Why Lack of Clarity Complicates Life

Acharya Prashant: Confused world, a chaotic world, a world that makes no sense. And it’s not that the world is confused or chaotic or nonsensical. It is obviously the looker, the seer of the world who is not able to comprehend it with any clarity.

Lack of clarity is a difficult thing, lack of clarity is a complex thing. Clarity is simplicity. Therefore, it doesn’t require much to have clarity. It requires a lot to not have clarity, and we have a lot.

In fact, that is the only reason the word 'clarity' appeals to us. That is why you picked that one question out of the thousand possible queries you could have had, you know because confusion is suffering. When you know that reality is one, you do not want to tolerate fluctuating versions of it.

I want to get rid of all the various viewpoints, all the competing statements that say, it could be this but it could also be this, it is this but at the same time this. And whenever there is one point of view, one version, there is bound to be something besides it as well, because every version stops somewhere, and has its limits. The limits define the version and outside the limits, there would be something else and then something else and then something else, everything limited. One doesn’t like it, it feels a bit stupid to not know.

What is clarity? To be immediately certain. Certain of what? That which is certain, that which is unchangeable. Obviously, without knowing the airline schedule you cannot be immediately certain of that. And why must and why cannot you be immediately certain of things like train schedules? Because they keep fluctuating anyway. Therefore, clarity is not being cocksure about things that are anyway volatile and changeable. Clarity is about being certain of that which ‘is’, that which is unchangeable. Therefore, clarity has a direct relation with faith; you cannot be clear without having faith in the heart.

Having clarity does not mean that you will immediately make sense of whatever you perceive, it simply means that whatever you look at, you are certain of at least the relationship between the seer and the seen.

The one with clarity does not walk about full of confidence. He will not say, "I have clarity, so I know everything." He would not be sure of his knowledge, but he would be absolutely sure of the limits of knowledge. He would know that there is a world of knowledge and the world of knowledge is movable, unreliable, and then there is something beyond the movable, changeable, knowable in which the one with clarity abides, he lives there. He lives there, and he cannot be uprooted; that is faith, far deeper than confidence.

Therefore, the one with clarity would almost always be the first one to admit ignorance. Why would it be easy for him to admit ignorance? Because he does not place extraordinary value upon knowledge. It is only when knowledge is extremely important to you that you shy away from admitting ignorance. When you know the right place of knowledge and when you know your own place, then knowledge or the lack of it are minor matter.

Never conflate clarity with information or knowledge. You can be totally clear without having any knowledge. In general, you say that you have clarity only when you have gained sufficient knowledge to back your claim. You can be absolutely clear while being ignorant.

How does it matter which movie is running in the theatre? You do not have that knowledge. Does it impact your heartbeat? Clarity is your heartbeat. Knowledge is the name of the movie running in the theatre, you may know nothing about the movies. How is that related to your heartbeat? Or is it? These are two different dimensions. You may stand like a fool outside the Cineplex, knowing nothing about the various screens and the various movies and their timings and the shows and such things, and you may still have all the clarity.

Clarity, therefore, is independent of the situation, independent of time, place, and scenarios. Clarity is your essence, if you have it, you have it. Then you have it even when you are being proven a dumb fool by time, by situations.

Sitting in an examination hall, writing a paper, you may have knowledge sufficient enough to earn your grand zero, but you may still have clarity. And it is possible that you have great knowledge that fetches you one-zero-zero but you have no clarity. It’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? You would probably want to say that the fellow who is topping the examination has a lot of clarity, no.

So, Anna (one of the listeners) comes daily to hear even the Hindi Satsang. She gains no knowledge but the contact gives her clarity. Therefore, she keeps sitting for three hours even when the Satsang is in Hindi. She’s from Europe, she knows no Hindi but sits through the Hindi sessions as well. Do you see the difference? Had she known the language, she would have gained knowledge as well, but that’s not her objective. She is aiming at something far higher than knowledge. So, she just sits.

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