Exactly who is happy here? || Acharya Prashant, with IIT Bombay (2021)

Questioner: Is it necessary to renounce worldly pleasures in order to gain spiritual experience? What should be the approach to living a spiritual life in the context of this modern world?

Acharya Prashant: No, but where are the pleasures? I do not see any pleasures! I do not see anybody being pleased. You are talking of renunciation of pleasures as if pleasures do exist. Where are the pleasures? Go to a weekend party and show me who is happy. And if people were indeed happy, why would they drink? They drink so that they can forget their miserable state. Who is being pleased in all this? Please, tell me.

But you know, we like to pamper ourselves. We flatter ourselves when we say, “Oh, I am living a life of pleasures and spirituality will snatch away my pleasures, so should I consider spirituality or not?” What kind of bluster is this?

Nobody is happy here, please. Just scratch the surface and you will find. What do you think, those Facebook faces are real? Why do you think people have to display their teeth so much? If one is really happy, it is an internal confirmation. You don’t have to seek validity from everybody. You don’t have to go around tom-tomming your happiness.

So, please drop the illusion that people are indeed happy. This thing about being indeed happy, truly happy, is called joy. We don’t have it, and that is why we run after flimsy pleasures. Spirituality is not about dropping the real thing; it is about dropping false pleasures so that you can have real joy. And false pleasures are the same as suffering. So, spirituality is about dropping suffering so that you can have joy.