'I Want to be Free'- Your Eligibility for Spirituality
Questioner: Namaste Acharya ji. My question is about the liberation and truth we were talking about earlier in the session and from what I have understood is like Maya is something that, whatever human mind can conceive, that is maya. But ultimately this concept of truth and liberation is something that has also come like from a human mind only, right? So, how do we know that this is actually real and this is the purpose of human life or we have to, if this is something that we can, this is a last point basically, this liberation is the last. So, is there a possibility that this is also an imagination?
Acharya Prashant: See, you have said something and I will say something in response. I don’t know if its directly related, but tell me if it makes sense to you, right? See, it’s not about knowing the purpose of life, it’s about existence itself. Knowledge comes after existence, you exist right? You exist even if you have no knowledge, like in deep sleep. You are in deep sleep, there is hardly any knowledge but you still are. Correct? That existence suffers and suffering then is the engine, you want to be relieved of your suffering. Even if you know nothing about your suffering, you still want to be free of suffering. You are suffering, someone comes and by way of knowledge convinces you that you are not. Will that help you?
Questioner: No.
Acharya Prashant: The ‘Gyanis’ (Knower of Truth) have told us that we don’t even exist. Correct? That all this is just maya, that’s what all the knowers and gurus have told us. And what they have told us is exactly accurate, but just listening to the sentence that, ‘I do not exist’, does it help you or does it make you non-existent?
Questioner: No.
Acharya Prashant: Those who have known have also told us that all suffering is fictitious. So, the moment you listen to this, ‘all suffering is fictitious’, does your suffering vanish?
Questioner: No.
Acharya Prashant: So, it’s not about knowing. It’s the very experience of existence that you are having, that is the point where all spirituality, all self-knowledge, all seeking starts. I am not ok and that’s a direct-direct experience. I am not coming from theories, I am not saying this because I want to please someone. This statement is arising right from my core. Later on, it might turn out that, that which I call as my core, is not my core at all. But at this moment, this where I am coming from, seems to me like my original core. This is the truth for me, correct? You look at a man crying his heart out, he is weeping buckets. Have you seen such a man? He has lost something, somebody, can you go and console him with just knowledge? Is it possible?
Questioner: No.
Acharya Prashant: That’s what. So, the first instinct has to be — I want to be free. I do not like my current state. I do not know what my current state is like, that will follow, that knowledge of my current state will follow. The first thing is — I do not want to be like this and the seeker or the student, if he is not uttering this very basic admission, then he stands disqualified. Your first utterance of your eligibility is — I do not like myself, I do not like myself. This is a very interesting one, you know, from the new Testament, Jesus says, “Until you hate your life, your wife, your brother, your sister, your father, your mother unless you hate everybody you cannot come to me.” I have not quoted exactly. I am coming from memory so I will be inaccurate. But there is something to this effect. I do not like the way I am. Now, is this answering your question or is there more?
Questioner: When we say that maybe whatever you call it liberation, maybe it’s a kind of state, when we are free from this kind of feeling that we are not all right or we are not suffering. So, can we say it like that?
Acharya Prashant: You said the state of realization.
Questioner: Yes or liberation, whatever we call so maybe that is the point when we say that there is no suffering anymore. Like, I start with a point where I say, “I don’t like myself’ and there may be a point where…..
Acharya Prashant: You start seeing the whole process of suffering. You start seeing the whole process of suffering and you realize that it’s possible to have a distance from it. That distance come either you are devoted to something far bigger, or it can come just because you are detached to whatsoever is routinely going on in life and within the body. But irrespective of the form in which the solution comes, first of all there has to be a burning intent to not to remain who you are, or the way you are. This entire exercise then is not for those who are easily settled and well-adjusted and reconciled. It is for misfits. It is for those who cannot bring themselves to a comfortable co-existence with the kind of life that’s around them and within them.
I use to tell my students, reminds me that title of one of the chapters “It all begins with a no.” Again, that might not be the exact title — “Freedom begins with a no”. It begins with a no, there has to be a clear enunciation, “No, sorry, not acceptable.” What is it that I do not know? Somebody serves some kind of rotten dish to you, what would you first do? Push it aside or first enquire about its content. You can smell that it is rotten.
Questioner: Push it aside.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, first push it aside then later on if needed I will go into its content and analyze everything so that I am not cheated again. First thing is to say a no, no keep it aside, and then we will enquire into it. Those who are prepared to take in anything, will remain eaters of rottenness.
