Embrace the Dangers of Love
Acharya Prashant: Most people are not liberated by suffering, instead they are pushed into deeper suffering by suffering. One wrong relationship does not kindle wisdom in a person to stay cautious of any more wrong relationships. Instead, what we see happening is that one wrong relationship breeds a hundred more wrong relationships.
So, that's how the cycle of suffering continues its downward spiral. We suffer, and because we suffer, our ability to ward off suffering diminishes even more. It's like a sick person with compromised immunity. Because his immunity is compromised, he falls sick. Because he falls sick, his immunity gets further compromised. Because his immunity gets further compromised, he gets into deeper sickness. That's how most of us are.
Our life is nothing but a succession of sufferings—one deeper than the previous one, each one worse off than the previous one. So, life was meant to be a journey, a process in which you learned continuously, grew, gained maturity, and ultimately gained liberation. Instead, life becomes a process in which we are born in bondages and we keep moving from bondage to bondage and keep gathering even heavier chains with every passing year and month. Be very cautious of stuff that appears. Be very cautious of names that reverberate in your mind. Be very cautious of things that attract and things that repel.
All of that is happening not because of the things in themselves but because there is something within you that wants to have a sick relationship with things. There is nothing in the world so important that you fall in love with it. There's nothing in the world so abhorrent that you start hating it. At either end of the spectrum lies a strong desire to associate yourself with the world, whether through affection or disaffection. You have to go beyond the beyond; how can you get attached? You cannot be at peace unless you go beyond the beyond.
What is meant by "going beyond the beyond"? There is a ‘beyondness’ that is a concept of the mind, and there is a ‘beyondness’ beyond all concepts of the mind. So, it does not suffice, at least to the seers, to just say "Beyond," because they know whatever they say would be misinterpreted and co-opted.
Questioner: If you have to make a choice between working hard and resting or relaxing. So, at that moment, there has to be a strong force which makes you make the right choice. Which, in a previous discussion also, you have said that there has to be Love to oppose that other strong force. And because this love doesn't have any name or form or anything, so for the mind, can there be something with the name and a form?
Acharya Prashant: You have answered yourself. Why would you say that the thing worth loving will compulsorily not have a name and form? If name and form are what sink you, you'll have to find a way to use name and form in a way that lifts you. Because entering the domain of the nameless and the formless straight away is not going to happen.
I had said ‘Love,’ I would say, ‘Will’. The natural, Prākritik orientation obviously is to not only sink but keep sinking. There has to be Love, there has to be Will. You'll have to worship the power of the human will. That is, if you want to express it in the language of power, if you want to be more subtle, more aesthetic, then you will have to say that you'll have to surrender to the charm of Love.
But something has to be there to lift you up, whether right love or right will. Allow yourself to embrace the dangers of loving rightly; allow yourself to embrace the danger of willing rightly; these two are so very similar, they are just one. They both burn you up, and exhaust you. They lead you to a deep rest, by not allowing you to rest at false places. They cool you around, they calm you down, by first burning you down.
Either a strong will arising from discretion—"I know; therefore, I will. I understand; therefore, I will,”—or an unreasonable love, you'll have to have some force on your side, otherwise the force of inner tendencies is just so overwhelming that you will fall.
See, it's not possible that you have nothing in your life worth admiring, respecting, if not worshipping. Why not commit yourself? That's the thing. People keep searching for great love, eternally, and they keep talking of their incessant failure. —"We want that high perfect divine kind of love, and we are not getting it.”
My question is, have you first of all done justice to whatever is even a little lovable in your life? You want the thing that is perfectly lovable. Alright, we all want that. We want something in our life that is absolutely lovely, perfectly lovable. Fine. But, first of all, please furnish your credentials. There must be lesser things in your life that are not worth worshipping but are worth at least admiring, respecting. Have you done justice to those things? To what extent have you committed yourself to those things? You want perfect beauty, it's not as if everything in your life is currently absolutely ugly but there must be stuff in your life that is at least relatively beautiful. Have you done justice to that which is relatively beautiful?
