If one is Brahm, why does one work? || Acharya Prashant (2018)
Question: If I keep remembering that – ‘I am Brahm’ – then why should I work?
Acharya Prashant Ji: Then you won’t work, Brahm would work.
If you do not know that you are ‘Brahm’, then you work. And you work in your own little and illusioned ways. When you know that ‘you’ are not, only Brahm is, then Brahm works. And Brahm works a lot, without breaking a sweat.
Look at the entire universe, there is so much happening. Who is the worker? Do you know how much works it takes to keep a planet in it’s orbit? You want to launch a little satellite into space, and you keep crying about fuel.
The engines are not yet ready, the fuel is not compatible, and what are you trying to deliver into orbit? Just a little satellite. And here you have millions of planets, and suns and stars, all fully established. And black holes, and supernovas. Who is working so hard? Who is working so beautifully?
You cannot run one nuclear reactor properly, there are accidents, and you think of a million safeguards. And have you looked at that nuclear reactor that gives you light everyday? Who is running that nuclear reactor? And He runs it without a blemish. And it’s a very small sample of all the nuclear reactors that He runs.
Let something beyond you work through you. You will be amazed, you will be thrilled. You will then know what it means to really live. If you are living only for yourself, if you are so afraid that you cannot give up your control of yourself, then all you get is – ‘yourself’.
And are you happy with yourself?
Are you somebody whose company you would enjoy? If you have only yourself to talk to, would you prefer that? No. The proof is that you keep looking for others to talk to. You aren’t happy with yourself, and the proof is that you want to change and improve. Don’t you? And still you want to follow your own whims and desires. Isn’t that stupid?
If you are so established and arrived, and wise, then why do you want to change? But you want to change all the time. Don’t you? “How do I become better?” – that’s the question you are always asking, which means that you accept that as you are, you are not quite alright. If you are not quite alright, why do you chase directions dictated by your own desires?
Question 2: Acharya Ji, I don’t know what the ‘other’ here is. The ‘other’ might be my boss. So, should I allow myself to be completely dictated by him?
Acharya Prashant Ji: When you do not know the ‘other’, would you ever cede control to him? When you say that you allow yourself to be dictated by your boss, is that dictation, or is that trade.
Have you not deliberately decided that?
You have decided that you will let your boss control you, so that you get paid with money. Now have you really lost control of yourself? You are still very much in control. You are taking a decision. You are saying, “By letting him control your labor, you will earn money.” So have you still given up control?
Giving up control happens when you see that all such agreements, deals and decisions are stupid.
When you see that whether you allow the other to control you, by ‘other’ I mean, the other that you choose, whether you allow the other to control you, or whether you control yourself, in both the situations you are just ending up as a loser always.
When you are honest enough to admit that, then you just say, “Enough of this. I give up.” Spiritually, that is called ‘Surrender’. That is called ‘Surrender’. But that happens only to those who are firstly intelligent enough to see that they have been stupid, and secondly,loving enough to see that they have been cruel to themselves.
If you have neither Intelligence, not Love, you will have a very strong desire to live life your own way. And that is the worst violence you can inflict on yourself – to live as per your own personal desires and dictates.
Question 3: Acharya Ji, we are sitting here in an air-conditioned room. Had somebody not felt uncomfortable with the conditions, why would somebody invent it?
Acharya Prashant Ji: Has the fan helped you understand what I am saying? You are sitting near the Television, but do you still understand what I am saying? What is of more value to you – the television, the air-conditioner, or what I am saying?
You are wearing this suit which is a product of technology, and human development. Has it helped you understand anything? And if you could not understand anything, irrespective of this watch and this suit, what is the worth of all this?
I will switch-on the air-conditioner. How will that help you know? And if you can’t know, what do you live for? For the air-conditioner? You live to be cooled? You live to wear this watch when you do not know ‘time’. All you know is that it is 2 p.m., but you do not know what ‘time’ is. What will you do with the watch?
It’s better to get out of that suit, be naked, and understand.
You do not live for all this – the air-conditioner, the television, the fan. All these are there so that you can understand. Unfortunately, they become the end, rather than the medium. That which should have helped you understand, becomes the obstruction to understanding.
There is this mobile phone in front of me. And somebody can get so attracted to the mobile phone that he loses track of me. That is what happens to the man obsessed with this and that.
Getting it?
Kabir puts it very beautifully. He says, “Hunger is like a bitch. She starts barking when you are sitting still in Peace and Devotion. And she disturbs. So you better throw a bread towards her, better throw a piece or a loaf of bread towards her, to keep her silent.”
That is the purpose of earning bread – to keep the bitch silent. But if your life becomes devoted to the bitch, rather than to the Silence, then you have lost it totally.
Earning bread is necessary to keep the bitch quiet. But how do we live? Wedded to the bitch. That’s too bad. She deserves a bit of attention, so that she may be quieted. She can’t become the objective of your life. Can she? And if you want to bake the bread, you require some technology. Right?
Now do you see what is the rightful function of technology in life? To give you that, and only that much which will keep the dogs and the bitches away and Silent.
If you just keep on cooking, and cooking, and cooking, then you don’t know what’s cooking.
(laughter)
The fan is wonderful if it has brought some clarity to you. Of course the fan cannot bring clarity. But the fan can ward that off, which could have distracted you from clarity. Had you felt a lot of heat, then it would have been like the bitch barking.
So the fan is there.
That is the purpose of all technological advancement – to keep physical distraction silent so that you may attain to the purpose of your life. And the purpose of your life is – Freedom.
Instead, what happens in all cases except a handful is that man’s creation, man’s work itself becomes the barrier and the bondage. It was there to get you relief from bondage, and what it has instead become? The biggest bondage itself.
You must know the medium and the end, and you must know them apart. Otherwise, this little and precious life will be spent chasing the unworthy. As happens in most of the cases, unfortunately.
You will die in a super-specialty cancer hospital, getting cutting-edge treatment, and you will die unfulfilled. Now will that cutting-edge technology help you if you are dying unfulfilled? Yes?
Do you know what it means to live and die unfulfilled? Go into that? Do you know what it means to live and die love-lessly? Go into that. The A.C. will not help, the bed will not help, if you don’t have love.
Strange are man’s ways – we have people who make love to A.Cs., and they call it ‘cool’.
