Gita or God Can’t Save You, If You Love Your Lies
Questioner: Namaste, Acharya. I am Pradeep. I'm a fifth-year undergraduate from Niger. When I was going through one of the lowest phases of my life, at that time it was hopeless, and nothing seemed very fruitful. And so I got into spiritualism. By spiritualism, I mean I got into the Bhagavad Gita. So it helped me in a lot of ways. However, when my situation stabilized and I got a normal life, I started drifting away from spiritualism.
Apparently, even though I know that following spiritualism is transformative, still nowadays it is very hard for me to be on that path. Why is it so? Why is it too difficult to be honest with myself?
Acharya Prashant: The reason is self-evidence. What you call as normal, pop spirituality is essentially about remaining who you are but adopting some additional practice or additional path for the sake of some consolation or benefit, or recovery, like in your case, right?
So there is the track A, the track you have been on since long, and pop spirituality gives you another track to parallelly and simultaneously walk on. A continues. A doesn't stop. A is internal. A is more fundamental. A is egoic. A has been with you since very long. A is your preferred track. You remain on A. But you go to Babaji, and he says B. B is the track you must adopt. So you do adopt B, temporarily, provisionally, half-heartedly, incompletely. You do move to B while remaining on A.
So the inner tendencies all continue. The inner life continues as always. But you additionally wear a pretense of spiritual life. So A continues; the inner egoic life continues as usual. Additionally, you put on B, which is spiritual life. But what, to the ego, is real life? A. So the ego keeps on looking for excuses to somehow get rid of B. B is, anyway, not real. B is a costume. B is makeup. B is an add-on. B is a layer over A. No wonder, sooner than later, that additional layer is discarded, and one finds that one has always anyway been at A. One doesn't return to A.
Your question is not very honestly articulated. When you say, “I move to B and return to A,” that's not exactly what happened. You were always at A. Just that for a while, for a reason, for some relief, you were also simultaneously, concurrently at B. But compared to A, B was fake. A² is fake. If A is fake, B is doubly fake.
The track that you have been walking obviously is fake; else, you wouldn't have suffered on A, right? So the life of the commoner is obviously fake. The life of the common man is fake, but that which you call a spiritual life is doubly fake. But in spite of being doubly fake, it gives you some kind of break, some respite from A, does it not? Does it not?
So, temporarily, you may feel some relief, some newness. But remember, if ordinary life is fake, the so-called spiritual life is doubly fake. And it won't last. Not that A will last; even if A is to last, it will be a long-drawn process of suffering. But B is something you cannot put up with for long. And this is the reason this happens with most so-called followers, devotees, or sadhaks. They continue on the so-called spiritual path for some time, and then they say, "Oh, we slipped back. We are sinners. How do we repent? Go and donate 10 lakhs to Babaji." That's repentance.
True spirituality is not about moving from A to B. It's about shining your inner light on A itself. It is not about remaining in the dark about A and, in the same darkness, hopping on to B.
It is about saying, "This is my life. This is how I live. This is my classroom. This is my shop. This is my office. This is my family. That's my friend circle. These are my dreams. These are my fears. This is the set of my beliefs. This is what I call my life. This is how I have been living. And this is what I need to illuminate."
So, I shine my path with my own light. That's spirituality. Spirituality is not path-hopping. Spirituality is not about saying, "Tomorrow onwards, you will be called Bhaktvatsal Gyanswami."
What's your name?
Questioner: Pradeep.
Acharya Prashant: Even this is fake, but Bhaktvatsal Gyanswami is doubly fake. But that's what happens to most people in the spiritual domain, even Pradeep is a fake one. Now, he has become…
How long can that double fakeness last? It collapses. Right? And then you feel like a sinner, "God will never forgive me." God does not lie along a particular path, right? God is not some milestone, some dhaba, some petrol pump, some destination. If God refers to Truth, it has to be here, inside, not outside somewhere, not on a path. There is nothing called a spiritual path. There is just life.
The reason you quit the Bhagavad Gita: you were reading the Gita as something divorced from life. You say, “This is life, ordinary life: pressure cooker, shoes, car, and the peon, the boss; the wife, the kids, all that. This is life. Track A. And then there is Bhagavad Gita.”
First of all, you must, you know, take a bath, go. And now, Bhagavad Gita is about Brahm, Satya, Paramatma, Nirvan, Samadhi. Meanwhile, the pressure cooker, what happens to that? That is already inside. How long can you stay on this one? Because you are already there.
But somebody told you that Bhagavad Gita is something beyond life. No. Bhagavad Gita is light itself. Light falling on your own life, your own path, your own being. And then, in that light, it is possible that the track changes. But even if it does change, rest assured, you won't go from A to B. It would be another kind of movement.
