Living in the Moment vs. Battling Thoughts and Suffering

Questioner: Namaskar, sir. Sir, worldly things are everywhere. Whatever we see or think about, the thought process is all worldly. So, I feel like I am creating my own world through this thought process. When it comes to what you are saying; that living without death and all that, in that also I feel like that too is just a thought process that I name some things differently, and I name other things differently.

So, I keep thinking on this, and it becomes very exhausting. There is no clear clarity in my head regarding this. And, actually, in the last four-five months, I have been suddenly hospitalized for different reasons and also there is this physical discomfort which overpowers you sometimes. It does not do mentally, but on a physical level, it is very tiring, it overpowers me. So, this also affects the thought process. Even small things like temperature, physical sufferings, it overpowers you, and this concept of the thought process feels like it is just present in the thought.

Acharya Prashant: If the entire process remains as it always has been, the results cannot be too different. There is a reason why the inner thing becomes the way it currently is, right? An entire terrain of experiences over the last several decades brought it to its current position. That’s what the ego is made of, right? Experience after experience, result after result, one belief upon the other conviction, an array of conclusions validating one’s own concepts. And this leading to a sense of confidence in the way one has been. All that gets together to convert one into the one, one currently is.

And there is a lot of belief involved because there are only certain aspects of one’s current state that one dislikes or wants to change, improve, or get rid of. There is a lot in one’s current state that one approves of, admires, is actually proud of. So, it’s a hotchpotch. It’s like enjoying the power that comes from burning coal but detesting the pollution that it causes.

Think of a steam engine. One is enjoying the ride, and one has been on the train since decades now. And it’s a coal-fired thing. But now one is seeing that it’s emitting a lot, and there is so much carbon, and other gases, and other trash. Is it possible to keep thinking of certain things as enjoyable, or right, or proper while trying to get rid of other things that are definitely linked to the things one cherishes?

There are aspects of one’s inner state and fruits from one’s journey over the decades that one really likes and admires. And they happen to be there in everybody’s case, right? Nobody disapproves of himself fully. And then there are certain things about oneself that one selectively wants to get rid of.

Now, that’s where the problem. It’s not that it is too difficult to get rid of those things. The problem is in the selectiveness. If one says, “I want to keep enjoying the power from the coal,” one will have to keep bearing the pollution from the coal. But then, one finds one has come to a point, where the pollution is overriding the pleasures from the power. If one finds himself at that stage, then it’s time to deboard. It’s time to say goodbye to the entire thing in its entirety. You cannot be half aboard a train. Either you are fully on it, or you have deboarded. And if you are fully on it, then you’ll have to bear the full package of consequences.

I wish the entire package was detestable, but it never is. Certain parts of that package are always cherishable, are they not? Even right now, in your narration, there were only two or three points that concern you. The other aspects of your life, obviously, you are quite satisfied with or rather proud of. So that brings us to that, almost, it has been turned into a cliché.

Dukh mein sumiran sab kare, sukh mein kare na koi Jo sukh mein sumiran kare, dukh kahe ko hoye. ~ Kabir Sahab

So, the two or three points you spoke to me of, all concern your dukh. But that dukh is just the other side of the various kinds of sukhas that you have been enjoying and enjoying and continue to have the desire and the determination rather, to keep enjoying. And these two are inseparable, unfortunately. One cannot be selective.

You see, how can I give something to others without letting the thing affect me? How is it possible? If, for example, I work in a bomb-making plant, where I’m manufacturing death for others; a uranium enrichment plant, to produce an atom bomb, it is but very likely that I too will become a victim of radiation. Even if the bomb is not dropped on others, first of all, it will affect me in a continuous, small, and passive way.

So, these are all intertwined aspects of life. The way one’s relationships are, the way one’s livelihood is, the way one’s social status is, all that is deeply related to one’s inner state. We cannot want to continue the way our relationships and our livelihood and all our other things are, and yet want to change the inner state.

Think of all those things that you find admirable in your life. Think of all those things you seek to protect day in and day out. What is it that you work for? What is it that you care for? What is it that you want to defend continuously? And then you will see that in all that lies the seed of the inner problem.

I cannot overemphasize that, that which appears as a problem is a small thing. In fact, it’s an innocent thing because it has revealed itself to be toxic, undesirable. You are already calling it openly as a problem. Therefore, actually, it is only half a problem. It has been detected, diagnosed, identified.

The real problem is the stuff that is never seen as a problem. But that is the thing that continues to give life to the problems. That thing remains; not only hidden within us, but actually actively defended within us. Somebody comes to you to take away those things, oh! you’ll offer mighty resentment. Your resistance will be not just active but probably violent. Think of those things, please. And it is those things that you hold so close to your chest that continue to harbour the things that you today identify as your problems.

