Is Ignoring Grief the Key to Wisdom?
Questioner: Salutations, Revered sir. In verse 2.10, Shri Krishna spoke laughingly or smilingly. When I read this verse for the first time, I won't say I liked it. Arjun is dying in grief, and instead of taking him seriously and helping him, Shri Krishna is smiling.
Acharya Prashant: Yes.
Questioner: I also related Shri Krishna's smiling or laughing here with " Hasbulla of Ashtavakra." You mentioned this phrase, " Hasbulla of Ashtavakra." Even Shri Krishna seems to be following that.
I personally hate someone who takes my problems lightly. I want others to take my problems seriously and duly resolve them, not smile or laugh at them. Please help my situation.
Acharya Prashant: What does seriousness mean? To look at the situation in the same deluded way as you do?
You're wearing these specs right now, right? You put them on your head here, as people do, and then you start looking for them. And you are deeply troubled. Two hours later, you go to this person, and you say, "I'm in grief! I've lost my eyesight!" And he starts laughing.
What's there to be hated in that? He has learned a lesson, and in his laughter, he's sharing the lesson with you. And if he becomes serious about your condition, he'll be of no use to you. He's laughing only because he has seen a solution. In fact, he has seen, in the first place that the problem does not exist. You have not lost anything.
The one who takes your problem seriously is much the same as you. How will he be of use to you? Please tell me.
You have come upon a difficult problem in integral calculus. You're taking it very seriously. You have just begun your preparations—Class 11th, first month. Somehow, you have picked up this problem, and you go to your teacher. And he looks at the problem that you have picked up and gets scared, just as you are scared. Will that teacher be of any use to you?
Questioner: No.
Acharya Prashant: You want someone who is not serious about things. You are very serious. But then, I... I appreciate your predicament because: "It is serious to me, so it must be serious to you. Else, you hurt my ego. Else, you are showing me down. Else, you are demonstrating to me that I'm an idiot."
So, the wise man often, in his wisdom, chooses to pretend. He says, "Oh, obviously! Obviously! I see, I see! Oh yes, it's a grave matter. I... I understand, I understand." Even if the thing can be solved in two seconds, he chooses to take half an hour for it, just to display that the problem was convoluted. No, no! That's compassion.
The one in front is not in a position to appreciate the shallowness of his problems. He's taking his petty problems as the biggest thing in the world.
“I've lost my doll! Doomsday!" ( whispers: Just a doll) "Surely, let's together find her out!" And even if, then, the doll is in plain sight, you decide to navigate the entire colony a couple of times before coming to the doll. You know, "Okay, yeah, now the kid feels pleased."
Sometimes, the liberated ones get liberated of even this consideration. And that has happened in India. They choose to laugh in your face. The result is that they do not become very popular and hence lose the ability to help a lot of people.
We know of liberated people—or forget about it, just call them wise people. We know of wise men. You went to them with a petty problem. They would beat you up with a stick! They would say, "This is the only way to take care of your problems!"
And you are trying to run away, and he has bolted the door. He's saying, "This is the treatment you need! How dare you come to me with a problem like this?"
The fellow is saying, "The shop is not doing well. The son has run away. The wife is seeing somebody else!" And he's beating you. "Yes, yes! More? Any more problems?"
Obviously, no one returns to such a person. That's what compassion is, huh? Remember this now: Compassion is to know that the other is an idiot and yet try to apply wisdom to solve his problems.
Compassion is to know that the other's suffering itself is fake, yet try very hard to relieve his suffering. Compassion is to know that all sorrow is founded in ignorance and yet take sorrow as a genuine problem to be addressed.
No wise man will ever take your problem seriously, believe me. For the wise one, all your problems are bad jokes—not even worthy of a sound laughter. But then he says, "You know, I can see through. You cannot. So, I'll give up my right to laugh at you. I'll instead pretend to be serious."
"Yes, yes, yes, of course! We have a problem!" He says, "You know, there was a time I was so much like you. These same things were big issues even to me. But I know they can be outgrown. I'm relating to you just as I relate to this body of old. You are my own self of 20 years back. The consciousness might have changed; the body remains the same, right?
So just as I cannot disown my body, similarly, I cannot disown your state." I cannot say that your state is totally alien to me. Is my body alien to me? No, it is not. You are who I was 20 years back. Therefore, I will not laugh at you, because in your state today is the potential to become who I am. So, I... I'll not laugh at you. I would help you out.
Shri Krishna does not really laugh, you know. He... he just somehow—maybe he wanted to laugh. You can visualize him suppressing his laughter or looking the other way while laughing, or coming up with a pretended cough. "No, I'm not laughing. I'm coughing! No, no, no! Indeed, I understand. Of course, of course! Such a long statement you have given—an entire chapter! Surely, there must be something serious. How dare I say that there is nothing? No, no!"
Now, think of Shri Krishna. In 18 chapters—or at least 17—he is giving a great and diverse solution to a problem that does not exist. And he fully well knows that the problem is fictitious, yet he goes to such lengths to address the problem. “Yes, yes, yes!”
If the truth is real, how can any problem be real? Is the truth a problem? Are there two truths? The truth is real, so can problems be real? All problems are imaginary. The wise one knows that. He also knows what it takes to know that.
Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is to be detached and yet experience the other's pain. It is the highest virtue. "I can see all your problems are nonsense, yet I will try to solve them." That's compassion.
Questioner: I, said this from Arjun's point of view—thinking from Arjun's point of view, not from Shri Krishna's point of view.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, yeah...
Questioner: I mean, I thought that at least for Arjun, he's feeling the problem is real.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. And Shri Krishna knows that for Arjun, his problem is real, and therefore, the problem needs to be addressed.
Questioner: So, at last, uh, you said that we should try to maintain good relationships—or relationships with objects that take you to liberation.
So, now this is the object—this Zoom call. Uh, and this laptop. This is my object right now that will, uh, take me towards liberation, and I should do, uh, whatever I can to maintain this relationship. So, why am I saying this? Because, uh, you cannot imagine how I'm managing this call right now.
So, uh, the power went off—I think half an hour ago. And right now, I am in a semi-sleeping—or you could say semi-standing—position, just to maintain a white background so that low light can still be managed.
So, uh, while I was doing all these things, uh, I tried a white background. I downloaded white, uh, background pictures just to play in the background. And while I was doing all these things, uh, I was listening. You were saying these things live.
So, uh, that was a live teaching, or live help, for me. Had you not spoken those lines, I would have said, "Fine. Uh, today the power is cut. Uh, today I won't be able to ask a question."
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, it is best understood when it is lived. When you live it, then it becomes spontaneously clear. Otherwise, even a wise man's explanations sound a bit foolish.
Real understanding comes only when you get into it.
Questioner: Thank you so much!
Questioner: Uh, like, I'm feeling like I'm reverberating with something, because there was this doubt for many years that I had while reading a verse by Guru Singh. Zafar said that had this enemy come to me—because that enemy was hiding like a coward—he went back straight to his camp.
And Guru Singh, while mentioning about him—Zafar—said that had he... had he also come to fight me, I would have blessed him with that—blessed him with an arrow also.
Like, he used the word "blessed." And this is what you used too—that while establishing a relationship with others, even killing them would be something like providing love to them. And this is something I... I cannot explain right now, but—
Acharya Prashant: Wonderful!
Questioner: You have cleared something—really! That was really immense for me. That—why was he using these words?
Acharya Prashant: Wonderful!
