How can I balance the real center and the false center? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Question: What are the ways in which we can maintain a balance between the real centre and the false centre?

Speaker: What is the false centre?

Listeners ( in unison): Opinions of the society about us!

Speaker: What is the real centre?

Listeners (in unison): Intelligence!

Speaker: Can anything have two centres?

Listeners (in unison): No.

Speaker: So, where is the question of balance? If there were two centres, why would we call one centre as the real centre and the other centre as the false centre

Had there really been two centres, why would we call one as real and the other as false? Can there be two centres ? Obviously there is only one centre, and the other centre is false.

( The audience nods in affirmation. )

Speaker: We keep on thinking that the second centre is real. That is why we need to declare that it is not real, it is false. That does not mean that there are two centres. It is just that we are assuming that there is another centre. When you assume there are two centres, then somebody has to come and say that, ‘Sir, there are not two centres, there is just one centre’.

What is meant by centre? Tell me.

(The audience reflects on the question.)

Speaker: Understand this carefully: Your centre is your Self .

We all are self-centred. But that self can be ego. If that self is ego, then it is what kind of centre?

Listeners (in unison): False centre.

Speaker: We all are self-centred. We all operate from a particular eye. That eye is the self. Are you not always thinking what will happen to me? Most of the times, are you thinking about yourself or anything else?

Listeners (in unison): Ourselves.

Speaker: Alright. Let’s do an experiment. Who will volunteer to get up? One person.

(One of the listeners gets up).

Speaker: (Addressing the volunteer) . Yes! Just speak on anything.

Listener (the volunteer): ‘My name is Sarthak. I belong to Delhi. I am a student. I love to play football. I like Mathematics. I like studying Physics’.

Speaker: In a matter of 20 seconds, he said ‘I’ or ‘my’ six times. I asked him to speak on anything. He had complete freedom to speak on anything. And what did he end up speaking on?

Listeners (everyone): Himself.

Speaker: ‘ I’. This is called being self-centred. Given all the freedom, you will think only about yourself.

What are you always busy with – yourself or something else? My job, my career, my parents, my love, my welfare. my life, etcetera. This is called being…

Listeners (in unison): Self-centred.

Speaker: Now, this self can be of two types. The false self is called…

Listeners (in unison): Ego.

Speaker: It is false because it is coming from…

Listeners (everyone): Outside.

Speaker: You have been told who you are. Your ‘I’ is not real. It is an import from the society. So the real centre is that which is yours, which no society can give you, which is your own ‘I’, which is your own Intelligence. Nobody has given it to you. Your power to understand! Nobody can give it to you. I can give you my words, but can I also give you the power to understand? I am speaking, but who is understanding?

Who is giving you these words?

Listeners (in unison): You!

Speaker: But who is understanding?

See, I am giving you words, alright,I am giving you these sentences, alright, but am I also giving you the capability to understand?

Listeners (in unison): No, Sir!

Speaker: That is the real ‘*I*’; that is the real centre. There is no question of balance. Only one centre is real, the other is false. Don’t even try to balance.

Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.

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