don't care. I'll fight the one real battle." All these shadow battles exist just to secure the cowardly fighter. "I ignore all these shady battles. I'll now fight the one real battle of my annihilation."
You know, the ego fights so many battles. The ego is always surrounded with problems, is it not? Every problem is a battle, right? The ego is always surrounded with problems. Do you know why we love problems? Because they secure us. If there are so many problems, surely it is proven that there is somebody who is problemed, hence proven that I exist.
If there are so many problems, surely I exist; otherwise, to whom are these problems? You look at the inverted logic. There are so many problems, and that proves that I exist. Otherwise, how can there be so many problems? And if the problems disappear, then the logic of my existence disappears. Therefore, I will not let the problems go. At most, I will replace one problem with the other. If one problem goes, a bigger one has to come. That's the inverted logic, huh?
Those are the choices we make. Choose one problem over the other. This, that... and all these are just hollow things. False. There is no choice there. Just chemicals, chemicals, chemicals, chemicals. No choice there, just chemicals, chemicals, chemicals, chemicals. All chemicals do not react with each other, right? Even chemicals have choices. Do you call them choices? Even chemicals have choices and preferences. Do you call them choices?
In an ordinary situation, for example, would nitrogen react with oxygen? Does that happen in the atmospheric air? Is that a choice? But is that a choice? No, that's not a choice. That's physicality. You do not say, "Nitrogen chose not to react with oxygen because it is celibate. You know, brahmachari nitrogen chose not to react with seductive oxygen." Do you say that? No, there's nothing in it. No choice.
So, when you choose something, you are actually not choosing anything. Nitrogen didn't choose, and when you refuse something, you are actually not refusing it. You didn't have the capacity to accept it. So, tell me, where is the choice? Choice is when you see the nature of all this. That's the only choice—to see.
Questioner: Can we also say that, once the choices are made automatically, the ego is trying to take credit for those choices? So, is the order reversed? The ego is trying to take, like, take credit for those choices?
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, yeah, of course, of course, of course! So, he said the experience comes, and then comes the experiencer. Something happens, and then somebody just wakes up to say, "Oh, I did it." Don't you have people like that? They wait for things to happen, and then they say, "I did that.
So, somebody, like, you know, comes and donates on his own. Then the fellow fills up the Form. That's the ego.
Questioner: Thank you.