We have played a very wicked game. We have separated all our wisdom texts from ordinary life. What else is wisdom for? Please tell me. What else is the philosophy of the Gita for? Is it meant to take you to heaven? No. It is meant to enable you to lead a fulfilling earthly life. Not life in heaven. Not life after death. Life right now. Life free. Life truthful. Life loving. That's what the Gita is for. The Gita is not meant to give you a place to hide. The Gita is not a refuge. The Gita is not an escape. Gita is not another world you can go to seek shelter in.
The entire day I fleece my customers. Yep. I'm the most corrupt businessman. The entire day I loot my customers. Or I'm a government official. Won't move an inch without… But then in the evenings I go and sit in front of Baba Ji and attend satsang. Track A, track B, and no relationship between the two tracks. No bridge between the two. That's not Gita. No.
But that's what most people use spirituality for. You know, I meditate so that I can be free of tension. Sir, why do you have so much tension in the first place? And you meditate so that you can be free of tension. So that you can return to the same life of tension once again with great and renewed vigor. Your life is such that your job is such that your work, your relationships are such that every evening you return with great tension. That's how your track is. And then you say, now I'm going to meditate. And that meditation, whatever that method, that trick is, will remove some of your tension for purely physical reasons. Purely physical reasons. Nothing spiritual there.
So you're now a little relieved of tension. And what do you use this relief for? To go back to the same shop and fleece the customers once again. So that they shout, and you are again tense. And now you again go back to meditation, and again meditate. And now you again return to your shop and again loot everybody. What is this?
The day the customers finally burn down your shop, you'll stop meditating. Now you'll have a burnt shop and a sinner's conscience. Not only is the shop gone, the meditation is also gone. Maybe it's a divine curse.
The Gita is a beautiful document. It is the philosophy of life itself. Life itself. Life as it is. It is not to make you a better person or a more moral person or an ideal young man. It is a mirror. It is a mirror, not a map. It doesn't tell you where to go. It doesn't set destinations for you. It tells you who you are. And now you see what you have to do. Your own reality has been shown to you. Now you see what you have to do. You are free. Let your decisions, your actions now arise from your freedom. You see what you have to do. Do you understand this?
Wisdom is not part-time. Spirituality is not a passion or hobby. It is the very breath of life, continuous. Self-observation is the essence of all spirituality, and the self is continuous, just as the breath is.
Therefore, if you are spiritual, you will have to be continuously spiritual. You cannot be spiritual for half an hour in the morning on the yoga mat. Or you cannot be spiritual for 15 minutes before bed and then switch off the lights.
Questioner: Yes, sir. Thank you.
Acharya Prashant: For what?
Questioner: Letting me know the harsh reality behind this.
Questioner: Pranam, sir. I am Amarjeet Tripathi, pursuing Integrated Masters and Research at Niger Bhubaneswar. So my question is, based on whatever I face in my real life. As a researcher, you have to give a lot of time for research purposes, and most of our time is spent in our labs. There are no fixed lab hours. So, in return, we have to neglect our personal life. So there is a constant complaint from our family or our kith and kin that there is a shortage of time for the family, and personal life is less from our side. So, in such a situation, how to manage our time and how to deal in such situations?
Acharya Prashant: Why do you need a personal life?
Questioner: From our perspective also, when we are spending the whole time in our lab, we are not getting that mental space to think of other aspects.
Acharya Prashant: What other aspects?
Questioner: Sir, regarding personal growth.
Acharya Prashant: What do you mean by that, in the lab, personal growth is not happening?
Questioner: Sir, it is a kind of research growth, our career growth that we are only…
Acharya Prashant: I understand. But what kind of career is it that does not accompany personal growth?
Questioner: Sir, suppose I want to spend some time playing or in some physical sports activity, which I will not get if I spend all my time...
Acharya Prashant: So obviously, without playing, you cannot be good even at your lab. So that's an integrated thing. There is no separation. There is no separation. If you say you are missing out on your badminton court, then that will make you ineffective even in your lab. So the lab and the court, in that sense, are integrated. You have to do one for the sake of the other.
Questioner: So, how to manage the time?
Acharya Prashant: They are one. Now there is no time management. Balance is needed only when there are two competing agencies. There is no competition. They are one. There are no two things. They are one. You can include your sports time in your lab time. As simple as that. Why call it personal life? Even that is work life, because without that you cannot work.
Questioner: But that will not be considered for our…
Acharya Prashant: So, are you doing it for somebody else? It would not be considered by whom?
Questioner: As a part of our curriculum.
Acharya Prashant: By Whom?
Questioner: By our college.
Acharya Prashant: Are you doing it for the sake of your supervisor, guide, somebody else?
Questioner: Both, sir.
Acharya Prashant: That's the problem. That's the problem, you are calling something else as your personal life because that which you are calling your professional life is actually, a lot of it, an exercise in pressure, in helplessness, in captivity. You're doing things that you don't really want to do because you know somebody else wants you to do those things.
So then you wish for some kind of escape. “Ah, When would it be 6 p.m., so that I can escape away to my personal life?” Why not have the kind of profession where the professional itself becomes personal? Why can't there be integration?
