Pay the Price Before It Is Too Late
Questioner: Pranam Acharya ji. My name is Abhishek. I've been a student of Gita Samagam now for the last 10 months. Before being a part of Gita Samagam, I used to work in the IT industry and I left my job there and I came to prepare for UPSC civil services at that time. But in these last 10 months, I have understood something.
I thought I can make a good career or I'll be doing good things in civil services. That's why I dropped my job in corporate and came to this preparation. Now, after being a student, I understand this is not why I actually wanted the exam, but at the same time my inner being is constantly attracted towards you. It goes on saying that I'll be missing out on something if I don't come close to you for your teachings, for the foundation, etc.
So this one thing I know for sure is that I need to know more. I don't know much, and whatever I have been till now is not what I want to be in the future. My reactions, my choices, everything seems like it's a flow and I'm just flowing. That's how I chose my graduation. That's how I chose my job. That's how now I'm in the preparation of civil services at 25.
So what is this? It again hits me that you are doing it wrong. You are doing something wrong. You have to go somewhere else. This is not the place I should be right now. So is this just another flow or is this something that I have understood and want to direct my life towards? I'm not able to understand this.
Acharya Prashant: You see, people are finding newer ways to apply for a position in PAF (PrashantAdvait Foundation). This is his video CV, HR. A novel way of applying. What can I say in all this? Your life, your choice. When exactly and how do you want me to help you?
Questioner: So, Acharya Ji, this is a feeling to me. This is something I'm experiencing right now. But the similar kind of things I've done in the past. But this time I know for sure that I want to go and enhance the knowledge part of mine and do some work and understand it more from your teachings. But I just want from you that this is not something, I'm again fooling myself about.
Acharya Prashant: There are no guarantees. Nobody gave me a guarantee and I'm not going to give a guarantee to anybody.
Questioner: Acharya Ji, I'm not asking for a guarantee of the future. I'm asking, 'Is this something I really understand?'
Acharya Prashant: How do I know? And if you don't understand, what is the assurance that you will understand what I say next? Everything is anyway on you.
Questioner: So then how do I identify myself?
Acharya Prashant: That I have spoken of so many times. You look at your thoughts, deeds, feelings, motives, relationships, hopes, memories. You must come to what you want to exactly ask.
Questioner: I will put it another way. So when I joined this preparation, I thought, "This is the work I would like to do or I would be interested in doing." As you say, “You should have a purpose, a work that you think you should be able to do, or you regard as most important, or you have a skill in.” So now, if I change it completely to a different path, how should I recognize it, if I want to build around it or not.
Acharya Prashant: Recognize what?
Questioner: Recognize the work. Ye karna hai ki nahi karna hai mujhe?
Acharya Prashant: Am I a soothsayer or something? Where is the question coming from? The question is coming from the fear of uncertainty. You want an assurance, some kind of guarantee in advance. And assurance is needed only when there is something to secure. Assurance and security.
I'm asking you now, "What is it that you want to secure?"
Questioner: Maybe I'm trying to secure a future for myself.
Acharya Prashant: There was somebody you were trying to please via an IT job. Now that same thing you are trying to please through a government job, and now that same thing says, "Let's go on to something higher." So you're talking to me. But irrespective of all these changes, it is the same entity that is dictating your thoughts, deeds, questions, whatever.
Questioner: That entity is me?
Acharya Prashant: Why would you want to secure somebody else? That entity is you, unfortunately, because that entity is not you.
Questioner: The Ego.
Acharya Prashant: Theoretically.
Questioner: So a perception that I have built about myself, I'm trying to secure that perception.
Acharya Prashant: Obviously, you have something that you want to defend, and you do not know whether you would be able to defend that if you take another route. Please understand this. It's not really a practical obligation to do something massive in life. Most people do not do that and yet, on average, live to the age of 80. That's how it is the world over. Nobody does anything great or colossal, and yet people live, you know, on average, kind of happy lives. So you're not obliged, practically, to be great. It's like speeding. Yes, you must speed. But then, as you speed, you have to keep dropping your mass.
You can speed up to match the velocity of light. You can do that. But you'll have to keep dropping mass. You cannot hold on to mass and yet speed up and then say, "You know, I love the ones who became light." If you want to become light, then you'll have to have zero mass.
What people want is the best of both worlds. That becomes the worst of both worlds. Trying to ride two boats at a time. You don't want to give up on what you have accumulated as me, but you also want to be faster than light. That's not happening. That won't happen. Keep dropping stuff. Keep speeding up. Depends on how much you are enthralled by light. It's a love affair.
