Question: Sir, do you support not to compromise at all?
Speaker: Somebody tells you to compromise, another one tells you not to compromise. Where are you in all of these? You are still being ‘told’. What is common between these two statements?
Listener 1: What if we decide individually?
Speaker: Yes. It is like saying, ‘As an individual I decide to give up my freedom.’ You are the first one who raised this question that mind and self are different. The mind is a slave, you are not a slave. You are the first one who understood, the mind and you are different. Now the mind is of course enslaved. But are you a slave? You are not a slave. Hence all these decision about the mind asking for slavery can be just mind’s own decision. Let the mind be a slave. You can never be a slave even if you want to. Hence, there would be a lot of suffering. The mind would remain slave, and your nature is freedom. Hence, there will be conflict, confusions, suffering and sorrow.
Listener 2: Sir, what about the question? Do you support not to compromise?
Speaker: How does it matter what I support? I am here not to give you my opinions, I have said that earlier. I am here just to create an environment in which you can find out things for yourself; related to your life.
Listener 3: What is the answer to this question?
Speaker: If I give you the answer, I will not be your friend. This question deserves to be unanswered, because this question will perpetuate slavery. You see, since childhood, we have been asking others what to do and what not to do. That is what we call conditioning. We have been hearing from all kind of external agencies. Am I here to become another one of those external agencies?
Listener 3: I read somewhere, ‘Death is better than compromising.’ Does this mean that the writer is against compromising.
Speaker: No, he is saying that and provoking you. Provoking you means, provoking your mind. You see, a man is sleeping, and he is fast asleep. What do you do to quickly wake him up, if there is a danger around? You shake him up, you jerk him a little. This is what you can do; provoke him. But what will he see when he wakes up? What his own eyes will show him. So, the author can provoke you into thinking, into understanding, but the understanding must be totally your own.
Listener 4: But here you said that the man who is waking up the sleeping man is in danger, so he compromises his life to save the sleeping man. So, why does he compromise?
Speaker: Forget about that, that is the question that every body wants to ask, that why are you helping us. The answer to that is, to be able to understand others I first must be able to understand myself. So go into yourself. That’s the beginning of the answer, and these things can only be done step by step.
You see this world, is it the way we think it is? No, we create the world in our own imaginations. As we are, so we create the world in our mind. First step is to look how we are.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.