Is it possible to break away from the life that you have lived so far with courage, with the recognition that there is hardly anything to be lost in the experiment? That one is anyway already running out of time. That as far as the desirables go, one has already experienced enough of them. So why not try out another kind of experiment? Unless there is a willingness to have a total change, selective transformation will remain very difficult.

Questioner: Sir, whenever I see my profession, I feel like I’m doing a fair job. As I told you last time, I work as an insurance broker. I have a company which feeds around hundreds of families. So, I might not be directly linked to their families or I have shareholders. I might not be directly linked to my shareholders, but I feel like I am doing a few things which are helping others whom I’m directly not related to. Like, it’s not my son or my daughter, but I feel like I’m doing some amount of good. Sometimes I think about this, that I’m doing this much, and I feel like I have to do way more. I am capable of doing way more.

So, I’m right now, currently, I’m experimenting in my thought. And if I apply your logic to it, I feel like I have to definitely do something about it. But I also feel that, whatever I’m doing in my current field, that is, let’s just pursue it up to a certain level and then, before shifting my field.

Also, we have been doing this campaign for elderly people. Elderly people get their medical claims. There is a thing called Medi Claim where a few elderly people won’t be able to get their claims on time. So, we help them. We help them get their settlements, and my organization works with them. You can say, I do this out of attachment for them or for my employees. But even though it is based on our income and it is dependent on how much we are earning. But I also think there is aspect of service inculcated in this. But definitely, service comes before the income part.

Acharya Prashant: Please, please, please understand something. In the grahasth way of life, is there any grahasth who is not required to do his share of good deeds? So, there are a lot of good deeds that you have to do, right? And the householder, the grahasth, the normal follower of the path of goodness, he is the one who constitutes eighty, ninety, ninety-five, ninety-nine percent of the world’s population.

So, all these things he does, he feeds the cow, he gives some money to the beggar, if there is a friend in need, he will lend some money, he keeps some sugar for the ants, he keeps some water for the birds. Then there is zakat in Islam. Then there is daan- dakshina in Hinduism. This, the householders the entire world over, have been doing since centuries. And when they do this, they obviously get beneficial results, right? The results are good if you do all these things. You know, you be good.

These are things of policy — naitikta, good conduct, acharan. And when you do all these things, then, you know, you get some benefit as per the measure of the goodness you have served. But what you are demanding is something extraordinary.

What you are demanding is something absolutely extraordinary. You are demanding freedom from body identification, and there is no way basic acts of goodness towards the world, can fetch you freedom from the fundamental bondage itself. You are doing something, and to the extent you are doing good things, you are being rewarded with goodness. Please be grateful. The equation is not deceiving you. To the extent you are doing good things, life is rewarding you with goodness. So, the game is fair there. But what you are demanding from life is far beyond the goodness you are practising. You are demanding liberation itself.

If you are on the operation table and you want to remain equanimous even at that moment, then you are de facto wanting to be a Buddha. And that is not being overambitious. We all deserve to be Buddhas. In fact, we are Buddhas in disguise, and we are needlessly disguised. So that’s your fundamental right. Obviously, I agree. But then, if that’s what you want, Buddhahood itself, liberation itself, Brahmanirvana itself, then the price that you need to pay has to be far greater.

Kindness is wonderful, obviously wonderful. And if you are a kind person, believe me, the universe responds to you with kindness. That happens. And there is a certain large-heartedness within, and there is a certain pride, a justified pride, in living, that, you know, I have given more to the world in comparison to what I have withdrawn. And that’s all very beautiful, and I wish more people do that. The world is in need of good people.

But being good is one thing, and demanding something that is totally in another dimension is a desire of another sort. I am pretty sure the young Prince Gautam, when he was in the palace, even then, he was a kind fellow. And we have some kind of literary proof available as well. You remember:

Nyay daya ka daani! Maa keh ek kahani. “Maa keh ek kahani.

Tu hai hathi, maanadhan mere, sun upvan mein bade savere, Taat bhraman karte the tere, jahan surabhi manmaani. ~ Maithili Sharan Gupt

So, he was roaming in the garden. That was his morning routine. And then, a bird, pierced by an arrow, fell at his feet. And then he refuses to give the bird to the hunter. That was his kindness, and he was yet not a renunciate. He was still in the palace, living the life of a householder. He had a beautiful wife. He had the kingdom, and he had this little kid. Even then, he was very large-hearted, and this bird is there. And he says, “No, no, no, no, no. You have no claim over this thing. You might have managed in hunting it down, but the thing deserves to live, and I will not give it to you.”

