Fall in Love with Joy
Questioner: I try hard to get rid of my inner bondages. But I keep failing miserably. Please say something.
Acharya Prashant: See, there’s a need to avoid talking big, even of your failures. When we say, “Oh! I failed so miserably,” we are trying to turn our failures into something grand. Your efforts are petty, even your failures are petty, so forget them.
You have done nothing worth remembering. What you rather need is some honesty, that would turn your effort into something a bit substantial. Then probably you won’t have to talk so much about your failures. What is happening is this — I hardly put any effort into this (pointing to something); hardly any effort, no effort has gone into this and then I fail and then I sing aloud of my failures.
One hour of effort went into this and twenty-three hours went into singing the melancholy song of my failure. Be honest. Put more effort into this, then you won’t have to sing so much of your failures. And remember that petty work begets petty failures.
Show some spine with your effort. Don’t succumb to the smallest temptation, to even ordinary blows of Maya. Any small wave comes and sweeps you away.
Know what’s worth remembering or describing in this. Show some spine, some gallantry, some resistance, and then the discussion can even commence.
Questioner: Acharya ji, when we talk of honesty and dishonesty, there’s always this confusion that being what we are, which is fundamentally dishonest, we would still be resisting. So, in that resistance, are we being honest?
Acharya Prashant: It all depends on you, what you want. Dishonesty is about not doing to get what you want to get. That’s the fundamental dishonesty. So, dishonesty is just stupidity. I want this (pointing to something), yet, I do not act to get this. This is what I’m calling dishonesty.
Honesty is not about doing something miraculous or magnanimous, divine, altruistic, deeply spiritual, very off-beat, very odd... Nothing! Honesty means — I am thirsty; I will go to water — This is honesty. I’m thirsty; I will go to water. Honesty is self-interest, honesty is common sense. And this honesty when practiced is freedom, illumination, and what you can call as enlightenment.
Nothing else! This is what is enlightenment — Practice honesty. Know what you want and commit yourself to it.
Questioner: Acharya Ji, lately I have been seeing that, you know, the more you catch yourself being dishonest, so, there is always this disappointment, which is probably coming from false expectations. So, on the one hand, there is this disappointment that you know, okay, again dishonest, on the other hand, one also has to constantly work towards improvement.
So, is the only use of this disappointment to improve and not repeat it again? We think that we should not repeat it, we get disappointed, we try to learn from it and then try not to repeat it, and then maybe we don’t try hard enough and then it happens again.
So, then what did we learn from it?
Acharya Prashant: Practice enjoyment. Love enjoyment. Miss the joy of success in beating yourself. Be accustomed to that joy. Love it so much that you miss it, when you don’t get it — the joy of succeeding against yourself, the joy of excelling beyond yourself — fall in love with that joy.
There is pleasure in being defeated by yourself, if you fall to your tendencies, for pleasure, for rest, all you get is happiness, ordinary pleasure.
When you lose to yourself, there is just pleasure; when you beat yourself, there is joy. Practice joy! Become obsessed. I’ll go to the extent of saying, become addicted.
Saint Kabir says, “Become so addicted that you don’t survive without it.” He loves the metaphor of the fish. He says, “Only the fish knows Love… only the fish knows Love, won’t survive a minute if you take it out of the ocean.” Become so addicted to that; want it every second, crave it.
Miss it badly.
Questioner: So, if this is not happening frequently, does it mean that we are not having enough moments of joy?
Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes... Yes, Well said! That’s the tricky thing. If you have not had enough of it, you will not even develop the urge to want it. So, somehow you must be given frequent tastes of it. Only then you fall in love with it.
That’s where the role of conditioning, parenting, education, comes in. That’s where the role of good company is. That’s what the role of the teacher is — to kick start you, to give you the first taste, to help you practice that taste, to create an ecosystem in which you can fall in love, somehow, anyhow, to bring you to the real thing, once, twice, then again and again, till you start saying, “I want it, I love it.”
Initially, you won’t. Initially you have to be dragged to that, many times. Then there has to be discipline, so that you practice it. Without discipline, nothing will happen. A lot of practice is needed. And then comes a point when practice is no more needed, there is Love. You want to do it on your own. That point doesn’t come quickly or easily or cheaply.
Effort is involved! Grace is involved! Discipline is needed.
Questioner: So, if such thoughts come, that, you know, even the best may not be enough because of the enormity of the challenge, do we just let this be and still keep on?
Acharya Prashant: You don’t have to think of the final victory. The final victory will always be a gift. Immense, beyond your imagination or desire, you have to think of your current daily battles. You have to think of your little daily victories. If you think of the final victory, all you will get is demotivation because a final victory is totally beyond you. Thinking of it is not going to pep you up, or energize you, it will only deflate you. So don’t think, don’t envision any final thing. Think of your daily battles. Think of your small tasks. Go for your daily victories. Go to bed a winner every day. That’s plausible, is it not? To not to sleep without having won the little battles, zero in on the battles you need to win, right in the morning — Just three for today, fine, just three for today; just one for today, even that is fine — but then don’t retire without victory. Practice being a winner. Practice beating yourself every day.
Defeat, I repeat, is an ugly habit. Somehow, a lot of us seem to have developed it. Defeat should bother you, defeat should hurt. Which defeat am I talking of? Defeat against yourself.
And being a winner is important. Therefore, you must not set unrealistic targets. Be a little biased towards victory. So, set targets that are achievable and then ensure that you don’t miss them, otherwise missing becomes a habit. Win small but win daily.
And you are not responsible for the ultimate victory. So unburdened yourself of that final task, that will happen on its own. Nobody can do that. You are responsible only for your daily, little battles. There, if you lose, then you are accountable.
Is that clear?
The future is dangerous, don’t think of it. I’m not saying it’s really dangerous, I’m saying, ‘It’s a dangerous thing in the sense of what it does to your mind.” When you think of the future, you allow yourself to go astray. So don’t think of the future. Think of this day, what do we need to do ‘today’, that’s all, that’s all! The future will take care of its own.
