Enlightenment is to be shamelessly unenlightened || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Questioner: My spiritual path is taking me very long and I sometimes feel stuck and I am a bit discouraged. If you can give me some inspiration at this point to, as they say, drop the false. How actually to drop it? It’s not happening, it seems so far.
Speaker: Let’s begin with the basics. When you say ‘spiritual path’ and when you say that it is taking too long, you surely have some idea of where you want to reach. And that is why you are able to say that you probably have not reached there and that it is taking too long a time. Now, let me say, I am standing at a point A, I am standing at point A, I imagine point B as a point of Peace or enlightenment. I imagine B, standing at A. I am not very satisfied with A, that is why I imagine some other point to be the point of Peace. But B is imagined by A. Are we together?
Listener: Yes
Speaker: Point B is imagined by A. You know what A is? A is the state of mind one is in. So B is a function of A. One imagines B only because one is at A, which means that even though B, ostensibly, is a different point, a point of apparent satisfaction yet B is a point imagined from a state of dissatisfaction. The one who imagines B is a dissatisfied one, that is why he imagines B. So standing at A, I imagine some distant point B, I also imagine a path to B and my idea then is to reach B through that path. I can also dream up a few other alternative paths also. But the idea is to reach somewhere and that somewhere, where I want to reach is a function of where I am standing. Now in a dissatisfied state, whatever I imagine or think of, or target, will that not be a product of dissatisfaction? – I’m not at peace with myself, I feel some fear, I feel unsettled. Now, in this mental situation whatever I will dream of, whatever I will want to achieve will be a product of dissatisfaction. And satisfaction can never be a product of dissatisfaction. Peace can never be a product of noise. Which means that whenever someone will think of God or Truth or Peace as a distant goal and want to move towards it, he will necessarily fail and the result will be frustration. Which means that whenever there would be a spiritual path, a spiritual journey and a spiritual goal, the result would necessarily be frustration.
Listener: That’s what my experience has been. Actually, 25 years ago, I did not have these concepts. But when I came to India, in 1989, since then I live in India. By grace, I experienced a state of satisfaction and peace and contentment and detachment. For some time, it was truly by Grace because I had done nothing and I had no concepts and after that I started searching and now at this moment I am very-very frustrated. And actually, sometimes I even have this impression that I am going backwards, that I am getting worse rather than better on this journey.
Speaker: You are in India since 1989? Mostly in Rishikesh?
Listener: No, at different places – I spent time in Tiruvannamalai, in Bodhgaya, in the Himalayas too.
Speaker: You have worked really hard. I really respect your commitment, in fact, I am deeply touched by the kind of dedication you have shown to the Truth. Very few people have that. Now it is your time to stop chasing the Truth and simply reach. You have chased for long enough, you have strived, you have tried, you have wandered here and there, you have paid a lot of price. Having tried so hard, now just stop trying. Just get rid of the belief that God is a goal, outside somewhere.
All the effort that one makes to reach the Truth, that itself is the barrier against the Truth.
Listener: It’s like, one knows this somehow, because as long as the effort is there, the seeker is there, ego is there, it’s just that I can’t drop it. Also now, I’m in Rishikesh. Normally, when I am in Tiruvannamalai, I don’t go to Satsangs and all these things, but in a place like Rishikesh, with all these posters around. One side of me feels that I should not go anywhere, just sit by the Ganga and be at peace. Still something pulls me, “Maybe you miss something if you don’t go and listen to this one and that one.” So I get more restless, more solidified, more un-peaceful and more grasping.
Speaker: The search intensifies, the search is renewed.
Just have a deep confidence that you have a very-very intimate relationship with God, which requires no middleman. Even if there was no guru, no teacher to tell you of the Truth, still you would be firmly established in the Truth because the Truth is your nature. Even if there were no scriptures to say even a single word about the Truth, yet you would be in the Truth like the fish is in the water. The fish does not have to read of the ocean from somewhere. Nobody comes to educate her. She does not go to a Satsang to learn about the ocean. And even if all the masters of the world tell you that you have lost the Truth, you cannot lose it. Inside, outside, up, down, right, left, you are already in the Truth. Already.
Listener: I have this intellectual conviction but experientially I feel so thrown out, so disconnected.
Speaker: Every experience that happens is just an experience and there is no experience of the Truth. Experiences are experiences. There is no experience of the Truth, but you can pass through experiences in Truth. Situated in Truth, you can pass through all the experiences and that would mean that experiences would remain just experiences and not penetrate you, not shake you up. Some untouched point would remain within. See, realisation does not mean that you will have some special experience of Truth. There is no special experience of Truth.