The hunter was returned, and I’m pretty sure there must have been an argument and such things. And maybe he would have needed to pay the hunter off. Buy him off. “You take this money and you go away.” So, he was kind even then. But did that suffice? Did that kindness suffice?

In the palace, he would have remained at most just a kind prince, a nice prince. Niceness is not the same as liberation. He ultimately had to take what we would call in our worldly parlance as an extreme step. Even if we are unable to take that kind of an extreme step, even we must still experiment. We must still do as much as possible. Step out. Maybe he stepped out and went all the way to the jungle. Alright. Do not go all the way to the jungle. Go to some other place at least. Try things out.

Life is inherently fair in some sense. You get what you deserve. If you are prepared to pay the price that Gautam did, you will probably get what Gautam got. And you can still practice love and kindness in your palace, and in that too, you will get the returns that you deserve. Life in that sense is fair. So, if you are not getting the returns that you want, then you need to enhance the scope of your experimentation. You will get. You will get that. It depends on your stubbornness to want and to have it before life takes everything away.

I hope the health is better now.

Questioner: Thank you, sir.

Acharya Prashant: I was enquiring about your health.

Questioner: Yes, sir. My health is a little better now. Thank you.

Sir, I would like some more clarity on what you’ve been saying regarding the price we have to pay, the direction, and experimenting mentally. Would you give more clarity on that? Because what happens is, I’m living in a normal family with my kids, my wife, and all. I’m running a business. So, is there nothing that which remains? Because if I renunciate all the things, or if I can’t, what type of experiments should I be doing?

Acharya Prashant: You see. I actually do not know the details, but let me give a broad hint to the extent I can. There are things that you must have been practising since decades, right? And those things have brought you certain pleasures, happiness, a certain satisfaction as well. Those things have brought you certain goodness as well. So, they have made you into the person you are.

Now, if you want to exceed what you have, obviously, you cannot continue doing those same things. So, you have to look at what you have been consistently doing since long. And the moment you detect consistency, you have to see that this is not the thing that will now take you from where you are, to the next dimension. That thing has brought you to the place you currently occupy, but that same thing, cannot take you to another place now.

It’s like a bus that takes me from A to B, and it has already brought me to B. That bus is not supposed to take me from B to C, so I have to get off. And the bus is wonderful. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with the bus. It was the bus that brought me from A to B. And coming from A to B is in itself an achievement, something that qualifies me to now want to go to C. Had I not come to B, going to C would not have been possible even as a desire. So, I’m grateful to all the things that brought me to this place, but now I must get off, I must exceed. And that does not mean a sharp breaking away. I’m talking of experimentation.

We remember the Buddha’s story in a very dramatic way as if he just got up one night and left. There would have been surely a lot of contexts to that. Maybe the departure was not an event, but a very spread-out process. Maybe he was experimenting with this, that over several years. And then after experimenting, one day, he found that, you know, I can get a little further away and then a little further away. And then, you know, things take their own course.

So, there is that security that lies in all the things that the past has given you. And I’m acknowledging that we need to be grateful to those things. But then there is a time to move on. If you will look at it as something like a letting go, then there’ll be a problem. You’ll feel the pangs of attachment. You’re not dropping something. You’re just moving on. Moving on. Moving on is a beautiful thing. Is it not?

Questioner: Yes, sir. It is.

Acharya Prashant: So, one has to move on. It’s not as if one gets into entrepreneurship at a particular age. Entrepreneurship is a constant state of being. No? You want to reinvent yourself. You want to tell yourself, “As long as the body stands erect, it still can do a lot of magical things. I’m up for the next enterprise. Why can’t I try something new now? What makes me think that I must stick to the existing ways of life, of relationships, of business? Why can’t I start something afresh?”

That’s the kind of experimentation I’m talking of. Think. Begin. Be better. Challenge. Do not stop at what you have attained. Today, we talked of deathlessness. You remember what we said about immortality?

To be immortal is to be neck-deep in your occupation. I am so occupied. I am so fully immersed that I have no time to die.

Questioner: Yes, sir.

Acharya Prashant: So that’s what one needs. It’s a kind of a fresh love affair, and it has to be as much of a greenfield thing as a fresh grad from a college begins when he, you know, first gets his thing incorporated. We cannot let the old experience extend into the future.

Questioner: So I have to start a new identity. Whatever I have learned from you, it is like a new life, a new identity. It’s like campus placements.

Acharya Prashant: Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. It’s great even just to listen to it.

Questioner: Definitely, sir. Definitely. I will do that. I will experiment as well. Thank you.

show_less