Maya’s Power is Yours: Release the Handbrake and Drive Forward

Acharya Prashant: Māyā is only as powerful as you want it to be.

You are not being puppeted by Māyā ; Māyā depends totally on you for her sustenance. If you ever find her dominating you, you must know that this is what you have wanted.

Never forget your essential reality beyond your immediate fact. You are really all-powerful, though that is not testified by the way you live, eat, breathe, act, decide, think. We live lives of helpless compulsiveness. Looking at the way we exist, it becomes impossible to believe that we are omnipotent, but that indeed is our essential reality, which means we really can never be puppets; which means whatever is happening to us is with our due consent. Unless you acknowledge this, there can be no remembrance of your true Self. If you will remain insistent that you are struggling, defeated, limited, forced, then your belief will become your false destiny.

Spirituality consists of no instrument for your welfare other than your own realization. Does spirituality involve the use of muscles or machines? Even the use of intellect is useful only till a point in the spiritual process. Finally, the only instrument that helps and works is your acknowledgment, your own power.

The fellow is sitting in the car on the driver’s seat having pulled the handbrake with the maximum power he can, and he is begging all and sundry to push the car from behind. So, one fellow comes and he is asked, “Sir, who are you?”

He says, “My name is Yoga.”

“Sir, my car is stuck. Can you push it a little?”

So, Yoga goes and starts trying. A lady arrives. Quite devoted she appears, beautiful and athletic. “Ma’am, who are you?”

“I am Bhakti.”

“Can you assist a little? Just lend a hand.”

A wrestler, having built himself through sustained action over maybe many decades, comes. All muscles—100 kg, 6'5''. “What’s your name, sir?”

“I am Karma.”

“Sir, you are most well-placed to help me out. Kindly push this car.”

Then a somber-looking meditative fellow comes over. “What’s your name?”

“I am Jñāna Prasad.”

“Prasad Sir, can you join the other three?”

One fellow comes madly dancing. “What’s your name?”

“I am Tantra Singh.”

“Sir, can you just put your clothes together for a while and help those gentle souls in the behind? Remember you have to push the car.” He too joins them.

All this while, our man in the driver’s seat is doing just one thing—ensuring that the handbrake remains firm and tight.

Spirituality, therefore, is about addressing your intention; at least that’s how I have always looked at spirituality. Bhakti , karma , jñāna , yoga , tantra , mantra , *japa*—who will help you when you are in the driver’s seat? When the handbrake is in your hand, who will help you? Do you want to be helped? They all may together keep pushing, but the vehicle won’t move an inch. Not only that, if one of them starts to succeed, you may get anxious and angry and decide to run the vehicle in the reverse gear. You will find all four-five of them running helter-skelter. They were pushing you forward, and you actually decided to run in the reverse!

Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/your-liberation-depends-on-you-just-as-your-bondages-do-on-ashtavakra-gita-1_d99796d

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