Questioner (Q): What is consciousness?
Acharya Prashant (AP): Consciousness is your universe around the center that you are, the little ‘I’. Consciousness is the entire universe around that, and therefore ordinary consciousness always hinges on ‘I’, ordinary thought is always anchored to the self. You will find it very difficult to think without thinking of yourself. If you will investigate your thoughts, they would always be ‘I’-centric. Even if the subject of thought is apparently very isolated from you, still, while thinking on that distant, isolated or secular subject, you will find that you have started thinking about yourself, or you have started thinking with respect to yourself, or you have started thinking as yourself. So, the ‘I’ has forced its way into a subject, into a domain where it had no business to be. That is ordinary consciousness—a universe revolving around the insecure ‘I’-sense. That is consciousness.
Q: How to get liberation?
AP: First of all, you have to honestly admit that there is suffering, and you also have to have the faith that suffering is needless, and then there is the possibility of liberation. It’s easy, is it not?
The physical apparatus never suffers. There is pain, yes, there might be pain, which is quite a chemical thing, and therefore chemicals can relieve pain. There is pain, but not suffering in the physical apparatus. Therefore, liberation has to be, obviously, for the one who suffers, and he is not physical. It is this little ‘I’-sense that suffers; it is the little ‘I’-sense whose environment we call as the mind or consciousness. Hence, the purpose of spirituality has everything to do with this ‘I’-sense.
Now you will know why spirituality talks so much about the ego: because spirituality is only for the ego. It is neither for the Truth nor for the body. The body needs no spirituality; the Truth, too, needs no spirituality. It is this nasty ‘I’ thing that we are that needs spirituality. We are neither the body nor the Truth absolute; we are this ‘I’-sense.
Q: What is the source of the ‘l’?
AP: The source of ‘I’ has to be seen in the actions and products of the ‘I’. The source of the tree is the fruit of the tree, is it not? Now, you cannot know the source of the tree because that lies buried underground. So, you just look at the fruit of the tree and you’ll realize the source of the tree. It is from the fruit that the tree emerges, is it not?
So, if you want to ask what is the source of the ego, just look at the fruits of the ego. The fruit of the ego is illusion, is it not? Now you know the source of ego. The ego tells you of things that don’t exist. The ego promises you stuff that doesn’t materialize. The ego makes you live a life that just gives you suffering. That is the source of ego.
It does not exist. The ego has been described in the scriptures as the daughter of the barren woman. The woman cannot give birth—the ego is her daughter. That is the source of the ego. The ego does not really exist but is taken as existent; it is an illusion, and therefore its products are always illusory, and hence the suffering.
Now, another way of looking at the whole thing. What is the ego really looking for?
Q: It looks for something to cling to.
AP: That’s what it ordinarily does—it clings. But what is it really looking for? Peace, dissolution, fulfillment—that’s where the ego wants to reach. But that’s where the ego cannot reach remaining itself. It is a place that the ego can reach only by paying the fullest price, and the price is itself. Therefore, you may also say that that final fulfillment is the fruit of the ego, because we said that dissatisfaction or suffering is needed for liberation. But liberation is also the end of suffering.
So, fulfillment is the fruit of ego, but it is the fruit that comes when the tree is gone. It is not an ordinary fruit. Fulfillment is the fruit of ego, because the ego ultimately wants fulfillment. Fulfillment is the fruit of ego—just as we said that liberation is the fruit of suffering—but it is no ordinary fruit: it comes when the tree is gone.
So, you could say both things; you could say the ego is illusion caused by illusion, or you could say that absolutely, the source of ego is fulfillment or Truth. But you must then know the special relationship between this source and its product, the special relationship between the tree and the fruit. The special relationship is, both cannot parallelly be there; if the ego is there, fulfillment won’t be there, and if fulfillment is there, ego won’t be there. So, though both of them are related, they are related to each other not as complementarities but as exclusivities; the presence of one excludes the presence of the others.
So, it is a very special tree-and-fruit relationship. Suffering leads to liberation, but liberation is also the end of suffering. You will not find the tree and the fruit together.
Q: Ego brings pain and then pain ends ego.
AP: It may; it does not necessarily. Our lives do not testify that suffering necessarily ends ego. We are very resilient towards suffering. We keep bearing suffering without determining to bring the thing to an end.