Listener: I imagine realisation to be a complete relaxation where I am free of anxiety, free of identification with ‘me’ and ‘mine’, that finally I relax and I can live.
Speaker: Conceptually what you are saying is correct. * Realisation is a complete relaxation.* But it is a complete relaxation in the middle of all movement, in the middle of various experiences including the experience of tiredness. So realisation is relaxation in the middle of tiredness. Which means that you will experience tiredness. The relaxation that is associated with realisation is not a superficial relaxation. Superficially you will experience tiredness, just as any other person does.
Listener: And also anxiety?
Speaker: Anxiety too you will experience. Let me assure you that it is not as if the natural one, the centred one, the realised one does not experience tiredness, or anxiety or worry, it is not as if he is free of these experiences. He too has all these experiences. Thoughts are there, and when thoughts are there, then surely future is there, hope is there, memories are there, anxiety too is there, anger too might be there. What distinguishes the realised one is that in the middle of all of this, he still has an untouched point. So while he is angry, even then, there is that small-small thing, within him, which is not angry. Every bit of him is angry, shaking with anger yet there is something very small, very little, very subtle which is not angry.
Listener: I recognise this.
Speaker: So you are already enlightened. Now why are you chasing it? What do you think that Truth is so rude and merciless and loveless that you will go after it for 20 years, 30 years and it would still elude you? The Truth has no intention of staying away from you. Maybe it is already with you but you don’t look at it because you are chasing it, elsewhere.
You may already be enlightened, maybe you are not just acknowledging it. Maybe this state that you are in is already a state of enlightenment. It is just that this state is not matching with your ideas and imaginations of enlightenment. So many books and gurus have created a very wonderful image of the enlightened one and it is a totally unrealistic image. And seekers then chase that image, trying to mold themselves in the shape and form and similarity to that image. That image is just a hollow ideal, there is no substance in that image.
Listener: But why does it come up in Scriptures, in books, or in descriptions of sages?
Speaker: It does not really come up. It comes up not in the Scriptures but in our interpretation of the scriptures. There is no scripture worth the name which gives any image of enlightenment, I assure you. In fact, I have repeatedly been saying that show me one scripture which gives some kind of a blue print of enlightenment.
Listener: I was just reading Sita Rameshwar and he definitely says something about the signs of realisation is that you are completely free of anxiety.
Speaker: He is right that you are completely free of anxiety. What does that mean? Which means that anxiety will be there but you will be free of it. Did he say that anxiety is not there? What is he saying? He is saying that you will be free of anxiety which means that anxiety will not trouble you. So now you can be anxious, without being anxious, now you can be afraid without being afraid, now you can be excited without being excited, now you can be lazy without being lazy, now you can be the actor without being the actor. And that is enlightenment.
Listener: To always recognise that point.
Speaker: No, not recognise anything. Not recognise anything. That point is beyond recognition. You don’t have to do anything with enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that you can hold in your hands. You only live in your daily small experiences and enlightenment means that now you do not demand anything beyond these experiences.
Listener: That I don’t demand anything to be different?
Speaker: You don’t demand anything to be different, you are always in touch with something so fulfilling that even when life outside becomes demanding, even terrible, yet you are not very deeply upset. You would be upset, superficially. In the depths, you would be silent, tranquil, untouched.
The realised one lives a very ordinary life, simply in the facts. Simply in the facts. Which means that there is very little space in his mind for imagination, which means he would think very little about tomorrow or depend very little on the past. Which means that he is a very common person, a very ordinary person.
Listener: Like I said, 25 years ago, I had a small experience of Peace after going through a few days of an intense sense of loneliness. After which I felt a deep sense that whatever happens is alright. A deep sense of detachment. In the last 5 years, I feel that more anxiety has come into my life.
Speaker: That anxiety is not something outside of enlightenment. You can be enlightened even with anxiety. In fact, if there are mental states that you have not allowed yourself, then please stop resisting them. If there are actions or thoughts that you have barred, or prohibited thinking that they do not befit a spiritual seeker, kindly lift the bar. I repeat: You have worked really hard. You have already proven yourself a worthy one. All that is now required of you is that you relax and surrender. Listener: Surrender
Speaker: Surrender means that you drop the search. Surrender means that you simply say that…
Listener: Okay, I give it up.
Speaker: I give it up. And this giving up is enlightenment. Giving up is not a defeat, it is the highest victory.
Listener: Sometimes I really wish to give it up.
