In all that you want, Liberation is all you want || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Questioner: Only sometimes do I consciously know that I actually want liberation. How to increase one’s quality so that this want is continuous?

Acharya Prashant: Only sometimes do you use the word ‘liberation’; at other times, you use a lot of other words for liberation. So, the mistake is mostly semantic. You just need to expand your vocabulary and remember that every word in the dictionary is a synonym of liberation. Right now, when you think of liberation, you say, “I am thinking of liberation.” But when you think of having a pizza, then, according to you, you are thinking of something other than liberation.

The desire for food and the desire for liberation are, according to you, diverse things, and from that divergence is arising your question. You are saying, “Only for, let’s say, an hour a day am I consciously thinking of liberation; for the remaining twenty-three hours I am thinking of miscellaneous things—A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H…” L is for liberation, and the other twenty-five letters are all for various miscellaneous things in the world that occupy and attract us. So, you just have to tell yourself and deeply, deeply remember that A equals B equals C equals XYZ, and all of them equal L.

You cannot think of anything but liberation. All thoughts are thoughts of liberation in disguise. It is a limitation and constraint of language that only sometimes do you call liberation as ‘liberation’. At other times, you name the desire for liberation as a pizza, or money, or clothes, or relationships, or a book, or something else.

Man moves for one central purpose, and that purpose is liberation. It’s just that he does not consciously know, rather admit and acknowledge, how liberation-thirsty he really is. We keep denying to ourselves that there is just one thing that we want. We think that we want multiple, various things; no, we want just one thing. The various things we go to are nothing but mediums to go to that one single final thing. If this much can be remembered, then all the mediums will become useful; then all the mediums will become Godly, divine, because they will become a medium between you and the divine. If you can remember that it is a medium, then it is divine. But if it becomes the end, if it becomes a purpose in itself, then this becomes an obstruction.

Why do you breathe? Breathing is for the sake of liberation. Why do you see? What are these eyes looking for? What is this mind anxious and waiting for? Why do you think these eyes are constantly looking out at the world? What are they searching for? Have you never thought of this? You come to a crowd, and have you seen how your eyes scan the faces of strange, unknown people? Have you ever noticed that? You want to see that one special face. We all are looking for that one final thing, and these eyes are always scanning, scanning, scanning; that’s why these ears are always listening; but that one final sound is not heard, that one final experience remains elusive.

We exist for the sake of That—that which is liberation. We breathe for the sake of That. We come to tomorrow so that tomorrow That may come. So, it is for the sake of That that time exists. It is for the sake of That that all future exists.

Do you see how liberation-minded we are? We eat, breathe, live liberation. And then so innocently we say, “Why are we not liberated?” The mistake has to do with linguistics, not with reality. And man’s language and man’s thoughts go together. Thoughts are diverse, and so is language. Language means separation and diversity: this is this and that is that; this cannot be that, and that cannot be this. Every word points at one particular object, which is not the next object—so, no liberation.

In the world of thoughts, there is no liberation. In the world of remembrance, there is liberation. Remember that all the thoughts are from and for That, that which is liberation, and that is liberation. If you try to find liberation in thoughts, it is not there.

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