Facts and imaginations || Acharya Prashant (2015)

Questioner: In the discussion earlier, we said that if we live in facts, there won’t be any paradoxes. And to overcome this sense of lack, we have to keep checking whatever we fear. So in some sense, this becomes a thing which is dependent on time because if I am checking facts, I will be checking them in time. Am I understanding it clearly?

Acharya Prashant: You don’t have to check facts, you have to be in facts.

If you are finding that there are contradictions in your mind, then you are not in facts. It is not a question of checking your facts, they are not facts at all, you are living in imaginations. Get rid of these imaginations. What you have in front of you are facts. You don’t have to go and procure facts. You are — that is a fact.

Imaginations take time. Facts are present, instantaneous, here. You can imagine that you have eight legs, and now you have a contradiction, “How am I able to wear these normal trousers?” Then you will have to go and count your legs. Instead of counting your legs, if you face a contradiction, simply wake up.

A contradiction is a sure-shot proof that you are dreaming.

“She loved me so much but she still ditched me!” Now instead of going out and chasing her to know from her why she ditched you, simply see that you are imagining either of these. Either she never loved you, or she didn’t ditch you.

Listener 1: When I start ideating then that ideation makes sure that I can’t do the task in hand. So what is it? I don’t know the way out.

AP: Do you really want to do something? If you want to do something, you will attend to what is done, you will not think about it. The question is, where is the space for thought? You have to go back and ask God, was he thinking while making Adam and Eve. Where is the space for thought?

I look at this plant, and I see that it needs water. If I really see that, I will water it. I will not think about this or that. You need to have this, call it the direct fact of the universe or call it faith, choose whatever you want to call it, but, whatever you need, your mind instantaneously presents it to you. The purer is the center from which you are operating, the lesser time it takes for the mind to come up with the appropriate response. And if you have to think a lot, then take that as a hint that you are operating from the wrong center.

When you are operating from the right center, all the information comes to you in a flash, it gets processed in a flash, and then the right response is ready in a flash. Everything happening together. It doesn’t take time. Of course, if you want to write down, it will take time because it is a physical thing. But the happening is spontaneous.

L1: So the ideation that I said was coming out of fear, is actually my cunningness to avoid action or to get into the happening.

AP: That’s what. Do you really see the value of the happening? If I see the value of the happening then where is the time to think about it?

L1: So my fairy land is more important to me than the happening.

AP: You are thinking of something. The fairy land is a thought. You are thinking of something, you are assigning more value to that. You are not there in the happening. You are not with it. You do not see the value in it.

L1: When you say, “Challenge your thoughts, challenge your fear, see the facts.” I can’t. If I sit down to write my fears of something, I just can’t pin point. It has space, but that space is ambiguous. You can’t get inside.

AP: You do not need to write it down and all that. All of these are very gross methods. Rather, living with it, experiencing it, you suffer, and that is it. What is the point in giving it a name, and writing it down and all that? Your face, your movement, your voice, everything is a living testimonial of fear. What do you mean by verbalizing it? What is the need? Is there a need to prove things to somebody, or to yourself, when you already know the facts?

The fear is there. Your vocabulary might not be very rich, you might not be able to give it an appropriate name. How does it matter?

L1: I can feel it.

AP: You can feel it. That is it. That is the only proof. It is keeping you in a bad shape. Is that not the final proof? You are miserable, is that not the irrefutable proof? What more proof is needed? The patient goes to the doctor and the patient is feeling absolutely miserable, the doctor conducts ten kinds of tests and tries to prove that everything is alright with you. What is the bigger proof, the test report or the patient’s face?

L1: The patient’s face.

AP: The doctor might have proven through the test reports that the patient is alright, but it is the patient who knows that he is not feeling alright. And ultimately health is about living in health, feeling alright.

L2: Sir, the mission of awakening others, you said earlier that it comes from compassion. What is compassion? Isn’t it an assessment that others are imperfect?

AP: You see, you are outside a house, situationally, accidentally. Somebody is inside the house, and the house catches fire. Is the fellow stuck inside because he is imperfect? Do you help him with the thought that you are superior to him? It just happens to be this way. It just happens to be this way that the other person is located in a miserable place.

And when one is worthy of exhibiting compassion, then he anyway knows that all is perfect. How can he call anything as imperfect? And if he is still calling something as imperfect, then what compassion will he bring to others? So, it is just a matter of chance, it is incidental.

L2: So if the compassion is not coming from the right point then it can turn into violence also?

AP: If compassion is not coming from the right point, it is violence, it is not at all compassion. And if violence is coming from the right point, it is compassion. That is why many people who cannot really see, will take compassion as violence. Even when they are being offered compassion, they will call it violence.

L2: It’s like waking up a drunk man by kicking him.

AP: Yes, and you cannot get angry with the drunk man. He never chose to drink. Just as the other man never chose to be inside a burning house. What can you do? Nobody knows why things happen. Nobody knows why you are here. And it cannot be known, things are as they are. And it is futile assigning them one reason after the other because ultimately you will reach God and you will have to catch his throat. “Why did you make this man drink and get into the gutter? Why did you set my house on fire?”

The ultimate reason is God. “Why did you kill my kid?” Finally, he is answerable. So no point, because he won’t answer. Reasons are not needed. It is enough to know that somebody is inside a burning house. Why is he inside a burning house? It may be for any reason. He might have been there for prayers or for prostitution, how does it matter? What matters is that the house is burning.

L1: So finding a reason for your disease is also ideation.

AP: The final reason is God, go ask Him. The disease is. That is sufficient. You caught viral fever, what is the point in trying to see where the virus came from? And if you catch somebody who gave you the virus, then you will have to catch the next person who gave her the virus, and ultimately you will have to go to the genesis of the whole thing.

The virus will say, “I am such a poor, small thing.”

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