Liberation Seems Distant, Gratification Seems Easier. What to Do?

Acharya Prashant

12 min
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Liberation Seems Distant, Gratification Seems Easier. What to Do?
One has to come to a certain purposelessness with respect to what one has always been doing. And when one comes to that purposelessness, that’s now like being with a clean slate. One does not like the words futility. So something within us just silently conspires from inside. So there is futility but then in that futility some meaning will be found. And that’s a conspiracy. There is purposelessness but some meaning will be attached to the word purposeless and that defeats the whole thing. This summary has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation

Questioner: Namaskar Acharya ji, I am very appreciative of you. In the last year my spiritual development has been greatly enhanced, listening to you. But still I have been a seeker for many years and still the challenge comes. You talked about how to step out of addiction, is that you replace it with something bigger, something profound. And I have been a seeker so I guess that seems like the ultimate thing that one can hope for you is the Mukti.

But the problem comes when it’s time for decision-making, at the point of decision-making and there are hundreds of those points through a day, through a year. What happens is that the promise of Mukti is speculative, it is distant, it is abstract, whereas this samosa in front of me is gratifying, tangible, immediately in front of me, rewards are there. After a bunch of times, saying, 'Okay, no, this is not where I want to go, I want to, you know...

And even the question that you have mentioned that 'Ask who is it that wants the samosa that also sometimes seems so important.' It is like, you try to do the inquiry, you know, you try to do the manthan, but nothing comes out because that thing is abstract. You know, like you said, it’s not even an experience; its beyond our understanding.

So, how can you shift that way where something that you don’t even know is going to come through. So that’s where my dilemma is, the challenge is, like how to make the right choices?

Acharya Prashant: See, there is a reason why the little; that can be called as the wrong, exists in the first place, and if that reason continues to be, the cause continues to be. One cannot wish away the effect while letting the cause remain.

So yes, we all want greatness to descend to us or we all want to ascend to greatness. We all want good things, Mukti, liberation, wonderful, yes of course, but the current state obviously is of bondage. There is a reason why the current state exists. The mistake we often make, is to demand a new effect while persisting with the old cause.

So, there has to be an absolute emphasis on first seeing what is happening? Why does the little exist in the first place? And if you find that the little is just a compromise, a helpless compromise for the absence of the great, then it makes sense to look for greatness but if the little exists for some other reason, then the reason has to be addressed.

You see that there’s a samosa in front of you, would you care for that samosa if there is something terribly important calling you? You probably won’t. So, one has to ask, does the samosa exists as a substitute for something else? Why did it come to me in the first place? What am I looking for and not willing to pay for?

So, I’m looking for a tremendous cake but not willing to pay for it, the result is the samosa and then I cannot avoid the samosa, because it is not the samosa that I’m consuming, I’m consuming the cake. To me the samosa is the cake disguised. To me the samosa is the cake obtained on a huge discount. Why will I leave the samosa?

The samosa might actually be just a twenty rupees thing, but to me it serves as a proxy for something that costs rupees thousand. So, I might keep saying, 'Oh, it’s just a twenty rupees thing but actually inwardly, I value it at thousand.' Why? Because I really am in love with the one that is thousand but I am not willing to shell out thousand.

Questioner: So, you are saying, “Pay the price; you know it’s worth it.”

Acharya Prashant: If you have paid the price of a thousand rupees cake, believe me you will never touch the samosa.

Questioner: Yeah okay. Like Sanjaya before me, I have many, many questions, but when I come face to face with you, those, they seem to disappear. So, yeah maybe we’ll give the other people a chance.

Acharya Prashant: I am not sure how many of us are in the queue. If the queue is not too long, we can continue conversing. Udit (name of PAF employee) will be able to tell.

Questioner: Yeah. So, in terms of, you know, you always said that you don’t believe in formal sadhana as in meditation or something like that. You said to always inquire about life. You know, just understand life. What’s happening? Who am I? Where am I going?

So, I have wrangled with this for quite some time. But sometimes, it feels that I understand; I know at a certain level that I am on the right track. But at many times, it just feels like, is this even going anywhere? I mean, is this just some kind of foolish game that I am playing, you know.

Acharya Prashant: You know, it’s not meant to go anywhere. It’s meant to see the pointlessness of going anywhere, because as we normally are, we are, in fact, so scattered and going to all possible places. Aren’t we? All the time! That’s the very nature of mind, right? It’s always going to all places possible.

So, the point of sadhana is not to reach any particular place but to stop. And you cannot stop if you continue to see benefit in going out. Observation of life helps one to see that it’s pointless rushing hither-thither. And then the energy that was getting needlessly dissipated gets centered. That centering of energy is the blossoming of consciousness. That is attention.

