Is this an important question? || Acharya Prashant, with Delhi University (2022)

Questioner (Q): Sir, it is said that keeping the backbone straight is necessary for one’s spiritual growth. Whenever I try to keep my backbone straight, I fail. I am unable to do so for more than half an hour. So, what is the solution for this problem?

Acharya Prashant (AP): You are asking the wrong person, mate. I have never focused on having any part of my body straight or in some other position. Even at this moment, I really do not know the shape of my backbone. I am not focusing on my posture at all. All I am caring about is having a certain posture that enables me to be committed to you in the maximum way possible. I am not at this time concerned, worried about my body at all. There is something far more important I must attend to and that is what I am doing.

So, I do not know whether backbone and such things are important. To me, there is something else that is far more important. Let me ask you, if you are focusing on the backbone, how will you know whether the backbone is a perfect perpendicular to the horizon through the horizontal surface?

Q: When we stand, I think.

AP: When you stand, are you sure the backbone is exactly perpendicular to the horizontal surface? Because an absolute ninety-degree angle is anyway never going to be possible, and if that is what you demand for your spiritual growth, you will always find yourself lacking.

Sometimes, you might come close to being orthogonal to the surface, let’s say 89.9 degrees, but even that is not a perfect 90 degrees. I am not asking you to slouch or you have a curved backbone; no, that is not the advice. I am not advising you to have a distorted body posture. What I am wondering is whether this is the most important thing to talk of, whether this is the most important question in the process of spirituality.

So, these are, in my opinion and experience, irrelevant questions.

Q: I am sorry sir, but in yoga and āsanas (postures)…

AP: What are you sorry for?

Q: You said that these are irrelevant questions.

AP: Āsanas are good for health. I do not denounce them. So, be it āsana , mudrā or prāṇāyāma , they are good for health, and a good body is conducive to spiritual well-being, I fully agree. But I also know that it is not the central thing or the most important question.

If you keep practicing your āsana and the other things that you do in yoga or hatha yoga , you can practice till the dawn of your life and practice will never come to an end. That practice is not the goal of life; the goal of life is something else. Yes, obviously, having a fit body, a healthy body helps and so, with that end if you want to practice your Yoga, it is alright.

Q: In the Bhagavad Gita , Lord Krishna says, “Abandon every dharma and surrender unto Me alone. I shall liberate you and give you Mokṣha (liberation).” Does it mean that we have to leave everything and surrender to Krishna alone, be devoted to Him and he will give us liberation? Will devotion alone be sufficient?

AP: Quit all small goals and focus only on the mightiest goal possible—that is what Krishna is saying. Sarva-dharma means all your small goals, your small duties, and small responsibilities; they are not worth anything. Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja : focus only on the one real thing; devote your life to one mighty cause or end; get rid of all the small distractions and desires. That is the import of this verse.

Q: And sir, Brahma Samhita says in Brhan-Naradiya Purana (38.97): “In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy the only means of deliverance is chanting the holy name of the Lord. There is no other way. There is no other way. There is no other way.”

AP: Exactly same thing, nothing else. Nāma here refers to all the names and forms that appear to you as desires. All desires have a name, right? Have you ever desired something without name and form?

Q: No.

AP: So, what is being told is that everything that you desire is petty. Desire the highest, the ultimate— mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja . And the same thing has been repeated endlessly by various seers in all forms possible.

Q: How much time we should give for Dhyāna or Pūjā in a day?

AP: Alright, let’s say I say eight hours—what will you do with the remaining sixteen?

Q: Eight hours is impossible…

AP: Even eight hours is impossible?

Q: For Pūjā it is impossible.

AP: Pūjā of the kind that you practice, obviously you cannot do it for eight hours, and for real Pūjā eight hours is too little. Similarly, for real Dhyāna eight hours is insufficient. Dhyāna and Pūjā , they have to be continuous, they have to be twenty-four hours.

Q: Sir, how can we do that?

AP: First time in the conversation there is a pause in your mind, right? You are prepared to pause and listen. Good!

How is it possible? With the kind of things that you do, it is not possible at all. The kind of Dhyāna you practice, the kind of notions and knowledge that you have, it is not going to happen. Are you listening to me?

Q: Yes.

AP: This is Dhyāna. But the books you have read have never told you that Dhyāna is a simple thing. It has to be very ordinary; it has to be present in all conditions, at all times.

Are you right now devoted to understanding? This is Pūjā. But you have been told that unless you are offering flowers, fruits, and incense to the deity, it is not Pūjā . If you need to have a deity, a material figure in front of you to worship at all times, then you will not be able to worship for too long.

Real Pūjā involves being devoted to the highest within. The highest within is the peak of consciousness. When you at all times want to aim at that—“I want to be as conscious as possible”—that is worship. Pūjā and Dhyāna , therefore, are one.

Q: Sir, you talked about consciousness and you also said that thought is a material thing. How can we find the difference between what is thought and what is consciousness?

AP: They are the same. The consciousness that we have is very thought-based. Therefore, we require attention. Attention uplifts consciousness. Thought is a mediocre level of consciousness. Being unthinking is a lower level of consciousness.

So, we as human beings mostly practice a mediocre state of consciousness. We are thinking beings, but that state is, however, superior to the state of animals who don’t think at all or to the state of human beings who don’t think much. Attention is superior to thought. We said it uplifts consciousness. So, the more attentive you are, the higher is your state of consciousness.

What does it mean to be attentive? To be attentive is to continuously remember your condition and, therefore, your imperative, your dharma . Your condition is of bondage and, therefore, your dharma is to move towards liberation, to act in a way that challenges your bondages. Remembering this continuously is attention.

When you remember this continuously, then you cannot patronize the frivolities of life. You know who you are: you are somebody in distress, you are somebody in chains. How can you allow your precious time and energy to be wasted away in trivial things? You are suffering and all you want is freedom from that suffering.

This is attention: to want freedom continuously, always.

show_less