Negate all that’s available to be negated|| Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2021)
Acharya Prashant (AP): The Upanishads have no two things to tell. There are no two truths. There is not even one. So, this is exactly what Śvetāśvatara was saying yesterday. As the spider puts out the web and then takes it in, mythically at least, so does everything arise from that one source and goes back to that one source. All mutations arise from the immutable.
At the center of everything that’s going around is the immovable. What does this mean? This means that if you are to consider something as the source, then please do not consider the movable ones, the mutable ones as the source. The no, the negation is always important, right? So, what is being negated here is to be understood. The movable and the mutable ones are not to be taken as the source, the first or the highest.
Please don’t be so respectful towards these intermediaries, these dwarfs, these perishables. Don’t offer them such high regards. They don’t deserve it. It’s not about disrespecting the stuff around us. It’s not about disrespecting the world. It’s about acknowledging that if you respect these little things too much, then you will be left with no respect to offer to the real thing. If you will allow little stuff to fill up and dominate your life; how will you allow the central seat, the place of respect, the seat of honour to the Real thing? And the Real is a bit pricey, a bit finicky, and immense. The Real won’t accept an inferior seat. The Real is too large to be accommodated in a corner and too pricey to accept a corner. You will have to keep the centre vacant and wait, wait with immense patience, and tireless effort and folded hands, and teary eyes. You will have to wait; not merely wait, I said tireless effort, we are not talking of a passive kind of wait here. Waiting here implies the time taken in clearing up. You have to make space. You don’t just sit and wait. You take time because there is stuff to be done, mess to be cleared.
Why must you accept anything worldly as the source of wellness or goodness? Be a little contemptuous, healthy contempt is what you must have, not the kind of contempt that mocks and derides, but contempt that keeps a little thing in its little place. The contempt that you have for the little thing when it starts acting too big for itself. That’s a kind of contempt you must have towards the world.
