Does Remembrance Help in Liberation?
Questioner: Does the continuous remembrance of liberation lead one to the right way?
Acharya Prashant: One has to be reminded of it. It’s a very strange thing. One need not be reminded of the false, the false is anyway always ready to tempt you, assault you. One does not need to be reminded of the false, but one needs to be reminded of the truth. Sometimes people ask me, “We have seen that advertisements are needed in corporate industries, but why does your foundation advertise its work? Every time there is some banner or poster out that course is happening or that camp is happening.” This is the answer.
First of all, the human constitution is at false; needs no advertisement. It is anyway attracted to the false. Secondly, even though the false needs no advertisement, it still gets heavily advertised. First of all, we are anyway vulnerable towards the false; we anyway get attracted very quickly towards the false.
Secondly, the false is also getting advertised upon our senses continuously. Now in this situation, please tell me, should we advertise the truth or not? Should we or should we not? In fact, it is not the false that needs promotion or advertisement, it is the truth that needs to be supported greatly by way of promotion, advertisement, and many other things. Man needs to be reminded continuously and there can be many ways to keep oneself reminded. Great company is one such way.
Questioner: Why does it happen that thoughts of liberation always come whenever you are free and not when you are busy?
Acharya Prashant: Then wait. If thoughts of liberation keep coming to you always when you are free, then wait till thoughts of liberation start coming to you even when you are busy. Because all these are very opportunistic and false thoughts of liberation if they come to you only when you are free. If your angst is overpowering, if your love is real then thoughts of liberation should come to you even when you are heavily occupied and busy. Wait for that day and that day will be the day of your liberation. Then in the middle of your so-called most important work, you will still find yourself helplessly attracted towards liberation.
Someone is telling you; the situation is telling you; your boss is telling you and colleagues are telling you that this work is very, very important, come on, give yourself to it, be fully committed to it, and what do you find? Instead, you are being carried away to somewhere else and that would be a great day.
Because that would be the day when you don’t even have to write your resignation, you will be simply fired. Resignation is such an arduous thing. You sometimes write it, you sometimes don’t write it. You compose one draft, and then you say, “No, no, no! Tomorrow, maybe, I will re-think,” and sometimes the draft accidentally goes to the unintended recipient, and then you send her an apology mail. So, it’s an unnecessary dilemma.
But if love overwhelms you so much that you become totally useless to everybody else, then you will be relieved of this dilemma. When you become useless to people, they will chuck you away. Let love make you totally useless to the world. That would be the day of your relief because this society cannot tolerate useless people. It is a very self-centered society that cares only for its own interests. When you become unproductive and useless, they will not take two minutes to kick you out.
Celebrate then, that’s the best. If you can’t muster the courage to resign, don’t resign, just let them come to you. You can’t walk out to them, they will ensure that they come down to you, then you must say, “At this time I am quite occupied and for sure,” so he will give you another time, another slot. It will now become their responsibility to talk to you, so don’t force it, these are not kid’s games, these are serious matters.
Don’t think of these things as something to be done just because they are fashionable, no. Because there are repercussions. It sounds romantic to be fired, but then one has to also take the consequences and there are consequences.
So, only when you find that you are totally ready to take the consequences and only when you find that your situation is now irrevocable — you have become so very deviant that you cannot just come back, you are incorrigible now — only then must you let these things happen. Otherwise, it is possible that you take this as some kind of romantic indulgence and get fired and after a month you come back crawling on your knees to the same people, requesting them to take you in again and that is such a disgrace. If this happens, it should be the last time it happens to you.
If this happens, it should mean that you have finally shut the door and burnt away the bridge. It’s a tricky thing, you can’t wait too long, and you also cannot hurry it. If you wait too long then you have wasted your life, and if you hurry it then you have earned a scar for yourself without really being liberated. So, you have to very honestly ask yourself, “Has my time come?” And you should keep wishing that your time comes quickly.
Questioner: Is that the only way? Can it be possible that due to deliberate waiting, one becomes like other slaves? You don’t wait to become that.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes, very much possible, surely possible. This way is for those who, as I said, can’t be decisive enough to walk to the H.R. and say, “I am done.” But you can deliberately decide the day of your hanging. Nothing better than that.
Questioner: It is like logically that I know I am not madly in love but I know that this is the best decision to step out.
Acharya Prashant: See, I said that neither should you hurry it, nor should you delay it. If you have to make a mistake, make the mistake in favor of hurrying it rather than delaying it. The best is to come to the sweet spot where there is neither hurry nor delay, but that sweet spot is not easy to exactly locate; one does not know when exactly it would come. So, one does make a mistake.
What I am advising is, if you have to make a mistake, then make a mistake in the favor of hurrying it rather than delaying it. Because delaying it would simply mean an unrecoverable loss of time and energy. If you delay it by two years, would you ever be able to recoup those two years of your life? That’s two years gone down the drain, they will never come back to you and also you must be fully conscious of your own frailties.
You must know all that which is weak within you, and you must provide for it. Being born in a human body necessarily means that you have to provide for this, and this, and the occasional sickness and the necessary relationships. These things you have to provide for, there is no escape. You can’t escape even to the jungles now, they are cutting down on the jungles. Even the animals don’t find space there, so how will you? In fact, if some sanyasi wishes to escape to the jungle, it’s an animal rights issue now.
PETA should be informed that this fellow is taking sanyas and thinking of going to the jungle. Now, in the jungle, there is already a space problem. Lions are fighting because they don’t have space and a sanyasi has also come.
Do you know why there are so many monkeys in urban spaces these days? From where they are coming? From the jungles. Because there is no space left in the jungle, they are shrinking. So, get rid of the romantic notions that on the high and mighty Himalayas, I will live by the side of the Ganga and eat the luscious fruits. There are no luscious fruits, they are all exported. When the luscious fruits are small, every single one of them gets numbered. You will not get anything for free, even in the deepest of jungles. So, don’t get too romantic. Practically consider your weaknesses, and by weaknesses, I mean your needs.
Asses them and provide for them and keep them as small as possible. If you say that my need is to own a jumbo jet, and first of all, I have to save enough to provide for a private jet, then you have had it.
Questioner: That is when your needs are easy to fulfill, you can just separate and call it ‘want’. But when your saving provides for bodily sickness, then there is no limit to that.
Acharya Prashant: I am saying, ‘occasional sickness’. If you managed to contract HIV, then simply submit to that, thank you or cancer. It’s very difficult to save enough for cancer, that’s a recurrence because cancer means it keeps coming back to you. How much will you save for it? If it comes to you then fine, thank you! Where do you have to go and when?
