Know the fact but do not stop at the fact || On Advait Vedanta (2019)
Shuzan held out his short staff and said, “If you call this a short staff, you oppose reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now, what do you wish to call this?” ~ ‘The Short Staff’, a Zen Koan
Questioner: Acharya Ji, like this confusing Koan, a few things in your teachings are difficult to grasp for my petty, stability-seeking mind. In your song ‘Are you looking for me?’, you said it is stupid to wind your legs around your head, so I stopped the little yoga I did. My current yoga is just listening to your videos. I don’t know if peace will come just by that, but it surely has given me a better understanding on life and gives me relaxation, at least for a few minutes.
So, I queue your videos on YouTube and keep going. I see that this is conditional peace because as your video’s effect fades, my peace can fade too. I work from home now, so there is no external pollution; my mind is the culprit.
Where am I going? Am I your intellectually poor disciple who needs to stick to just one of your methods, like ‘What role am I playing now?’ or ‘Om Namah Shivaya’-japa, or observing that I am just hormones and chemicals? Please guide.
Acharya Prashant: Where is a clear description, an admission of your real and current bondages in all this? Why must you watch any videos of mine, or do any yoga, or follow the methods of japa (chanting) or observation, if there is nothing to be healed or corrected?