Speaker: Just give it up. Just give it up. Drop this idea that you are a spiritual seeker. Right now your whole personality in your mind is that of a spiritual seeker.
Listener: Yes, but involuntarily. It happens involuntarily.
Speaker: Involuntarily it keeps happening. It keeps happening only as a thought and thoughts find space only when you are not living in the daily facts . So, right now as you are speaking to me, where is space for thoughts? See how attentively you are listening. There is very little space for thoughts. Similarly, when you would be doing other things like walking, or reading, or eating, sitting, sleeping – just be so fully relaxed that there is no need for too much thinking. Thought arises only when a goal, target, ambition or problem is there. Enlightenment itself is such a big problem. One says, “I am not able to attain enlightenment after so many years”, so it is a big target, big problem.
Listener: Since coming to Rishikesh, here there are so many Gurus that I find it difficult to sleep at night – thinking that I have not reached.
Speaker: You see, let me give you an example, you say that you are a spiritual seeker. There are businessmen in the big cities. You are chasing enlightenment, they are chasing their monetary profits, seeking to expand their business, earn more money; they too cannot sleep at nights. Now, what is the difference between you and them? Don’t you see that it is very much the same thing? They are chasing satisfaction through money; which is just an ideal, just imaginary. They won’t get it and you are chasing satisfaction through some kind of a personality, which is imaginary, which won’t give you any satisfaction.
Listener: It is not even that I am seeking satisfaction for myself, it feels like there is a duty. It feels that it is shameful that after so much time I have failed.
Speaker: No, you don’t have any obligation, any duty. Please get rid of this notion. You are not born with any duty.
*One is born free and that basic freedom is enlightenment.* *You have no obligation to become enlightened because you are enlightened. *
Nobody has any obligation to chase God.
God himself is the one who expresses himself through you, through me, through this world.
How can the world have an obligation, then, to chase God?
So there is no spiritual or religious duty as such to become enlightened. No, not at all. You can be shamelessly unenlightened and that is enlightenment.
Enlightenment is to be shamelessly unenlightened.
Listener: So this sense of failure, this is actually …
Speaker: Rejoice in this failure. When you can laugh at this failure, you will know you are enlightened. Enlightenment is to remain enlightened even in the middle of failure. In the middle of your worst failure, you are still enlightened.
Listener: So I have to convince myself that I am enlightened?
Speaker: No you have to drop all ideas regarding enlightenment or un-enlightenment. Just have a certain deep Faith that you are within the Truth, that there is nothing wrong with you. That there is nothing in you that needs to be corrected or improved.
Even when all is going wrong, even when all is crumbling about you, even when you see that you are failing or committing mistakes, still retain that deep Faith, that deep sureness, that mystical confidence. Retain that. Never feel small or bad about yourself. Never.
And never allow any Guru to tell you that you need to be enlightened. If someone is saying that you need to be enlightened, then, first of all, he is not in touch with his own enlightenment.
So simply walk the streets of Rishikesh, the weather is pleasant these days, the Ganga is beautiful, the mountains are so nice. Live the food, the weather, the streets, roam about purposelessly, feed the fish and that is enlightenment. Simple, direct and straight. Ordinary. And do not try to live as per an enlightened code of conduct. There is no divine commandment that an enlightened one has to live in this framework. There is no such framework, you can do whatever you want to do. You can walk madly, you can dance, you can even abuse, you can stumble, you can fall, you can sleep, you can act lazy, you can act in the most stupid way.
Listener: I recognise this. I stayed at a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas and there was no teacher there. These monks, they are very-very simple. They just lead their lives simply. In the morning, they would do their chanting and that’s it. And when I was there I felt so much less stress there as compared to when I come to Rishikesh, in this environment of so-called spirituality.
Speaker: Isn’t it simple? Nothing in existence goes, wilfully, to an environment which makes him stressed. If this so-called spirituality makes you stressed and anxious, then why do you go to it?
Listener: I asked myself the same question, even before coming here.
Speaker: The answer is simple, you have been convinced that you lack something. So you are inflicting a torture upon yourself. Now, why must you condemn yourself to this punishment? If going to spiritual places does not make you feel nice, you have no responsibility, no obligation to go. You are alright. You are alright.
See, you and God are very close, it is a very intimate love affair. No spiritual place or special teacher is needed.
Listener: As a child I felt quite an intimate relation, communion with God and felt Gratitude. I had no conception of God as a form, it was a formless God which was always with me.
Speaker: So you were better off as a child. Right. Can you return to your childlike state? Carefree, flowing, unobstructed, uninhibited.
