Do you Know what to Love? || AP Neem Candies

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?

So, one then gets to know that just as one discovered that one likes the consciousness behind the body, similarly, what consciousness itself likes is its own relaxation. Higher than the body’s consciousness & higher than consciousness is the relaxation of consciousness. Those who love the body must discover that they actually love-consciousness, and those who are in love with consciousness—to be in love with consciousness means to be in love with the mind—and those who love consciousness must discover what they actually love is a deep stillness, a silence behind consciousness.

Finally, it is that silence that is the most lovable. Finally, it is that silence that enamors you. You are madly in love with that final stillness but because you are not penetrative enough so you keep thinking that you are in love with a superficial body. If you look at it closely it will be easy to discover that it is not the body that you love and if you love thoughts, intellect, and consciousness then too you must be a little more penetrative and you will find that it is not even somebody’s intellect, or thoughts, or sharpness, or mental agility that you love, it is only his stillness that you are so crazily in love with. Are you getting it?

That stillness, that silence is the finality. The body is right as long as it is a manifestation of consciousness. As long as you love the body because the body is a physical manifestation of the mind, it is alright. The body is lovable if you can see that the body is nothing but the mind in expansion, the mind as material, then the body is lovable. And the mind is lovable as long as you can see the mind is nothing but the center, the stillness, the silence in expression, in manifestation. The mind is an expression of the source and the body is the expression of the mind, then the mind and the body both are lovable.

When you are in love with the source then the mind is lovely and when the mind is lovely, the body is lovely. But if you are a body lover without knowing consciousness then life is hell and if you are a mind lover without knowing the base, the source of mind then again life is hell. That is why the author is saying that to love a human being is utter hell, because when we say we love a human being, what we mean is that we love the other’s body. I repeat, The body is sacred when it is an expression of the mind and when it is understood as an expression of the mind. And the mind is sacred when the mind is an expansion, a manifestation of the center of stillness, of silence, of nothingness. Starting from the start, everything is wonderful but if you are crazy after the fruit with no reverence for the root then life is hell.

Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/how-to-really-love-a-human-being-1_ccfeff7

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