For Those who Want Freedom

Questioner: Namaskar Acharya Ji. You talked of Mukti. So, I would like to know, is it a Mukti from life and birth? I mean, more, If you can elaborate?

Acharya Prashant: Mukti from internal compulsions. The goal of life can be talked of as Mukti which is Liberation, which is also called freedom. So, if freedom is the goal of life, surely, we are presupposing bondage. Right? Without bondage, there can be no question of freedom, Liberation, or Mukti. So that’s what the freedom is from. All kinds of compulsions.

Questioner: Ya, that is again a superficial way of Mukti? The deeper level as you say, or we read, that Mukti to be desireless, to be detached and finally like mentioned in the scriptures, I mean, like the final, ultimate goal of every human being, we have been given birth, it is to be free from the cycle of birth and rebirth. Is that what it is?

Acharya Prashant: It is not your next birth that troubles you. It is the bondages that you experience in this birth, right here, that’s what troubles you. Who is experiencing troubles related to the next birth, please tell me.

And all of us indeed do have troubles. What are your troubles about? Here, this! So that’s the compulsion we carry — to entertain troubles, to not to drop them, to think that we are helpless in the matter of troubles. That’s what Liberation is. Liberation is not about the previous birth or the next birth. Liberation is freedom from the bondages that you experience right now.

And the experiencer, of the bondage is herself the bondage. There is no objective bondage. The one who experiences bondages is herself in illusion. So, you could also put it as freedom from illusion or ignorance. We do not know who we are, therefore we feel obliged to keep suffering trouble.

Once you put on some random, dubious, fake identity. You’ll have to do everything the identity demands of you, correct? None of these identities is real and therefore the compulsions attached to those identities are not obligatory. That’s Liberation.

Questioner: When the desire is finished, won’t there be nothing left?

Acharya Prashant: You are asking, how would be life without desires? That’s too much of speculation. Shouldn’t the question be — how is life with desires? And when you see that, then you say — whatsoever is the alternative, is acceptable — anything but this.

Also, a state of desirousness is a state of ignorance. We do not know who we are, therefore we desire for the wrong entity. See, our desires never fulfill us. What does that mean? That means our desires are for somebody else. Metaphorically put, you’re doing something that does not fulfill your, so surely the fruits of your action are benefiting somebody else. They’re not benefiting you. So, you do not want to rush after these desires.

You would say, “Fine, fine, fine, fine, stop these and I am in a state of ignorance when I am desirous. In this state of ignorance, if I try to speculate how life would be without desire, what would be the quality of my speculation?”

I am drunk let’s say, I am drunk, I am drunk. In this state, I cannot make a head or tail of anything, correct? And you come to me and preach the virtues of abstinence. You say don’t drink, and in my drunken state I say, “But I want to understand what would be the benefits of not drinking.” What is the problem with this question? What is the problem with this question? It comes from a drunken state. In a drunken state, I am asking, “What would be the benefits if I do not drink.” Sir, even you will know, but please get sober. So, in a desirous state, I ask, “What would be the benefits of dropping desire.” No answer would be relevant. How do we navigate through what?

Questioner: So basically, I’ll expand it on your example. I am drunk and instead of asking what are the benefits of not drinking, I am asking, how do I navigate it?

Acharya Prashant: You just stumbled, look at your knee. That’s how you navigate. You’re drunk, so what happens to you? What happens to you when you’re drunk?

Questioner: You’re not walking straight.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, and then you?

Questioner: Fall.

Acharya Prashant: And then you bleed. Yeah, look at your knee, that’s how you navigate. Look at your pain, and acknowledge your suffering.

Questioner: So, as you said, “suffering is fulfilling life.” Suffering is fulfilling?

Acharya Prashant: Acknowledge, don’t inflict, acknowledge. There is a difference between creating suffering and acknowledging that you are already suffering. And that’s hard, right? And that’s the reason most people to rather live false lives. Because if they acknowledge their real state, it pains them. It’s like being out of sedation. When you’re sedated, you don’t feel pain, right? Or when you’re anesthetized, you don’t feel pain. So, people choose to remain on sedation, on tranquilizers, on such things.

Questioner: So, if I acknowledge the pain, what do I do then?

Acharya Prashant: Then there is a natural thing within you, that seeks joy and will drop pain. We are not born to live in pain, our nature is joy. And that’s the reason we all rush towards that poor proxy called happiness. Because happiness, to an extent, seems like joy. In both joy and happiness, there is an absence of sorrow. So, we rush towards happiness because it appears a bit like joy, though happiness is not at all joy. Happiness is just a shady cousin of sorrow. But we rush towards it because it looks like joy. So, your nature is joy, the moment you acknowledge the pain, you’ll find yourself dropping it.

