Loneliness, Hurt, Conflict... || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2015)
Question: Why is it that I always want to remain busy? Till the time I am busy, I think that the life is normal. But as soon as I find free time of some fifteen-twenty days, I feel that I am in prison. Why does this happen?
Speaker: You sense it in those fifteen twenty days but it is happening all the time. It is just that the fact of your loneliness or restlessness remains hidden beneath your preoccupations. You tell yourself, “I am so busy that I cannot allow myself to be lonely.” But that loneliness is always there. It does not suddenly emerge during the vacations. One is lonely all the time. And it is relatable to the blank that we discussed when we initiated the session today. What is that blank?
Listener 1: “I am… blank.”
Speaker: That blank is the loneliness. And you fill this blank with stuff like books, with movies, with friends, with many things.
(Silence)
Question: Why do we tend to hurt when we are too attached?
Speaker: It happens. Hurt and attachment are one and the same, you may call them differently.
Hurt and attachment are one and the same. One is seen in the beginning, the other is seen in the end, so you feel that they are different. Are the bud and the flower really different entities? Just because there is intervention of time, so you feel that they are different.
Attachment is hurt, attachment is born from hurt, and hurt is related to attachment. They are one and the same thing. They are inseparable. Where there is hurt, there is attachment. A hurt man will get attached very easily.
Listener 2: Why do we lie?
Speaker: You tell me.
Listener 2: To escape from a situation. There are times when we are conscious that it is wrong, but we still lie. Why?
Speaker: There is an end to lying. That is what matters. Can lying come to an end? That is what matters.
Listener 2: When does that end come?
Speaker: You are not lying right now. That’s it. That is what matters. Are you lying right now?
Listener 2: No. But when again the similar situation will come, lie has to be spoken. So how does lying end? To defend one lie, hundred lies have to be spoken. How does lying end then?
Speaker: You want to defend something, which you are not doing right now.
Listener 2: Yes. But what if the situation comes to me again?
Speaker: Why do you want to go to that situation? It will not come to you if you do not go to it.
Listener 2: But sometimes it happens that the situation comes again.
Speaker: Then run away. Why do you need to explain anything? It is your life.
Listener 2: But what if I am accountable to my parents?
Speaker: How?
Listener 2: They have brought me up. They have right on me.
Speaker: They have a right to their joy, right? They have a right to feel good, right? That is what you want to give to them. If you are grateful to them for the fact that they brought you up, you want to give something good to them. To give something good to them, then first you must earn something good. So run away to earn that good.
Listener 2: Is it important to tell them everything?
Speaker: If it matters, then yes. If it doesn’t, then don’t. In any case, what is the point telling anything, if the fellow doesn’t understand?
Listener 2: How to make them understand that they do not understand?
Speaker: When you will bring those goods to them.
Listener 2: Till that time it is going to be like this?
Speaker: It is going on like this.
(Silence)
Question: What to do for the mistakes made?
Speaker: Do not make more mistakes.
Listener 2: What about the consequences of those mistakes?
Speaker: They can’t be undone. The consequences have to be taken.
Listener 2: Nothing can be done?
Speaker: Nothing can be done about the consequences (stressing on ‘consequences’).
Listener 2: What about the mistakes that I have done in the past?
Speaker: The mistakes are gone, the consequences remain. Nothing can be done about the consequences. The consequences are ‘consequences’. They are neither good, nor bad. And they are present in front of you as ‘situations’. The situations that you see around you are nothing but the consequences of your past actions And you can’t do anything about them.
It is just that you need to not create more mistakes. Just do not make more mistakes. That is all that you can do.
Listener 2: Can these consequences, these situations be avoided?
Speaker: No. You will move from one situation to another. Wherever you will go there will be a situation. You will always be situated . But also remember that your situations are nothing but the consequences of your actions. If your actions change, your situations will also change. And actions must come from realization.
If you act in the way of understanding, you will soon find that the situations around you are changing, the people around you are changing, the places you visit are changing, the things that happen to you are changing.
(Silence)
Question: How to forget a past incident which bites one every now and then?
Speaker: Life gives you an opportunity every moment to emerge from the past. Every moment is an opportunity.
If there was something in the past and there has been a realization that you did not act in a particular way, you did not act in an aware way, then at least be aware right now. The opportunity is right now. Repentance is possible only in the present. You cannot repent by thinking more and more.
(Silence)
Question: Why do friends come and go?
Speaker: Is there anything that does not come and go? Why do you come and go? I do not want to lose you. Come along with me.
Listener 2: By priorities do not allow me come with you right now.
Speaker: They too have their priorities.
It is a world of conflict that we live in. Don’t you see that? Everybody is a fragment and each fragment has its own directions and priorities, which will not be aligned with directions and priorities of another fragment. So there is bound to be conflict and disappointment.
We are all fragments. No two fragments can be alike. Till the time you remain divided, fragmented, small, you will always be in conflict. Love will never be possible. The man’s priorities will be different from the woman’s priorities, because the man is a fragment and the woman is a fragment. There is bound to be conflict.
