Rising Strong, Defeating Overthinking
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji.
Acharya Prashant: Welcome
Questioner: Acharya Ji, I’ve been listening to you more than an year now and my life has been upside down because I was in a depression and then I recovered it. And I’m with peace because things which were destroyed, they must have been destroyed even before. But I’m now trying to rebuild myself and come back. But I’m so consumed in overthinking and I have a lot of inertia. So, I just wanted your point of view to help me unstuck or go faster.
Acharya Prashant: See, if you are stuck that is the situation. One can only know the situation one is in and there is no definite rule that going faster is definitely better than being stuck. If I’m rushing, I must know the whole equation around it, the entire process of rushing. And if I’m stuck, I must also know the two sides that are evenly balanced and I’m unable to take a decision. Being stuck, in itself, is not a problem. No situation, in itself, is a problem.
The problem lies not in any specific kind of situation but in not knowing the situation. What we call as a bad situation is bad only if we do not really know what the situation is. If what we call as a good situation is a very bad situation, if we do not understand where our concept of goodness is coming from.
So, when you are stuck ask yourself what are the tensions playing on my mind? This tug of war, which are these two parties, can I name them? Can I see their faces? Something is pulling me to the left, somebody is pulling me to the right. Who are they? Can I unmask them? That’s what you need to know.
You don’t need to feel hurried, you don’t need to feel bad that you are stuck. There is no need to be always in movement. In fact, right movement comes not from the desire to move but from an understanding of what is. So, just try to see what’s going on, what’s going on and it’s both relieving and amusing. And it cannot be relieving unless it is amusing. You will be entertained when you will see what is it that holds you, arrests you, confines you or pressurizes you. And one is never pressurized from one side alone. There is somebody here saying, “Come on do this,” some other vector is acting on you from somewhere else, “No, no no don’ t you dare try that.” Somebody from behind whispering into your ears, “See both of these are idiots, come my way.”
So, find these chaps out. Who are they? Where did they come from? Were they always there? When were they introduced to your mind? The more you know them, the more you become free of them.
Questioner: Yeah. Actually, I took on a challenge. It was; I think going on for three years or more, and it was much bigger than what I had anticipated at the start. But it was the right challenge and it broke me into many, many pieces and that’s when I started Bhagavad Gita with you. Otherwise, I would have died, this was sure. So, I think this really helped. I understood that that path was wrong. So, now it doesn’t hurt because I’ve left the path but where I feel hurt is because I think that I have a lot of potential and I don’t know why I’m waiting to get it be manifested.
And there were a lot of fears I had, which I dissolved but I think that there’s still a layer of fears or inhibitions because I also failed along the way. The challenge I was standing up was almost quite big, so I did fail and that also is giving me inertia sometimes I feel.
Acharya Prashant: No, taking up great challenges is always a great thing. I always say that unless you have a great war to fight, you will never come to the Gita.
Questioner: Yeah
Acharya Prashant: That’ s why it’s very important to play true to your conviction. The really shrewd ones are those who stand in opposition to the truth but never disclose their stand. I say, “If you, even if you are opposed to the truth now, come on, enact and live out the consequences of your position and that will bring you to the Gita.”
So, it has been always seen, it’s a historical fact that those who have made great attempts, heartful attempts even if in, let’s say, unwise directions, have been relatively quicker in coming to the truth because they at least tested their hypothesis out. They said, “There is this that I want to do.” And that which you want to do might not make sense. But you realize that, in retrospect, at that time, it made all the sense but you tried it out and that’s called living up to your convictions. You tried it out and that will bring you to the Gita. That’s the first part.
And the second thing that you said that still prevents you from doing the right thing, you’re still waiting, the memory of the loss or the failure is still a kind of deterrent. You probably might have had personal experiences with such people. If not then you would have seen them somewhere in literature or fiction. There are people you argue with and when their argument is totally defeated, they still don’t give up, they just keep murmuring something. Do you know of such people? Do you know of them?
The person is totally gone. His argument is shredded but he is still just randomly blabbering, “Blah blah blah blah,” something. Not prepared to give up. What do you do? You wait for him to surrender or do you move on?
Questioner: Move on.
