Every thing is material, but not everything || Acharya Prashant (2011)
The Questioner is denoted by Q and the Speaker by S.
Q : Hello, Sir. Many things about you are changing.
S : Yes, and a lot is not changing. Try seeing what does not change. Go to the Real thing.
Q : Well, you were always visionary, so only you can see them. I can only judge.
S : Judging is alright, as long as one takes the judgment and the judge lightly.
Q : Well Sir, I choose to remain ignorant as I firmly believe that ignorance is bliss.
S : Is this an ignorant choice? Is this an ignorant belief?
Q : Everything depends upon the cause and the effect. Choices become beliefs.
S : Only the effect depends on the cause. And surely you do not have enough commitment in ignorance to keep ignorant choices and beliefs.And if you have, I would ask: Is this an ignorant commitment?
Q : In my life Sir, there is never enough commitment to anything.
S : Hmm…
Q : There are limitations, and there would always be.
S : Why do you think one is condemned to live with something one does not like?
Q : As you have been saying since long: Everything is conditioned.
S : Yes, as long as it is a thing , it is conditioned. But not everything is a thing.
Q : Are you sure Sir, everything isn’t material?
S : Every thing is material. But not everything.
Q : No paradoxes, Sir.
S : It’s direct. Do you know Love, or Freedom? Tell me their taste, or weight, or colour, or size.Or convince me they do not exist.
Q : I am not convinced even we do exist.
S : That’s pretty much certain. We do not. But what about Love and Freedom?
Q : Yes, they certainly can’t be measured. But people convince others by assigning some measure about them.
S : What about you? Do they exist for you?
Q : No they don’t. Because freedom is freewill and as I said, everything has limitations. So it’s finite.One’s mind can never be free, nor it can love what it should really love.
S : Can there be Freedom beyond freewill? Can there be a love that is simply not prepared to accept limits? Can there be mind beyond definitions?And if there can be, won’t you like it? Tremendously like it?
Q : Do you feel free? Do you feel the truest love you have read of in myths?
S : I may say ‘Yes’, but will you trust me? If you keep insisting that something doesn’t exist, and I claim I have it, you will simply declare me a liar. Even if I say ‘No’, you will need to have a trust to think that the ‘No’ is genuine. Far more important than my ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is your trust. That trust is Freedom, that trust is Love. I call it Faith.
Q : Sir, I too just want to be convinced.
S : I can only state the obvious. I am seeing something. I can only declare to you that I am seeing. You may turn around and say that you don’t see it, hence I am a liar.My question to you is: What if such a thing does actually exist? Won’t you like to live in it? Surrender to it? Be given to it? Never come out of it?
Q : A boy is in a dark room for years and years, and then the door is opened. What do you think he will do? The bitter truth is that he will close the door and remain what he is.
S : There may have been darkness outside him. But he already knows Light, for Light is inside him.
Q : I don’t think he knows what light is. He doesn’t even actually know what darkness is. He will simply reject the new happening.
S : There is a good chance he may not reject Light. Inspite of living in darkness, we all secretly love Light.How do you know Love when you get it? How do you know peace when you get it? Similarly, the boy will know Light. He will just know, without any reason, any background, any prior experience.
Q : Peace is manipulated, Sir. So is Love. Since thousand of years.
S : But we all want pure peace. Without that, there is no relaxation.And forget thousands of years. You, me, and the world will give our life for a moment of real love.Won’t you?
Q : Is there anything like pure peace?
S : It’s immaterial whether I say that something like pure peace exists. What matters is that you are thirsty for pure peace.
Q : These are all hypothetical things. One doesn’t need to look for them and go bonkers.
S : Had it been hypothetical, why would we all crave for it? Everybody, without exception. Surely we have a pre-intuitive taste of it. Surely it is seated somewhere very deep in the mind.
Q : Sir, with all our selfishness, how will we ever get that pure sacred thing?
S : I will not tell.(smile)
Q : See how the magician is not revealing his tricks.*(smile)*I think the first and foremost thing is to not to look for the sacred. Just walk your way, you may meet it somewhere. One will then say hello to it.
S : You have put it beautifully. Just walking, we stumble upon it. But you know, we don’t even say hello to it.
Q : How would I know it if am yet to stumble upon it?
S : You would just know. May be you already do.
