Exploring the Practical Path to Greatness in Everyday Life
Questioner (Q): So, I heard you quote Chandogya Upanishad earlier, “naalpe sukhamasti,” and I was thinking that I will ask about seeking greatness on the context of those lines; and I guess most probably are familiar with them, but just to repeat them — Was that, there is happiness only in the infinite; there is no happiness in the finite; and the infinite is that, in which one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else; and in the finite, one understands something else, so forth?
So, in the context of greatness, I always took those verses to mean that — like, basically, if you know something as other than yourself, it’s like, the ego knows something as other — only the ego knows something as other than itself. So, I guess you could interpret it to mean that greatness is where the ego is not, if you read it from this side. And I guess when I connect it to my life; I see that I don’t know the practical way of seeking greatness, you know, if that makes any sense.
But in some sense, like, it’s not that I lack the intention or the — even the honesty or the discipline right now. That was maybe a thing of the earlier times but not anymore. But right now, it’s — like, all the building blocks from this teaching have been given; I just don’t know what to put them to use; and the knowledge will not really, like, take route unless I really, like, start paying for it in action, you know?
But I don’t know — well obviously, the work for the foundation, that’s kind of a; in some sense, everything I do is based on that, that has to happen; but then I don’t know, it’s like, I have to figure something out in my own context of operation because this, the way this mission and this work is going right now, it’s, you’re working here, you know?
As a Westerner, as an outsider, you can’t really, like — you can come to a certain point but you can’t really, like, do that much unless you know Hindi. But still, this is a, I don’t know, what should I choose that would, like, really reduce and challenge myself.
Acharya Prashant (AP): See, you are asking for a practical way to greatness, as if there is a theoretical way. There is only a practical way, practice is the way. What else is greatness? Accept the rejection of everything that is petty about us, you mentioned that. There is no way to greatness except to actively and continuously reject the little, the small that pervades our daily lives. And it is there, it is continuously there. Why not locate it and just drop it without, without attachment, without feeling, without the burden of, expectations, of fear?
You said, “What can you do as a Westerner in context of a mission that is operating primarily from India,” okay? Think of Ramana Maharshi, think of Nisargadatta Maharaj, we probably wouldn’t know too much of them, especially Nisargadatta Maharaj, had it not been for a particular Westerner. And your job tonight is to figure out the name of the people who served them, and the countries they came from. So, location or nationality might not be that big a barrier.
Remember that when Indians come to help, besides other things they bring their Indianness to the table, which might not always be a very needed thing. When you come from a different context, then you also bring something that might not be so readily available here; in this location, but then you have to find out a way, a way you have to figure out the gaps, and you have to see how the thing is working. You have to understand the whole apparatus, and you have to see where you fit in, and how you can contribute.
Obviously, the work today is not even 0.1% of the scale it needs to have. So, obviously, there is more than ample scope for everyone who wants to pitch in. It just needs to be figure out. And the beautiful part here is; beautiful and challenging, that even the figuring out has to be done by the contender himself, because with the little resources that we have here, inside, we don’t even have time to create space and position for a newcomer; and even if a space or position is being created, it is being created in a particular regulated way.
Yours would be a special, exceptional way. And then the scope has to be determined by you; the way has to be creatively thought out by you. It’s not at all sensible to say that it’s, it’s difficult to fit in. I mean, we have to grow in all directions; we are growing in all directions; and time is the bottleneck. So, any growth in any direction is, obviously, not just needed but welcome.
But the initiative has to come from the applicant. How do we know what really you can do, what’s the price you are ready to pay; internally, what your conditions are, what’s the point at which you would stop; where you have set your limits, that the foundation cannot know, that only you know.
So, you have to see what is it that is needed; what is it that you are able or strong with; and accordingly, the pieces are set, and the moves are made, and that’s also the answer to the theoretical part of your question. There is no way to achieve greatness without dismantling your current inner structures. You’ll have to raise yourself to the ground.
If you continue with the way you are operating currently, how can there be a new life? And if the current ways are centred on smallness, how can there be greatness with smallness as the centre? But that’s where most of us make a very fanciful assumption.
We say, “Let the centre of my life remain the same; let the fundamentals remain the same; let the foundation remain the same; foundation with a small f, not, let the foundation; the neev, buniyaad, remain the same; and I’ll raise an entirely new structure with a great façade on the same foundation.” That cannot happen. Your current foundation is not strong enough, not deep enough, to hold this new edifice.
Dismantling what is currently happening is the only way; and the sooner done, the better, because the more it continues, the more you will find yourself invested in it. It’s very easy when you are seventeen; it’s still easy when you are twenty-seven; it starts becoming difficult when you hit your thirties. If you are forty, with this and that, and mortgages, and personal liabilities, and relationships, and this, becomes difficult. Once you have crossed fifty, it requires something special to start afresh. So, start as soon as possible; and no point investing in something that you actually want to drop out of.