Acharya Prashant: That’s it. You must know that his argument holds no merit anymore. It’s just that the fellow is too obstinate to accept his defeat, so he’ll keep saying, “No, no, no.” Like a batsman whose middle stump has been uprooted but he says, “I still need to face at least ten more deliveries. You see how can you just, you know, ask me to walk back.” And he won’t walk back. He’ll be carried back.
I know of many such people. Irrespective of how clearly you prove to them that they are losers, they are still very confident within themselves. What do you do? You stop proving anything to them anymore, you just walk past them. You say, “Sir I’m done with you, nothing can be proven to you.” Such people do not live merely outside of us, they also live within us, in our own name, face and form and they keep resenting. You might have the noblest intention but this doppelganger within you will keep murmuring something as if he still has a valid point, as if he still deserves to be heard.
Hear him out as long as there is some weight in her arguments. If there is some weight in the arguments of this inner lady, hear her out but once you are reasonably certain that there’s no more weight in what she’s saying and now she’s just muttering something for the sake of it, it’s time to stop listening. It’s time to just do what you need to do. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to dive into the beautiful stream flowing underneath. You’re standing there ready to dive and what is the inner lady still muttering?
Everything is done to come to that place, you have traveled as much as you needed to, you are wearing the right outfit, you have made all the preparations, everything has been done. The temperatures are right, there is no obvious danger. The stream is beautiful and you know how to swim. Still the inner lady is saying, “blah blah blah blah…it is not good.” “But why are you saying it is not good?” “No, it is just not good, blah blah blah blah. I don’t like this, this is not good, this is not fair, blah blah blah.” Something. What do you do with this inner one? Let her keep saying what she has to. You close your eyes and just jump.
This is the worst thing that we can do to ourselves to be that lady. The next worst thing is to listen to that lady. Unfortunately, we are both — we are the ones who utter nonsense knowing fully well that the nonsense carries no merit, that the nonsense is emanating only from fear, inhibition, greed. Still, we stick to our guns, still we don’t give up, still we don't honestly surrender and say, “I’ m wrong.” And we said the next worst thing is to listen to such a person. Don’t listen, do what you have to, they will never stop barking.
If you will wait for complete inner silence, you will have to infinitely wait. And that is one mistake that most of us make, we say, “You know I’m not yet 100% certain.”
You will never be 100% certain. If you’re 99% certain, 1% uncertain and you decide not to move, whom are you favoring — the 99% or the 1%? Why are you so biased? Why do you favor the 1%? If you are 99% certain, 1% not certain, then move. That 1% cannot be allowed to cast a veto on the rights of the 99%. Can you give one person the veto to stop the 99 from doing what they want to? That veto cannot be given. But we give that veto. We say, “You know there are still some doubts.” Why don't we instead say, “You know, there is a lot of clarity and only some doubts. There is a lot of clarity and only some doubts.”
If you will say, “I’ll wait for the sky to be absolutely cloudless before I fly,” you will never fly. Obviously, you don’t want to fly in turbulent weather, you don’t want to fly when the clouds are thick and heavy and lightning rages around. You don’t want to fly then, but also you cannot impose this very tight condition that you will fly only when there are absolutely no clouds. You’ll never fly. So, let there be that slight inhibition or resentment within, you proceed to do what you must. Don’t listen to the naysayers, don’t listen to the cynics within or without. Doesn’t matter.
There is this beautiful excerpt. It’s either from Lust for Life or The Agony and the Ecstasy — one of his two works, Irving Stone. No, I’m sure it’s from Lust for life. So, the young Vincent asks Rembrandt, “How is a young man to be sure sir?” This one is coming up as a painter, so he asks him. I might be missing the context or the characters. You fill in the blanks wherever I am missing them but this is the theme of what I very impactfully remember. So, this one asks him, “How is a young man to be sure in life?” And the teacher or the adviser or the senior friend, he responds, “You can never be fully sure, you can never be fully sure. There would always be an iota of doubt but you have to proceed to do what you believe to be right. If you wait for absolute clarity, you are just denying your own potential.”
Never wait for absolute clarity. It’s never going to come. What in life can be absolute? Nothing
Questioner: Thank you sir.
Acharya Prashant: Welcome.