As I stand in front of you, honestly, I say for me all of this is very personal. If somebody were to tell me this is a professional engagement, I would be surprised. This is personal life for me. What is personal life for you?
Questioner: To see some aspects of my life other than the lab, where I can interact with my people.
Acharya Prashant: Why don’t you have people who are willingly interested in your professional life?
Questioner: Sir, there are.
Acharya Prashant: That’s also fine. You are in the lab, right? And your friends don’t clamor to pull you out of the lab. They don’t say, “All the time, he’s just in the lab. When will you come to watch a movie with us?” Because the quality of friends is such that they understand. They know that you’re doing something important. I hope you’re doing something important.
Questioner: Yes, sir.
Acharya Prashant: Maybe that’s the problem?
Questioner: No, sir. They understand, sir.
Acharya Prashant: If they understand, then personal life is cool. What’s the problem?
Questioner: Don’t we think from our side also?
Acharya Prashant: In your profession, from whose side do you think?
Questioner: Both.
Acharya Prashant: Sir, please get to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is that what you call a profession is actually a lot of barter. You trade yourself away to gain a degree or money. That’s the reason you keep saying, “I won’t work beyond eight or ten hours, because you are paying me only so much money.” It’s a sell-off. It’s business. It's an exchange. It’s not a profession. It’s slavery.
Profession, why doesn’t the spelling include L-O-V-E? Asking you. For most of us, it includes only M-O-N-E-Y. That’s the problem. And then you say personal life includes L-O-V-E. Therefore, in my office or in my lab, I feel caged because there is no L-O-V-E here. But that’s what you chose in the first place. You said, “In my profession, I don’t want L-O-V-E. I want M-O-N-E-Y.” So that’s what you get.
Therefore, you are restless in your office because there is no love in the office, because you have no love for what you are doing. And then you are constantly hearing the tick-tock, tick-tock, 06:00 p.m. I run away and say, “Ah, fresh air, fresh air. Personal life, personal life.”
For the really honest individual, there would be nothing called personal life, nothing at all. No personal life, no personal time, no professional life either, no professional time either. Life integrated, whole, one, holistic, total, without separation, without fragments, without conflict.
Our education does not enable us to even envision something like this. We are told to auction ourselves to the highest bidder. No? Some of us, especially in privileged departments, land multiple jobs. Then you’ll say, “The CTC here is higher,” or “This one places me in Silicon Valley.” So this is where I prefer to sell myself. Where is love?
Now, why should you be surprised if you constantly find yourself suffocated, frustrated, eager for the next holiday or vacation, working just for the sake of the 30th of the month? Yes, that one day the salary cheque will arrive. Fine. What about the other twenty-nine days? How will you live?
L-I-V-E, live close to L-O-V-E. Just two vowels, a little bit of juggling.
How will you live? Tell me. But that’s what we have been brought up on. India was poor till a very recent point, and we are all middle-class, each one of us. Just having some money and financial security is such a big thing.
The point is, you have left that point far behind, sir. You don’t need to worry about it anymore. You’re thinking like the last generation. You don’t need to. You’ll have enough money not just to survive but to prosper. Don’t worry. Money is not the question. In that sense, you have already arrived. Being here, you won’t be short of money.
See, there is no limit to ambition and greed. I’m not talking of that. I’m talking of money with which you can live decently. You will never be short of that. You must be worried about other things, L-O-V-E. Where is work of the right kind? Where is work I can immerse myself in? What’s that makes me forget myself? Where is that? What do I dedicate my entire life to? And now the whole thing becomes spiritual, dedication, devotion, surrender. I don’t work. I have surrendered to work. I don’t work, no.
Yes, I do sleep so that I can work better. I eat so that I can work better. I play so that I’m fit for work. My friends all love my work as much as I do, and I love their work as much as they do. Yes, occasionally I do go and watch a good movie with my family, my wife, my girlfriend, father, mother, friends, but that’s not an alternative, not a substitute. That’s in the same flow. I’m watching the movie because it has the same sublime quality as my work. I look at the movie and I say, “Wow, the same quality, the same quality that I want to bring to my work.”
Yes, I do watch sports. I look at Federer serving or playing his trademark one-handed backhand, and I say, “This is the quality I want to rise to even in my work.” Because what Federer is doing there, that you call entertainment, is for him? Work. If he is excelling in his work, I want the same excellence in my work.
Yes, I am a tennis fan. I not only watch tennis, I play tennis. But that’s not an escape from work. That’s a continuation of work. Sounds utopian? Too difficult? Even if it is too difficult, it might be. Even if it is too difficult, you must try. You must try. It’s worth your attempt.
Don’t be an article for sale. Don’t subject yourself to that kind of insult.
How is that very different from dowry? Please tell me. People coming and bidding, “Package lelo, package *lelo.”
This will not sound practical. This will not sound cool. But practical things, you already have enough of. Cool advice, you already have enough of. Let this please stay with you for a while. Maybe there will be some difference.
Questioner: Thank you, sir, for your advice.