When you're not afraid of beauty, that's when you progress towards the absolutely beautiful. To what extent do you respect even a little beauty in your life? What is the quality of your respect towards things, ideas, people, books that are respectable?
If you come across something that deserves your love or respect, to what extent do you commit to it? And if you don't, then how do you expect to find the absolutely respectable or lovable? You won't get there. That’s the thing with life. You have to use relative stairs even to reach the absolute sky. You cannot just launch yourself into the absolute without using any dualistic mechanism.
Remember that you, as a son of Prakriti , are just an element in duality. Non-duality, absolute Truth is a great goal, but not your reality currently as you are. I might tell you that your nature, your true Self is non-dual, that's something that can come to you just as knowledge from somebody else. Even as I say that the process of reception of these words is dualistic, these words arise from one human body and enter another human body—clear duality. So, you'll have to respect your dualistic existence and therefore, respect the dualistic way towards non-duality.
What is the dualistic way towards non-duality? It is the way of the relative. Be relatively better with every step; be relatively better. Even as you search for the absolute, find someone who is relatively, just relatively, not absolutely, just relatively better than you. And commit to the maximum extent you can. Just as you cannot just jump to the tenth step on the staircase straight away, you go step by step. Similarly, you take a step, and that opens to you the possibility of the next and the higher step. And when you move to the higher step, you become eligible for the next higher one. So, you'll have to ask this, are you progressing step by step? What kind of justice do you do to the next available step? You talk of the open terrace, but did you take the step that is right now available to you? Which means, are you doing currently the utmost that is possible to you? And obviously, except for that there is no way, no opportunity. That's the only option available to you.
The absolute won't come to you and offer darshan or something. All that you have available, possible is what is there in front of you in your dualistic world. You are a creature of blood and bones, and there are other creatures of blood and bones; you have eyes, there are books; you have ears, there are words. Are you listening to the right words? What do you mean by the ‘right word’? I do not mean the absolutely right words, I mean the best words that are possible to you, given as you are and where you are. How do I know what's the absolutely best thing to hear? I do not know, I'm a limited being. But, still there is something I can do. What is it that I can do? If I know that in my limited experience, in my limited world, in my limited capacity, I have these five limited options, I, at least, can choose the best among those given my limited discretion. Right? Five options, because I'm a small being. So, all that I have is these five options, and out of these five options this is the one that appears the best to me. Something else might actually be better, I do not know. But given the way I am, out of these five options, this is the one that appears best to me. I have this one option, now I'll have to be fully committed to it. If I can't commit to it fully, I have no right to talk of the absolute.
This option that I have in front of me is nothing in comparison to the absolute, nothing, nothing at all. But, right now, it is everything for me given the way I am. So, I'll have to worship this very option, there's nothing else.
There's something that we don't easily understand, that the way to eternity, the way to immortality passes through this very moment. You cannot reach anywhere if you do not start from where you are. Maybe you don't have to reach anywhere far away. Maybe what you actually want is depth at the very point where you are. So, you cannot evade your current, your present and ask of things distant. Whenever you will come to me, I'll quickly turn your question around and point at your life as it is right now, and ask you, given the way you live, what do you hope for? Given the way you operate, act, decide, what do you think you can get?
Questioner: As you mentioned in your answer that you have to be ready to face the dangers, so what kind of dangers?
Acharya Prashant:: That's the thing. You want to know of the dangers in advance, so that you can mitigate the dangers. That's the thing with those dangers, they are dangerous exactly because they are unpredictable. If you want to know of them in advance, then the danger is lost, and if the danger is lost then the opportunity is lost.
What is a danger? What is it that you lose when you move to a higher step? Your lowly position, your comparatively lower position. That's what you have lost, that's a danger. When you ascend, you lose something. What do you lose? Your lower position. But your lower position is lower only when you know that you have moved to a higher position, or your lower position is lower when you genuinely acknowledge that you are suffering at your position. When you say, "Oh, this does not appear to be a good high place to be at, I want to ascend." Move on. Graduate.
