Can the Materialistic Man Be Spiritual?
Questioner: Sir, can we say that only materialistic man is spiritual?
Acharya Prashant: The emphasis, then, will not be on materialistic totally. The totality is important.
Totally, if you are anything, then you are spiritual. The totality itself is spirituality.
Questioner: Sir, what do you mean by ‘totally into something?’ Like, I am building a sandcastle, and when I am building it, I am one with it. Is this being total?
Acharya Prashant: Yes. It also means that totality is not really a function of the activity that you are doing. The totality, had it been a function of making a sandcastle, would have disappeared with the sandcastle.
Questioner: So, then why there is no possibility of being total with the activity?
Acharya Prashant: Being total, you can be in the activity.
What do you mean by being total with the activity?
Is the activity something outside of you? Are you and the activity any different?
Being total means you are total—not divided, not limited, not small— and then you are in the activity.
Questioner: But that is not in our hands.
Acharya Prashant: That is surely in your hands.
Being total is not in your hands, but being divided is always in your hands. Who else is responsible for the division that you experience? You go to the sandcastle and you say, “This is a sandcastle that should give me pleasure and that I should be able to sell it after two hours for 100 rupees.”
Do you see what is happening now?
You are not doing as a total unit to the activity. You are doing it as the divided one. Which is divided one? Divided one means limited one. You are saying that I am entering it and I want it to yield something to me so that I can take it, and my division can end.
Questioner: Sir, but we enter into something with some limited expectations.
Acharya Prashant: You can have limited expectations or you can have unlimited expectations, but to enter into something as a little one, as a small one, as an expectant one, as a desirous one, is what makes you feel that you are not total. And when you are not total, then your activity is intended to make you total—that’s probably the only way to check your claim of totality.
Questioner: Enjoyment?
Acharya Prashant: Not even enjoyment because whatever you enjoy becomes such an expectation.
Are you into it with an expectation for the future? Are you into it thinking that if a favorable result comes, then you will be total? You may still have an agenda, but what does that agenda mean to you?
Playfully, you can have an agenda, why not? Playfully you can build a sandcastle. The sandcastle, let's say, itself is an agenda. I am building a sandcastle. And you do not build a sandcastle half-heartedly; you are building with all your mind. But still, what does it mean to you?
Is your self-worth linked to the sandcastle? When the castle collapses, do you also come crashing down along with it? That is what is meant by totality. So, well pointed— you are not total with the activity; total you are, in the activity.
See, it is simple—whatsoever is precious will be non-dualistic, and if it is non-dualistic, it cannot have an object. So, you cannot say, 'I love someone,' 'I am total with an activity.' All these are dualistic statements. Whatsoever is really, really valuable is bound to be non-dualistic. In duality, there is suppression, and suppression is suffering.
Questioner: I have felt this for so many years that being total into something makes me very, very happy. It is a very happy world.
Acharya Prashant: You know, happiness and sadness go together.
Questioner: Oh damn!
