If life is really going great, why do you need spirituality? || Acharya Prashant (2019)
Question 1: Pranaam Acharya Ji. I was introduced to Dhyan (meditation) through Indian Classical Music. Since then I am deeply interested in spirituality. In the last session you mentioned that cessation of passion is – dispassion. I think about it a lot, and I don’t think that I am passionate towards anything in my life.
I like classical music, I like to read books on spirituality, I like listening to Masters. I like the silence. But I am not passionate about anything. I am unable to understand where I want to go.
Life is going really great, but the inner ‘me’ is not at all satisfied with what I do. I cannot continue like this anymore. Please tell me what to do in this situation.
Acharya Prashant Ji: First of all, figure out clearly what the situation is like. On one hand you say that life is going really great, and immediately after, you declare that you cannot continue like this anymore. What do you want?
Is life going great, or horrible? If it’s going great, why can’t you continue as things are?
(Repeating the question) “The inner me is not at all satisfied with what I do. I am not passionate about anything.”
What is ‘passion’? In the spiritual sense, the meaning of the word ‘passion’ is pain. And you do look quite pained, Saurabh (the questioner) . So, you do have passion.
Passion does not merely mean heightened enthusiasm. *Passion stems from pain – a* *perception of a lack of something.* An inner wound, an inner hollow.
It is very much present. And that is what you are to observe – your passion.
You do have passion.
Not wanting anything in life, not enthused by anything in life, not having love towards life, feeling miserable even when life is apparently great – all this is ‘passion’.
This is your ‘passion’.
So do not say that you do not have any passion in life – this is your passion. Your passion is that in the middle of a seemingly wonderful life, you are still dissatisfied. That is your passion.
Observe it.
And next time when you send over a question, make sure you do not say that life is wonderful. And if life is wonderful, do not send over a question.
You cannot go to the doctor, and say, “You know doctor, I am in the best of health, I am the fittest around. I think I am going to live three hundred fifty years. But why don’t you treat me?” If you are so fit and so healthy, then you are fit to treat the doctor. Why have you gone to the doctor?
Again and again you people take me back to Sholay (an Indian movie).
(Quoting a dialogue from one of the Bollywood movies, Sholay)
“Mausi (aunt), my friend is wonderful. Just that he is the most wretched one around.”
“Mausi , my friend has all the great qualities, just that he is a drunkard.”
“Mausi , drinking is no problem at all. Drinking will stop, the day he stops going to that whore.”
Saurabh (the questioner) , you look like a Dharmendra fan, or a Amitabh Bachchan fan. (The two referred persons were the actors in the movie Sholay).
That’s how we are, right?
“No, everything is alright. It’s just that I am living in hell.”
“Son, how is Papa doing?”
“Papa is good. It’s just that he died this morning.”
Why can’t we be a little upfront?
Question 2: Acharya Ji, these are some lines from Rumi.
*“God created pain and (yearning) sorrow for this sake:*so that happiness may occur by (means of) this opposite.
*Thus, hidden things are revealed by (their) opposites.*(And) since God has no opposite, He is hidden.”
What is the meaning of these lines?
Acharya Prashant Ji: If everybody is stupid, will they ever know that they are stupid? In a village, in a room, everybody is stupid. Now is anybody ‘stupid’?
So things become manifest by the presence of their opposite.
One intelligent man walks in, and now there is a lot of stupidity.
In some sense, the intelligent man brought in a lot of stupidity.
Intelligence is stupidity. Before the intelligent man came in, was anybody stupid? Nobody was stupid.
