Acharya Prashant: Do you love the flesh called the eyes or do you love the sparkle in the eyes? Do you love these hollows called the eyes or do you love the light that shines through these hollows? Do you love the window or do you love the sun shining through the window? Do you love the window or do you love the sky that shows through the window? So, even when you say, "Darling! I love your eyes", you are actually loving the Sun and the sky behind the eyes. The eyes are just the windows, right?
So, it’s not so much about the body, the flesh, the eyes. It’s about something behind the eyes. And when that something behind is not there, when there is death or unconsciousness or madness, then you don’t feel that magnetism, that charm anymore, right? Now, what is this consciousness? What is this force behind the eyes that pulls you? What is that? That is the subject matter of all the spiritual inquiry. When the poet, saint, when the seer, when the Guru, when the Rishi, when the Prophet meditates, exactly and only this is what he wants to know, “Who is the one behind the eyes? Who is the one behind the body? Who is the one who is sitting at the heart? What is this thing called Prāṇa? What makes the body tick? Is the body just the machine?” Are you getting it? That is what every wise man has wanted to know. “What is Consciousness?”
The answer for sure has never quite arrived because the answer is to a question that is itself in consciousness. Only in your consciousness do you ask what is consciousness, and you ask “What is consciousness?” so that your consciousness may feel a little relaxed, a little assuaged. Every question is like a pinprick, every question is like a hurt, and every question is a bit of a wound. You try to get an answer so that the wound might be healed.
So, the question is in consciousness & the question is there so that the consciousness may relax. Do you see this? The question is in consciousness, the question is itself in the form of a disturbance of consciousness and the disturbance exists so that the disturbance may relax. The question exists so that the answer may solve the problem. The answer doesn’t quite arrive but if one is a little meditative, if one is attentive, one gets to see that if all that I want is relaxation and freedom from the question then why not be directly free, why not just ask to be free rather than ask for an answer?
