Is There Any Shortcut to Self-Knowledge?
Questioner: Prashant Ji, thanks for the lecture today. So, my question is around—you mentioned there is ‘One’ to be worshipped, and the process of self-improvement is a very iterative process. So, like, I'm having my current version—examining, evaluating my current version, and that isn't perfect clearly. And so, this seems like a very inefficient process. It seems like an illuminator model—an illuminated person or a version of me that is examining myself—my worst version—and then I get a little bit better, and then that feedback keeps happening.
But I like shortcuts. I think maybe there's a shortcut to get to a more efficient process here because this can take 40 years of my life and then I can keep getting incrementally better. And I can read Mahatma Gandhi, I can read other, you know, people who have made important contributions that can maybe, you know, give me a little bit of acceleration, but I think I'm just not satisfied with this process.
Acharya Prasant: So, you see, I want this (show a folded towel in hand). This is me—layer after layer of the self. This is me, and I want this well pressed, neatly ironed—without any creases, wrinkles—flat surfaced. So I said, “There is just one way: keep looking at yourself and improve,” and you said, “That's very long-drawn and iterative, and therefore, you know…”
Questioner: And also not trustworthy because I think it's me looking at that.
Acharya Prasant: Okay. The question then is, what else can be trusted? Because whatever other factors that you say are trustworthy, you are still the one trusting them. And now it's a roundabout thing—you are trusting someone because you think you are untrustworthy, but the one now being delegated the responsibility has earned your own trust, so how trustworthy is that person? So, you have no option but to use your own trust. So, that's something we can….
Now, this is the whole mass of myself. I said, “Look at yourself and improve,” right? And you said, “It takes too long.” Yes, it can take too long. How does it take too long, we'll try to see. So, I look at this (touch the folded towel in the other hand), and I say, “Oh, why is this thing bulging up from here? Let me do something about it.” So, probably there is something wrong with this piece here—it's bulging. So, I'll push this piece to this side. I push this piece.
So, I have observed myself. I did find something wrong, and I came up with a solution—a response, and the response was, “Oh, shift it this way—past the crease,” you could say. Something was wrong here, so I made some superficial arrangements by looking at myself. This will take a very, very long time because now this part is showing a bulge. So, next time I look at myself, I'll say, “Oh, there's something wrong here. I need to do something about this.”
Another way of looking at myself is—and both of these ways involve the same thing: looking at yourself. The question is, how do you look at yourself?
Questioner: Yeah.
Acharya Prasant: Now, there is this another way of looking at yourself. I look at myself, and I say, “There is something wrong here. Can I get to the root of it?” Okay. (lift up one layer of the towel) “Oh, there's something even more wrong here. The bulge is far more apparent now.” Can I be merciless enough, ruthless enough to peel off even this layer and expose the real culprit within? And then I—“Oh!” and then I come to this. (a ball was hiding under the layers of towel). I could either look at myself this way and say, “As long as this is here, things will never be flattened.” So what do I do then? “Come on.” Now everything is fine. See! Smooth.
Where did this immediate transformation or dissolution come from? It came from looking at myself. Equally, I could look at myself and keep deceiving myself for 40 years. So, the fault does not lie with the process; the fault lies in the intention. When you find something wrong within, do you want to give it a superficial treatment, or do you want to peel the layers and get at the root of it? And at the root, you find this—this is called the ego tendency.
So, when you find something within, get to the root of it. Otherwise, you will keep making some kind of tertiary adjustment. And not that it is just very long-winded; it can be infinitely unproductive. You can keep making superficial shifts without really reaching anywhere.
Questioner: Can I ask a follow-up question?
Acharya Prasant: Sure.