Questioner: Okay. Understood

Acharya Prashant: And in that lies your freedom, in that lies the power of choice. You can drop your pain and pain is not compulsory. You are not mandated to live a life of suffering. If you suffer, that’s a choice you have inflicted on yourself.

And you can reverse that choice. We all have the liberty, rather than an internal obligation, to bring ourselves to a joyous state, a state of complete bloom. That’s what we are born for, right? You look at a flower. How do you feel about a flower that remained a bud or got nipped in the bud or flowered but incompletely? You don’t feel good, right? You want it to bloom fully. That’s what is the purpose of life. Full bloom. And it’s therefore quite tragic if we pass away without expressing ourselves blooming fully, actually living, reaching your utmost potential, and dropping your last bondages.

Questioner: We were talking about desires and like you know how we should live without desires. And my desire can be excellence in this field. Doesn’t it contradict? Because my life won’t have any meaning without it.

Acharya Prashant: No, no, no dropping desire is not the objective. When you are an unfulfilled person, to begin with, how can you not have desire? The thing is to have a sane desire. I am sick, my desire should be for a doctor, not a dancer, not a joker. Desire the right thing, desire the right thing, and have an intense desire for the right thing. Wisdom is not about being desireless in the first go itself. No, we all rather need desire, but we need desire that proves good, that’s of some utility. If your desire ends up troubling you all the more, what good is the desire?

You can be a slave to the desire if it’s the right desire. In fact, you must be a slave to the right desire. Desire rightly and immerse yourself totally in your desire. Give yourself up, surrender.

Questioner: Sir, my question is, how can we control our emotions in a difficult situation and maintain peace in our lives?

Acharya Prashant: Ma’am mostly our emotions are not our own. They are so pattern-based, so pattern-based, if you just recall what made you angry the last time, just the recall will make you angry again. Just try to recall what embarrassed you the last time, just the recall will embarrass you again. There is nothing but a pattern. So, they are not your emotions. It’s like having a button that somebody, anybody randomly can come and just push.

Questioner: Is there any spiritual practice to control our emotions?

Acharya Prashant: Just tell yourself that’s not me, that’s not my emotion.

Questioner: My emotion! I need your suggestion actually.

Acharya Prashant: That’s a suggestion. Address yourself not as ‘I’ but as let’s say ‘Manju’. What’s your name please?

Questioner: My name is Shoma Lahiri Malik

Acharya Prashant: Fine. So, Shoma. Address yourself by your name and say, “Shoma, you are at it again, it’s happening again and it’s not you, it’s automatic. Let it happen, you don’t need to participate, you don’t need to participate. Let it happen, you don’t need to be a part of it. If it’s Prakritik, if it’s hormonal, if it’s bodily, it will happen, what can I do? It’s bound to happen, it’s a part of my physical constitution. But I need not participate in the happening. I’ll stay at arm’s length and just see what is happening.”

Questioner: Sometimes outside stimulus disturbs us.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, there is a disturbance, but not to you.

Questioner: In this situation how do we control our emotions, it is also my question.

Acharya Prashant: How can it be difficult to see that it’s all so mechanical? There is a word that you despise, there is a word that you despise, let’s say I abhor being called ugly. After the tenth time I am called ugly, I should become impervious to the word ugly. I should become totally non-reactive, and indifferent. Because now I know what’s happening. Okay, ugly? Thank you. I mean, I have seen how the whole thing operates like an electric circuit, right? There is the switch.

This is so obvious and so foolhardy, how long can I participate in this? So, after a point one just drops out and says, “I don’t see any point being a part of all this.” In fact, if you want to play a game with yourself, predict yourself, for example, you know somebody you are totally mad at, is going to come to you and you are already steaming hot. You're very angry and now the doorbell rings, and you tell yourself now you know what will happen? I’ll open the gate and shout.

Predict yourself, the more you see how predictable you are, the more you see how mechanical you are because only machines can be predicted, and only machines can be programmed. If you can predict your behavior, and your reactions in advance, then you know you are just a lump of chemicals, hormones, and circuits and that’s not what consciousness is.

Consciousness is supposed to be free, right? An electric circuit is not free, chemical reactions are not free, and Sodium and Potassium cannot decide whether to react with water. They are constrained to react. Do you want to be just a chemical? A chemical that is obliged to act in certain ways, where is freedom then?

Predict yourself. Predict yourself and then defy the prediction. So, I was supposed to be angry, but I didn’t get angry. 1-0 huh? Self-1, Hormones - 0. So, keep the score.

Questioner: Hormonal imbalance works actually.

Acharya Prashant: So, the hormones are imbalanced, I am not imbalanced. I am not my body, so how can I be the hormones?

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