We have a very unfortunate ability to make peace with our circumstances; to settle down wherever luck situates us. You do not find many people fundamentally dissatisfied with life. Superficially everybody is dissatisfied, but that's not really the case. People lead very satisfied lives at very wrong places. There are very few who have genuine discontentment. We settle down, we accept, we surrender, we compromise, then there is no urge to move up and move on. There's no urge to break fleas and fly.
You see this? And that's when all change, all healthy and beautiful change, all progressive change becomes a danger. We just don't like it. We just don't like it.
The very direct and compelling argument is, “Am I not already alright? It's already okay. What's the need to experience drastic change and therefore drastic discomfort?” One fellow told me, these are his exact words: “Kaam chal toh raha hai (things are going fine).” What is the need to invite so much trouble? Isn't it already alright? If it's not alright, it's at least passable; if it's passable, then why go through needless pain? That's in an argument: “Kaam chal toh raha hai ,” —one of your colleagues, very recently.
One has to develop a kind of habit. Just as it is a habit to settle down, it is a habit to never settle down and it is a habit to keep disturbing the status quo even if needlessly. To keep changing things sometimes for no reason at all. Why are you disturbing things when nothing appears amiss? Because things have been this way since too long now, and that is dangerous. Disturb things. If things get settled in your life, that's your patterns settling down in your mind. It's not good for you. Keep changing things even if you do not find a reason to change those things. The reason might be hidden.
Don't be loyal to anything except that Absolute. You're not supposed to be loyal to the brand you wear, not to your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or to your landlord, or to the particular gas pump you patronize, or the cafe you frequent. You're not supposed to be loyal to these.
Loyalty must be the preserve of the Absolute. Except the Absolute, keep changing everything. Just keep changing everything. And if you cannot change these small things in your life, then you'll find you cannot stick to the Absolute. Because that which cannot be changed is the Absolute.
If you cannot change the brand of your undergarments, then your underwear has become your absolute. Only the Absolute is unchangeable, everything else changes, and is supposed to change, must be changed. Why are you trying to immortalize it? Let it flow, don't freeze it.
Too many days in one city? —Move, move, move for no reason at all. If you can't pack your bags and shift for good, at least take a break of two weeks, a month, or something. Too accustomed to one kind of dressing, try something else even if it makes you feel awkward. You didn't feel awkward while taking birth while passing from formlessness to this awkward form, now how do you feel awkward just changing your apparel?
What do you think, this human form is beautiful or something? —Four random limbs, so much of hair over the body, and our truth is formlessness. Look at the fall from grace, look at the absolute dishonour and disgrace. You took form, you became this contemptible little stinking mass of flesh and then you didn't say, "Oh, but why am I changing my nature?" Did you protest then? No, there was no protest. You meekly took form. If you didn't protest the change then, why do you resist change now? Keep changing everything, because you are nothing. If you cannot change something, you are getting identified with it.
Only the One must remain unchangeable: that, that and that. And because you cannot change little things, therefore, you end up compromising on the One. Because you start showing loyalty to all and sundry, therefore, you become guilty of disloyalty towards the One. Be openly disloyal; live the glorious life of the infidel.
Who am I? A perpetual renegade. Who am I? Whose passion is to break promises. Because he has a promise to keep. There is one promise that I must keep and therefore I must keep breaking all other promises. There is the one thing that must be honoured, therefore, everything else must be taken very lightly.
You don't have to purposefully dishonour something. But the moment something stands in the way of the Truth, of your liberation, treat it as you treat a fly with the fly swatter. You've seen fly swatter, how do you treat flies with it? (gesture of swatting by hand). That's how you are to treat anything that tries to dress up as the Truth, or supplant the Truth, by becoming permanent. Only the Truth is permanent; in fact, the Truth is beyond permanence; Truth is timeless. Anything that tries to become a fixture in your life is to be seen with cynicism.
Why don't you have a t-shirt in the coming Mahotsava saying, “Gloriously disloyal.” Or “I'll break all promises because I have a promise to keep,” or “I keep breaking all promises because I have a promise to keep.”