Let’s say, you are a tenant somewhere, right? How much do you want to spend? And you very well know that the deed is expiring after a few months, it’s a eleven month thing, how much do you want to spend in repairs? How much? You’ll be shifting out, sir. If you have to shift out, shift out as soon as possible, and don’t invest too much in that place, you’ll need all your resources elsewhere. And the greater the dislocation, the greater the benefits, needless to say.
Obviously, it’s; I can see, it’s more difficult in a sense for you than for somebody who lives fifty km from here, but then risks and rewards go together, don’t they? Obviously, you have to measure your risks; you have to see how the calculations run, but a risk is a risk, it has unpredictability. And then you say, “Fine, I mean, the way I am, it had to go.” The future, nobody can ascertain, but what I can certainly ascertain is that the way I currently am, that is disposed of — that’s gone. What replaces it? I don’t know, nobody knows, I can only try for betterment.”
Q: And when it comes to the, like, taking this teaching to the West, if you don’t mind a little follow up on it, like, the thing is that you already have the numbers here; that you are already a thing at this point; but in the West, it’s like, I find myself thinking that how exactly are we going to bring this to someone, to a Westerner, like, who doesn’t, like, to a Westerner, the numbers here might not really mean anything. It’s just those one of those big, whatever.
AP: You figure that out. I’m sitting here; I’m doing the utmost I can. And even in India, the challenge is enormous. And most of my time, energy, resources are being expended in just meeting the challenges here. I understand there is a whole wide world to take care of; I understand that spirituality knows no national boundaries. Obviously, I know what we are saying is for the entire world, not just for India, that, that’s known, well-known. But providence has me situated here.
Q: Yeah, yeah.
AP: So, somebody has to take it forward at other places —U.S., Europe, you figure out how to proceed with it. And as far as the foundation is concerned, we hardly have the wherewithal, the numerical strength or the financial muscle to establish centres there or proceed in the conventional way.
Whenever people from India; the spiritual ones, whenever they have gone out, they have established this and that. I just don’t see how we can do that. So, we’ll have to operate in a smart way, in a digital way, just as we have operated in India. That’s a huge slice of luck.
Sitting here, I can address Western audiences, so, see how to make it possible; and you’ll have to slog it out, right? Gather people in India, I started by speaking to two people, four, five, eight at a time; I’ll have no issues speaking to a bunch of Westerners, not at all, but somebody has to make it happen, arrange it. The first online camp in the U.S., we addressed it in two-thousand-twenty or twenty it is? twenty? Three years back, four years back. So, but I wish my month had ninety days.
There are books in English; there is an entire channel devoted to content in English language; and there is ample material to showcase to the Western audience.
Q: Yes, it’s just about finding the parts of it that are really, like, accessible and…
AP: Do that.
Q: Yeah.
AP: Do that.
Q: Because you can’t just throw anything at them.
AP: Yeah, yeah. Do that. Do that.
Q: They go, yeah, yeah.
AP: Create a playlist or create a new book. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not terribly difficult either.
Q: No, no. Actually, a friend in Finland, he has many, many text translated. It’s just not so…
AP: Yeah, but then, you know, getting people to buy into it, to enrol into it — that’s the challenge. Getting them to listen to it, “Please sit down, and at least listen to what is being said”—that’s the thing, and that requires patience and effort. Do that. You’ll not find me lacking in participation or but…
Q: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t doubt that, but it’s, yeah, I guess I just forget that it’s easy to get into this kind of coma, that you are not really very active even though you deep down know that you should…
AP: See, what is happening is that in India, we have been able to raise a bit of a significant wave here, over the last two years, whereas in the West, it has to start almost from zero. So, that comparison seems very daunting, but you don’t have to compare. You just have to say, “It has to start from zero in the West, that’s all.” Fine, and we are ready. We are ready.
Two-thousand-sixteen was when I first went to Europe, but the thing is, I have to return, because being there consumes resources and all those things; and this is the karma Bhoomi, this is where I’ve started off; this is where it’s easier for me to bring these things to people. So, you’ll have to take it as your own baby, your own particular project. “This is what I’m into, my own entrepreneurship in the spiritual dimension.”
Also, the West needs probably more of a detox doze than India does because the worst of detoxification, because the worst of India has gone there, and colonized them in the spiritual sense. It’s a reverse colonization, no? India has thoroughly colonized the West when it comes to just the wrong kind of spirituality.
Q: Yeah, that’s another problem. Actually, I think you’ve even talked about it here in the sessions that, “The truth is against my truth and not falseness.” It’s nothing about that really. Every Westerner who gets into spirituality gets into the “spirituality.” It’s almost like a law of nature.
AP: See, it’s a game of money versus determination. They have had the money, the dollars. We don’t have the dollars, but we have determination. So, let’s count on our determination, and make it happen.