Remove all the great ideas. You are already great. When I look at you, I am seeing nothing but enlightenment, why are you not able to look at yourself and see God?
Listener: But all these mind states are superimposed.
Speaker: Yes of course, but they will be there. Don’t fight them. They will be there. Even in the middle of all the doubt and all these mind states just stand firm in the deep conviction that you are still alright. Even when somebody tries to tell you, “No, no, no, you are not enlightened, you need to do this, you need to climb that hill, you need to go to that master, you need to read that scripture, you need to perform those ceremonies.” Even when somebody is trying to convince you of all this, listen to him but have this firmness in the heart that God will not come to you through methods and techniques.
He is not a goal, a target, an object. He is You. Already You. And he laughs a lot when he finds you searching for him. You are God’s joke. He looks at you and keeps laughing. It is like you are looking for your own eyes. You are fervently looking out and trying to find your eyes.
Listener: I’m just looking to be myself.
Speaker: You already are. You don’t have to be yourself. You already are. This is what it is. This. This. Exactly this. With no change, no improvement required. This exactly as it is. Not even one percent change needed.
Listener: So if I am in an unhappy mind state.
Speaker: Remain unhappy. Just remain unhappy. Remain unhappy. Now you are unhappily enlightened. Now you are unhappily enlightened. When you are anxious, then you are anxiously enlightened. When you are excited, then you are excitedly enlightened. In whichever state you are, you never lose enlightenment.
Enlightenment is your heartbeat, enlightenment is your breath; how can you lose it? It is only in thoughts that you lose enlightenment, don’t give energy to those thoughts.
Listener: So, I just let it be?
Speaker: Oh yes! Have a nice cup of tea. Relax. Walk around. And I repeat, do not allow this so called spiritual world to dominate you. Let them not tell you that you lack something. Never listen to them. Whenever somebody tries to tell you that there is something inherently wrong with you. Don’t listen. Yes, superficial improvements can be made. We listen to people when they tell us that we are not driving properly or such things. But if somebody tells you that there is something wrong with your soul, with your heart, with your very essence, then don’t listen.
Listener: With identifications…
Speaker: Identifications will continue. In the middle of identifications, you remain unidentified. In the middle of all the identifications, you remain enlightened. I assure you, you will remain identified till your last breath. If you are aiming to drop all identifications then you are too identified with the dropper. Identification will remain.
Listener: So, okay. (Laughs )
Speaker: That’s it. Nothing left to do. No goal left to achieve. Just play around. Have fun.
Listener: And if it happens to be that there is a heaviness that is sticking to me, then?
Speaker: Live through that heaviness. There is nothing wrong with that heaviness. Live through it. Don’t resist it, don’t try to do something about it. One is sometimes heavy, one is sometimes light. All these are moods of the mind. They keep swinging. Why do you want to interfere? Let the mind do what it wants to do. Sometimes it will be happy, sometimes it will be needlessly gloomy. It is like the weather, it keeps changing.
Listener: How is it then different for you?
Speaker: For me? No difference. I’m just like you.
Listener: But what is the..?
Speaker: There is no difference, actually there is no difference. It is just that you don’t want to accept that you are alright and I have refused resisting, long back.
Listener: Resisting?
Speaker: Resisting anything. Whatever is there, is there.
Listener: So you just completely accept?
Speaker: I don’t accept. I just don’t resist. And even when resistance is there, I don’t even resist the resistance.
Listener: Has there been a point in your life? Like a point in your life when this started happening?
Speaker: No, no, no fancy points, no moment of awakening, no waking up to the radiant Truth. None of those fancy stories, none of those fancy stories. No renunciation of home. No visiting a great master. No effulgence of some divine energy. Nothing of that kind. Simple ordinary human being.
Listener: But the giving up of all resistance, that is something.
Speaker: I will simply say – I am alright with whatever is happening. Even when I’m trying really hard, I’m still alright with the way things are. I might be involved in a passionate attempt to change things, yet I am alright.
Listener: Yes.
Speaker: Remain alright.
Listener: Yes. Just not to load the mind.
Speaker: Never be ashamed of yourself, never feel incomplete, don’t feel guilty and don’t feel too responsible. You are not here to strive, you are here to have fun.
Listener: Okay. Okay. I will go out and I will…
Speaker: And when one of those serious gurus, they try to tell you that you need to do this or that, then you can shamelessly show them your thumb. Have you seen kids rolling out their tongues?
Listener: (Laughs, folds her hands) Thank you.
