Forget liberation, talk about yourself || Acharya Prashant, on Raman Maharshi (2019)

Questioner (Q): Ramana Maharshi says, “Liberation is not to be gained hereafter. It is there forever, here and now. The word mukti (liberation) is so provocative. Why should one seek liberation? One believes that there is bondage and therefore one seeks liberation. Just remove ignorance. That is all there is to be done.”

My daily observation is that I am suffering. I cannot escape it, I cannot ignore it, and I do not want to suffer. If, as Maharshi says, liberation is already there, why do I suffer?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Liberation is there; no doubt that liberation is there. There is never a place or a moment when liberation is not there. The question is not about liberation; obviously liberation exists. But in your case, you too exist. It is not sufficient that liberation exists; liberation alone must exist. But in your case, you coexist along liberation. Liberation is there and you too are there, and you exist in another dimension from where liberation can just be talked of, never touched.

But see, again you are talking of liberation and not of who you are, because the moment you turn to talk of who you are, you will have to talk of bondages rather than liberation, and that’s a taboo. You don’t want to touch upon that subject, so you keep saying, “Liberation, liberation!” Maharshi is saying, “Liberation is not to be gained. Liberation is already there.” What you do not understand is that nothing but liberation must be there. Otherwise, a liberation that co-exists with bondage is worse than pure bondage.

Pure bondage brings you to the door of liberation. Bondage co-existing with liberation becomes very, very secure. Such a bondage, it might surprise you, is secured by the proximity of liberation. Pure bondage is so very removed and so distant from liberation that it is compelled to destroy itself. It is in such a pitch-dark place of its own that it cannot stand itself; it is compelled to rush to light.

But then there is a dark place that has somehow learned to co-exist with light. Now this dark place, I say, is secured by the proximity of light. It has played a very, very cunning trick upon itself. It now feeds upon the presence of light; it convinces itself, “I cannot really be dark because I am so close to the light.” But it is quite possible to be very close to light and yet retain and secure your darkness. Such a darkness becomes very difficult to treat.

Liberation exists fully. But it is quite possible that for you it may not exist. There is only liberation, only and only liberation—for the one who values only liberation. For you, only that will exist which you value. If you do not value liberation, then for you it will remain absent in spite of being omnipresent. Sounds quite unbelievable, right?—and also not very logical, but that’s how it is.

If you don’t value liberation, then liberation will be absent for you in spite of being omnipresent.

So, such adages are of little use. When you say, “Oh, Truth is everywhere,” or “Liberation is the only truth,” it hardly means anything. Go back to the ‘Who am I?’ teaching. As soon as somebody says only liberation exists, you need to quickly ask, “For whom?” Only liberation exists for the one who values only liberation. In other words, only liberation exists for the liberated one. For the one in bondage, bondage too definitely exists. The challenge before this person is to not value his current state and to value something, somebody outside of himself, beyond himself. And that’s a pretty difficult thing to do, as human behavior and human history suggests.

If one is in bondage, one is in bondage because one has valued bondage. To get out of bondage, one will have to change his value system. But why would a bonded one have the light and the realization to change his value system? It requires a miracle, or it requires a tremendous resolution. Most people are incapable of such a determined resolution. They get entangled in their own web; they create bondages for themselves and then find that they don’t have the power to break free of those bondages.

So yes, please listen to the Maharshi. He is saying, “Please stop talking of liberation; talk only of yourself, and you are in bondage. Stop entertaining yourself with such ideas that one is anywhere, anyhow, anyday liberated.” The Maharshi would have none of this nonsense.

Unfortunately, this is the prevalent and dominant spiritual discourse of the day. This is what the ego seriously loves to hear: “You are already liberated.” And that’s the kind of rubbish that’s doing the rounds in the spiritual marketplace these days. “You are already liberated, aren’t you?” No, sir. This person that you are looking at is not already liberated. Don’t kid him, don’t fool him. He is in bondage. Does that mean that liberation is unavailable to him? No, it is fully available because liberation is always very, very close. It might be very close, but it can be yours only when you choose it.

That’s such a beautiful word, you know—‘choice’. What is it that you are choosing? The Upanishads put it so beautifully. They say that the Ātman —which is another name for Truth—is obtained not by the one who has knowledge, not by the one who has power, not by the one who has pedigree, not by the one who has all the methods; the Ātman is obtained only by the one who chooses the Ātman. Case closed.

The Ātman is not obtained by the one who has knowledge, not by the one who has power, not by the one who has pedigree, not by the one who has all the methods; the Ātman is obtained by the one who chooses it.

You have to make a choice, and nobody can make that choice for you. And constantly, every moment, this moment, again you are making a wrong choice. Please shake yourself up a little. See what you are choosing. Look at your life, look at your mind, look at your face, look at your eyes. See what you are doing. It’s a choice. Again you are making the wrong choice.

Stop trusting yourself. The last thing that is liberated is your reactions. Of course there is no liberation in your reactions; of course there is no liberation in your emotions or instincts. Why do you go by them? Why do you trust them so much? Why do you trust your thoughts and ideas and intentions so much? Are they liberated? They are, I say, the last ones you should trust.

Be very, very skeptical of yourself—because, remember, there is liberation, but you are bondage. When you are skeptical of yourself, you are skeptical of bondage. The day you learn to develop this skepticism towards bondage, you are beginning to open up towards liberation.

Be very cautious of yourself. You are your worst enemy, and your best friend is standing outside of you, without any access to you. You have to choose to provide that access. Unfortunately, our situation is that we think of ourselves as our best friend when we are actually our enemies, and we think of our best friend as the enemy number one.

Who obtains the Ātman ? The one who chooses it. Can you be forced to choose it? You can only be guided, advised. You can just be told to be more empathetic towards yourself.

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