Questioner: So, I think, in theory, it makes a lot of sense that we identify the root problems. In practice, what this—I think—what this would mean is, I expose myself to good thinkers who have thought, you know, more about the world, about themselves, and also, I think, get involved in causes that are bigger than me, you know, be able to teach and express myself a little bit better—and all good things. But how does that interplay…
Acharya Prasant: You don't have to get into all those things. No, you don't have to get into new things to know yourself. You don't have to. What is happening within, there has to be an honest resolution ‘to know’. You are already doing much; you don't need to do something additional. You have 24 hours as many as anybody else has; nobody has even a minute more in his day, and all those minutes are occupied with activity. All the activities arising from this center will be carrying the imprints of this. Watching them is sufficient; you don't need to undertake something new.
If there is a problem somewhere, the problem—I'm talking of the internal domain—would never be localized. If there is a problem, it would be present in everything that you do because it is therein every bit that you are. If it's there in every bit that you are, it will be there in everything that you do.
So, it should be possible to watch it continuously. It should be possible to watch the play of this in everything and every time. You don't need to get into newer activities. Even in the existing activities, you should be seeing the imprints of this. And when you see that, it should make you uneasy. Rather, it should reveal that you are uneasy.
Questioner: So, this is totally true, and this does happen. But it's a slow-winded process, I think, and that's what is…
Acharya Prasant: It cannot be slow. In fact, it is the fastest one. It's the—Ramana Maharshi used to call this the straight-line method—see and be free. The problem is not that it takes time; the problem is in the intensity of the desire. You must want to be continuously free; you must be able to see that it is happening. It is still happening, it is still happening, it is still happening, and I'm not liking it. It is still happening, and it is happening because there is this thing behind it, and then there is this thing behind it.
One has to have the stamina to be always at war, and that stamina comes from love, that stamina comes from a certain insistence—“I like it; I don't want to give up. I like it so much I just cannot give up”—love. So, this appetite for being at war with oneself must be there. One must continuously be engaged within—engaged in the sense of being present, being watchful. “I know what's going on, and it's again that same dirty story unfolding—I can see that. And it won't happen because I can see that.”
Questioner: Yeah, super helpful. Yeah. Thank you.
Questioner: Pranaam, Acharya Ji.
Acharya Prasant: Ji.
Questioner: So, my question is, Shri Krishna is asking Arjuna not to mourn for their own relatives. We have seen that it's easy to cognize the pain of someone we are associated with. Still, when we also take cognition of the pain in others—for example, the animals or the species going extinct—that cognition is also happening in my own mind. So, my question is, is it attachment, or is it moving towards a parmaarth, how to know? Because both of them are originating in my own mind.
Acharya Prasant: Your first attachment is to your body. You don't mind if I take away your shirt, but you mind if I take away your arm.
Questioner: Okay.
Acharya Prasant: If I say, “I'll give you a trillion rupees, just die. ”You'll say, “What will I do with those trillion rupees if I’m not there anymore.” So, even if you are to have a trillion rupees or dollars, you want the body more. I quote you any number and say, “Give me the body.” Will you give me the body?
Questioner: No.
Acharya Prasant: No. The simple logic would be, “What will I do with that amount if the body is no more there?”
Questioner: Right.
Acharya Prasant: So, the body is the first attachment. Because the body is the first attachment, those who are related to the body are very close attachments. That's why the very inexorable attachment of the mother to the baby and the baby to the mother—body, and body. The baby does not know that it was in the womb for long, but it knows that without the mother's body, it will not get its feed. So, the baby is tremendously attached to the mother. And the mother—she knows the baby was there in the womb for so many months. The mother, too, is tremendously attached to the baby. It's fundamentally body identification.
Therefore, when you are associated with those who are your blood relatives or body relatives, that's attachment. But if you can work for those you do not have any bodily relationship with, that's less likely to result in attachment. Not that you cannot be selflessly compassionate towards your mother—that is possible; not that the mother cannot be selflessly compassionate towards the kid. The mother can have great loving detachment towards the kid, and it's a beautiful thing—it's possible, but it's rare.
It's easier to be detached towards who are physically distant; it's more difficult to be detached from your own baby. And that's why there is so much toxicity in relationships because the relationship has started at the physical level, and physicality itself is the mother bondage.
Questioner: Yeah. Thank you, sir.
Acharya Prasant: Welcome.