You saw how I kept rejecting you. You probably didn't even realize what you were doing was some kind of wooing. What I said was a job application was actually a proposal, not even an application. And like a beautiful woman, I just said, "No guarantees, no assurances. If you can drop everything, come over, else it's fine already. I don't want you. If you want me, then you make whatever changes are needed." Depends on the intensity of your love.
And you're not obliged to love. There are so many people leading so-called normal lives, and they are all right. No sir, don't leave your job. You continue whatever you are doing. Yes. You know, some people come up and very smartly they allege, they say, "You know, if everybody gets out of their meaningless jobs, then how will your foundation run? "Who will donate or finance?"
Sir, the day everybody is out of their meaningless jobs and loveless life, why will this foundation exist?
The world would have become this foundation. There would be nobody we would exist for. Everybody would be the foundation then. So in that sense, the foundation would have reached its purpose. So you take up a good job. You like us, right?
Question: More than like, sir.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes.
Questioner: Sir, you're attracting me enough right now. You will attract me more.
Acharya Prashant: I'm rejecting you. We also know how to act pricey.
Questioner: Then also tell me the ways.
Acharya Prashant: Why should I do anything? I have nothing at stake. You figure out. You know, the punishment?
One day you will want to come to me. All these years I have chased you with all my energy. All my life I have chased you. Your punishment will be that one day you will be desperate to come to me and you will find you can't. A bigger punishment, and this will be on those who have tried to harm me. One day they'll try to help me. They'll want to help me and they'll find they can't. That will be their punishment.
Today we run after you even for simple things like “Fill up a form, complete your registration.” Today we run after you. One day you will run after me and I'll either act pricey or won't be found. Think of the situation, you'll be dying to somehow help me, and you'll find, given the life you have been leading, you cannot help me. I'll extract my revenge.
You think of the right life, the free life, the spiritual life as planned, tasteless, uniform, boring. No? No, it involves great love, great rejections, great revenges, everything happens there. In a much more intense way than in your normal householder's life. So you say, 'You know, I'm leading a worldly life because I want to have fun or because I'm in love.' And one day you will realize where real love lies and where real fun lies and you'll knock at the doors and you won't be permitted. There will be a day you'll realize what you call love in your usual life is not 1% of the real thing.
You don't know what deep separation means. You don't know what total agony means. You live at the periphery of living.
Think of a kid who has at most experienced a little seesaw. And then that kid gets to sit on the largest wheel. What do you call that wheel? There is a particular name for that wheel.
Questioner: Ferris Wheel.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, that's the spiritual life. And this you call as thrilling. This is your thrill (doing up and down like seesaw with hand). Papa ka, mummy ka, This is thrill (like a seesaw). And that is the spiritual life (Ferris Wheel), full of thrill beyond your imagination. There are deep passions involved there. Deep angers. “Deep anger in spirituality! No!” No, all you know is this much of anger (up and down like a seesaw). Come to the skies. You will see what real anger is like.
All you experience is some little sadness, some disappointment. Those who are allowed there, they know what real heartbreaks mean. You do not know what it means to have a broken heart because you don't have a heart. The first time you know you really have a heart is only when it is totally broken.
There's that one. That one by the band called Queen, Freddie Mercury. “I'm traveling at the speed of light. They call me Mr. Fahrenheit."
Sometimes you say, “Oh my god, I have such a hectic schedule.” You don't know what it means to have a hectic schedule. “My god, I have so much responsibility. Jhunnu, Nunnu, and then those two buddies of his, Gadha, Piggy. So much responsibility I have.” You don't know what it means to be responsible for 8 billion and billions of other species. You don't know what it means to have a family. And you call yourself a family man.
The funny part is you sometimes say, “Yeah, what do you know? You don't have a family.” We don't have a family? You don't have a family. All you have is four people. We know what it means to have a family.
Anyway, why should we give you more glimpses of a place that you are not yet admitted to? No more trailers, get lost.
Questioner: Acharya Ji.
Acharya Prashant: No, that's all. Nothing doing.
Questioner: Acharya Ji.
Acharya Prashant: You're still here.
Questioner: I’m not leaving.
Acharya Prashant: What do you want?
Questioner: Closeness to you.
Acharya Prashant: When they'll ask you in the UPSC interview, 'What's the purpose of your life?' You'll tell them serving the world or closeness to Acharya Prashant. Would you? Would you? You won't. You can’t. Prepare well for your exams. This way you will miss out on everything. Prepare well.