Questioner: The challenge comes over here is that the stopping, which I interpret as trying to be in stillness or silence, and not running your mind all the time. It’s like, okay, you realize the futility of running the mind all the time.

When I get into that, it seems like nothing; what you are saying— don’t worry about anything happening— but it feels futile. It feels like maybe I should be running my mind. I know it makes more sense if Gyaan is one path, then maybe I should be running my mind but then again Ashtavakra Gita, according to you, it doesn’t make sense to, I mean, ultimately its beyond the mind, so you just have to stop.

Acharya Prashant: We do not know what is beyond the mind but we know what the mind is trying to do. We are also the experiencer of all that is happening in the mind, right? So that is something we can assess. We have all the entitlement, the authority and the capacity to do all that, the assessment that is. And running is not something new for us. We have been doing that all our life. And we have also seen others do that. We have also read of that in the history books.

So, we know what is going on. It is all so old and repetitive. Within us, outside of us the same kind of going round and round is happening, is it not? So, we are beautifully placed to see the entire contours and the conclusion and if we can see that, then what must happen, happens. You see, if you are running a circle and the circle is big enough then the arcs appear as straight lines, don’t they?

Questioner: Hmm

Acharya Prashant: If the circle is big enough then the arcs appear as straight lines and if they appear as straight lines, you might feel you are reaching somewhere because straight lines are meant to take you away from your current position.

Circle is so big that the arc is appearing like a straight line, but if you can look at it as the bird does from an elevated position, and if you see the whole thing is nothing but a big circle, so I am just going round and round not reaching anywhere. Would you still continue to burn your fuel?

Questioner: See, the futility of burning the fuel has become very clear but the other side has not become clear, that’s the problem. The futility is clear.

Acharya Prashant: No, then yes. Then it is quite possible that when we see the futility of one circle then we step into another circle.

Questioner: Spiritual circle?

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, and the circle, otherwise what we are calling as futility is a beautiful word. It liberates for enormous action, enormous action. Futility as a word must mean a full stop. It must not carry any other meaning. It must not mean disappointment, because if futility means disappointment then you will do something to overcome the futility and, in that way, the whole paradigm around futility continues.

Futility should simply mean, 'Ah, chuck it! And then you are free. That’s why I am saying, “It’s beautiful,” because futility means freedom. If futility is not meaning freedom, then it means that the futility of one thing is just making you step into another circle. Otherwise, futility means, Oh! like shrugging your shoulders and saying, “Ah that’s it. Full stop.” And once you say, “That’s it. Full stop.” Then you are so free, look around, run, jog, just go and sleep or make a new beginning. All that is freedom. Laugh or cry or read or just lie down or don’t do anything.

Questioner: It seems purposeless.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes, yes, yes, one has to come to a certain purposelessness with respect to what one has always been doing. And when one comes to that purposelessness, that’s now like being with a clean slate. One does not like the words futility. So something within us just silently conspires from inside.

So there is futility but then in that futility some meaning will be found. And that’s a conspiracy. There is purposelessness but some meaning will be attached to the word purposeless and that defeats the whole thing. Please understand the import of a total closure, a full stop, not a semi colon. That’s terrifying.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: But one can watch that fear. It does nothing. It’s a thought. It’s an idea. You can watch it, it will do nothing, it’s almost like a caged tiger, even if its ferocious, it will do nothing.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: So, watch it.

Questioner: So, this thing about watching. This thing about the choiceless witness. Jaanne walo ne kaha hai ki just like you said, that supposedly, there’s a possibility of being in a place where you can witness something happening to you in your life and have a distance from it, where you are unaffected. But I find that whether physical or mental, either pain or pleasure, when it's at a high pitch, that distance is not possible. I am not able to have see that distance. I am not able to stand apart neutrally and observe it, you know, I get sucked into it. Whether it’s the pain or the pleasure.

Acharya Prashant: One does not have to wait for pain or pleasure of high intensity. Those things are anyway episodic. One has to at the top of his game in moments of ordinary pleasure and ordinary pain. Maybe when extreme things happen, very few people can remain centered and witness those things, may be.

But what prevents us from being dispassionate in the daily events of life? Episodic things will happen once in four months. Even if one succumbs, then. It probably is okay, maybe it was inevitable. But what about maintaining, upholding one’s dignity, the remaining one-hundred-nineteen days of those four months? Maybe one-hundred-nineteen days would churn up some magic on the one-hundred-twentieth day as well.

Questioner: Definitely that progress has happened, especially last few months. Listening to you has been very illuminating, you know. That progress has happened in the sense that a lot of things which used to be a huge bother in life are no longer that much bothered. So I mean that positive thing is happening. Hope to keep going.

Acharya Prashant: Welcome. Most welcome and all the best.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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