Joy is the taste of Ultimate madness || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)

Acharya Prashant : Sagar is asking, ‘Will we have to leave all our relationships?’ Then you are inviting me to speak on relationships, and what kind of relationships do we have?

L1: The question is related to my personal life, like as I am becoming fearless, I am losing my peer group, I am losing my friends. So shouldn’t I take that into account?

AP: So are we saying that we cannot have a fearless relationship with our parents?

L1: But, somewhere, somehow it will come into existence.

AP: Then that portion has to be cut away and I am saying ‘have Faith’. You can have a fearless relationship with not only your parents, but the entire existence. You are afraid that the only relationship possible with the world is a relationship of fear, dependency, and greed. I am saying no, a relationship of love is possible. Your parents deserve it, the entire world deserves it.

Does it feel good to be related to somebody out of fear, because of fear? Does it feel good? Tell me seriously, does it feel good? I am opening a possibility; I am saying no, your relationship need not have any fear in it. But, this possibility too terrifies you (laughs) . Why Sagar ?

L1: Sir, expectations kill. Apart from Mother Nature, there is no one who does not have expectations from us.

AP: They expect because at the root of everything lies Love. That Love, when it does not get a proper channel, then, it becomes distorted, then it becomes contaminated and it manifests itself as possessiveness, as expectations and a lot of other diseases.

L1: Sometimes I feel like that there are two sides of me, one sometimes rules the other and sometimes the second one overrules this one.

AP: There are not two. I assure you there are two thousand.

L1: Sometimes there is work that I don’t want to do, but still it happens. I repeat it again and people have a question mark, and perfection is a problem. So when perfection begins because we can achieve something….

AP: Sagar , bottom line – do you want it?

L1: Sir, yes.

AP: Then you will get it and if you haven’t got it from a year then there can be only one reason behind it that you never wanted it in the first place. You don’t get it by asking a question because I can only open the door, you will have to enter on your own. You can ask me a hundred times – does it open? I can show you a hundred times – see, it opens. But, you don’t go inside; so, how will you get it?

Do you want it?

Do you really want it?

I assure you, whosoever has ever wanted, has not been turned back.

And the day, the moment you will want IT, you will get IT.

Nothing can stand in your way.

Do you want IT? You will need to fall in love for that. Life has to be lived really like a love affair and love gives you immense courage . You stand up and you say ‘Yes, I want it.’ and you get it. Life cannot be lived like the leisure of a businessman – calculating – what will I lose? What will happen? What will they think? What will happen to their expectations? How many rupees? That’s not the way to live. It has to be lived a little madly. I am asking you to go insane. Do you have that madness or do you want to be working like a clerk in the finance department? Always busy with numbers, dead numbers. A mad man does not just keep sitting there.

L1: That’s the point Sir. Sometimes when we see a sea, we see we don’t have clothes.

AP: Get rid of them, what stops you? Absolutely, right now. Get rid of them. I have come just now from a 4-day learning camp from the hills. If you look at my face, you can see it’s tanned. Some of your batch-mates too had gone with me. A couple of them are present in this room and ask them what it means to go mad. You are talking of clothes? Yes, of course. There is a river. Go, jump, and dive. Who cares about clothes? Or will you calculate? How much should I wear? Is it a little transparent? What will people think? If this gets wet, do I have another pair with me? Keep calculating. Another year of HIDP. How many years do you think you have? One day you will die just asking questions and that moment you will be asking ‘Sir, just one more question…’

I am saying, come and dance with me . I am saying, come with me, jump into the Ganga. What are these questions? What are these answers? Stupidity. Come, jump. ‘What about my respectability, Sir? Decent girls don’t jump into river. They jump only into swimming pools.’

You see, we hit your city today at 9 in the morning. At something past 10, I was here. I rode my bike the entire night. Slept for some 10 minutes at a dhaba like this (depicts sleeping posture by putting his head down on the table) . The night before yester night, I was again awake the entire night – half the time just sitting quietly and half the time singing. Last 60 hours, I would have slept for less than 2 hours. It’s okay. And even as I am speaking to you, I have sand in my ears, in my hair and in my underwear. It’s okay. I am not as respectable as you are. What can I do? What do I look? I don’t even have time to know whether I am happy. All I know is that I am feeling a little drunk. Come, join the party. We have enough for everybody. Probably, I am not as clever as you are. Probably, I am not as qualified as you are.

Become a little less clever.

Get rid of your smartness.

Do act like an idiot.

It’s okay, you will not be harmed. Nothing is supposed to be a particular way. Try breaking the ways a little. Check out for yourself whether you are harmed. And even if you are harmed, how much is the harm? How much is the harm? You are anyway being harmed every time. A little bit of madness is welcome, very welcome. If you will think about it, you cannot do it. Half your batch… We have conducted, you know what, three activities that had songs, in this semester itself. Half your batch has been unable to sing. I am not talking of getting rid of clothes or anything, simple singing. There would be many here who haven’t sung. You see, you are nice, good. Yeah? Serious fellows!

L2: Sir, why have we based our living on others peoples’ interests? If we check out our limits, why are our limitations decided by other people?

AP: You know what happens is when I am afraid then out of that fear emerges a way; a particular way. You see, a jungle is there and the jungle is beautiful. But if I am afraid, I will walk only on a particular trail. Will I dare to explore here and there? Because I am afraid; afraid that some cheetah will spring upon me from here and there. Now, the chances that the cheetah will spring upon you are one in ten-thousand, and one in ten-thousand kind of chance of loss is anyway all the time there. The chair on which you are sitting can collapse and an iron road can go up your backside and you are dead. One in ten thousand chance, it can happen. But you will think, think, and think the cheetah can pounce upon me, so you will walk only on that particular way. That is how the ways come about.

This fellow had to go out. Did he ask for a way to be made? A moment of fire, something just burns up, a moment of energy; a moment of saying ‘I will not always be chained. Is that a way? Walking over the tables?’ But that one moment, when the heart says ‘No more bondages!’ That one moment, and mind us, this fellow has been trying for this moment since the last one year. There is hardly any Samvaad Session in which he does not pose a question. When that comes about, then, you do not bother about a way. It’s okay. The sky is the way. Do you see any highways in the sky? Go where you want to, like a bird. No way is needed. I can only give you assurance. You will be taken care of. Have Faith. Give your heart a chance.

And by the heart, I do not mean feelings. You understand what I mean by the heart, right? We have talked about it again and again. The pure mind is the heart. Give it a chance, you won’t be harmed. Have faith. Try it out. Too difficult? It’s not difficult. It’s fun. It’s so super exciting that you will forget about all these teeny-weeny adventures that you have. The little excitements, the trivial titillations that you call as the spice of life. You will forget all about that.

It’s such great fun to live by the heart and you need not take a massive jump. I am not saying that jump right away from the tenth floor. Take one step, take two steps. As you take one step, as you take two steps, you will be assured. Are you getting it? Take one or two little steps, very little steps. As you start getting the flavour, you will demand more and more of it, you will want more and more of it. And when you will want it, you will get it. But to want it, you must taste it first.

I am inviting you to taste a little. Yeah?

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