Are We Trapped by Romanticized Illusions?

Questioner: Hello, sir. I am Saket. I am doing my master's in CS now.

So, basically, my question was that we generally exaggerate and romanticize many things, like love in Bollywood. It is shown as something beyond human understanding, etc., etc. But in real life, if you see, hormones also play a great role in that, and probability also plays a great role in that. So, when you see things in a very rational way, things seem very dry and very random. Things don't seem to have a point. So, how to deal with this? How can I deal with this without believing something which is, like, deceiving?

Acharya Prashant: The problem is that belief, dreams, and delusions are juicy, but reality is dry. Is reality dry actually?

Questioner: I think so, I mean, everything seems so random.

Acharya Prashant: How does randomness translate into dryness?

Questioner: The thing is, if you believe in, let's say, God or something, you feel that—right, I have some purpose. I am in this world because of some reason. But if you just question that, there's a chance that you are in this world because of some accident. Maybe there's no point of creation—that's a possibility.

After knowing it, I mean, how to come to terms with that?

Acharya Prashant: You don't have to come to terms with anything. That is the fact. That is the fact. Yes, all of us are here randomly. That's true. There's no need to come to terms with it—it's not a traumatic event. It is the fundamental reality. But how does that make things dry? I'm interested in that.

Questioner: Well, the thing is, we always think that there is some purpose, some greater purpose, XYZ.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, the purpose is to rid yourself of delusions. In fact, tell me—if God made you, how does that supply you with a purpose?

Questioner: Well, we know that somebody made us, so even if after we die, we'll go to Him. So there's some certainty there.

Acharya Prashant: You can imagine four or five other juicier stories. How will that give you a purpose? Life will keep telling you that all your stories are nonsense. Life has a way of bringing you back to reality. No, you can—I can keep imagining, you know. Ahead of me is a flower bed, ahead of me is a flower bed, ahead of me..." (Blasts sound.)

And then the bleeding nose will tell me that I was just being stupid. So, there is no point in living in fantasies. Facts have to be seen and respected.

But again, that dry thing—I want to just understand, you see.

Something happens. Something happens. How is that happening really dry? What is this dryness? How do we define this dryness?

Questioner: Well, like, if you believe in the Bollywood version or a very romantic form of love, it just feels... I mean, it sort of feels very amazing.

Acharya Prashant: No, it doesn't feel amazing. It feels amazing only when you are unconscious. When you are conscious, it feels nauseating. Feels nauseating. How do you feel today looking at the 80s and 90s mainstream Hindi flicks? I'm talking about the romantic ones.

How do you feel today, huh?

Cringe.

Because, as a generation, you are actually much more conscious today. You look at them, and you say, "What, what—what shit is this?" Especially when the girls look at those flicks, they are angered by the portrayal of women.

But if you have someone who is still in the 80s–90s mindset, he might still go gooey looking at those, you know—"Ah, great romance, great romance."

It's not that those stories, those pictures, those movies, ideas, or imaginations are inherently juicy. They are made juicy by your unconscious mind. The more unconscious you are, the more these things will attract you. And the more liberated you are, the more open you are, the more you will say, "No, there's nothing in it. Keep it away."

Today, you use scenes, parts from those movies as comic material—as memes, don't you? Don't you?

In their times, those things were taken very seriously—"Oh, this is real romance!"

What kind of romance?

So, it's not that certain things are inherently appealing to the mind. It's just that depending on the level of the mind, one thing appeals versus the other thing that appeals.

When you are drunk, one thing will appeal to you. You might feel like throwing the same thing away once you are sober. Don't be so drunk. Reality is very juicy. Don't worry. There is nothing more fascinating than the truth.

Go ask that to those who have dedicated their lives to the service of truth—exploration, discoveries. How dare we say that they had had dry lives, huh?

Go to Einstein and hear him playing the piano. Is he a dry man? Or closer home—go to a Bhabha, see him painting something, see him at music. Is that really dry?

It's a very, very dangerous notion if you say—"You know, all the fun, all the pinkness, all the tenderness lies in stupid kind of notions. And everything that is conscious, elevated, sublime—is dry." It's very dangerous and you are becoming a victim of the propaganda of the juice sellers.

Ever seen how they portray teachers, especially in Indian movies? See how they portray them—as caricatures, buffoons, people you can laugh at. Can you think of a few such characters?

Because teachers are associated with knowledge. And if you have knowledge, then you will lampoon that movie. Please, please understand the conspiracy.

Teachers are associated with knowledge, but that movie can gather 500 crores only when you do not have knowledge. So, knowledge is dangerous to the commercial success of that movie. If people become knowledgeable, that movie will flop.

So, it’s some kind of filmmaker’s revenge on knowledge that he will show the scientist or the teacher in a very unfair way. The scientist, for example, will be shown with all his hair erect—"He has been thinking so much that he has gone either bald or his hair stands erect on his head!" And the teacher is always eccentric. Eccentric, forgetful, idiotic actually; doing something this way, that way.

And the students are smart studs—because they don't have knowledge. So, if you don’t have knowledge, you are a stud. If you have knowledge, you are a fool.

That kind of depiction, that kind of propaganda—you have become a victim of it. So, you are thinking that the life of facts, of knowing, of discovery—is a dry life. No. It is not a dry life. Come on.

And if that is a dry life, then what we are saying is that all the juice belongs to the lives of animals. Animals are all the time doing what they show in the movies, no?

In the movies, it appears so juicy to you if someone takes off a few of her clothes. Animals never wear any clothes. Constant juice. Unending. In movies, you find it juicy if someone doesn’t have to study. Animals never have to study. A juicy life.

So, basically, you are asking for an animalistic life in the name of juice. You are saying there should be no intelligence—only emotions. And that is juice?

Animals have no intelligence. They have only emotions. So, the pigs and the crows have the juiciest lives because they have no intelligence at all—only emotions.

What do animals operate on? They don’t operate on IQ. They operate only on their instincts. You want that kind of life? But I'm terrified by the power of propaganda. See what they have put in our minds, and if this remains in our minds, it will be very difficult to develop academically, intellectually, scientifically, artistically, or spiritually.

Facts are fun, but we have been told stupidity is fun. No, intelligence is great fun. Intelligence is great fun, but when you want to have fun, you deliberately act stupid, don't you? And the fellow who cannot act stupid will be taken as a fun hater. Why because he cannot act stupid.

So, even those who are actually not having any fun, if they want to have social acceptance, they act like clowns so that they can demonstrate that they, too, are having fun. Have you seen how it happens in your parties? 80% of the crowd isn't drunk at all, still, they are behaving as if they are drunk.

Because if they show that they are neither drunk nor do they enjoy being drunk, they will be ostracized. You will say, "Oh my God, he's a dry fellow, he's a dry fellow."

I start narrating stupid jokes to you. Would that be juicy, huh? In response to your question, I gave you some kind of an idiotic reply and said, "Ha-ha." You would find that juicy? What is this terrible definition of juice?

Let me take you back to the classics—the Upanishads. They say Raso Vai Sah. When they refer to the truth, they say the truth is juice itself. All the juice lies in the truth. Juice does not lie in stupidity, falseness, or delusions. Juice lies in the truth.

I'm all for fun. Avoid cheap fun. Pay the maximum price, and then you will know what fun or pleasure are. Exert yourself to the maximum. If you can run for 5 km, run for 8 km. And then, when you sit down, you will say, "Good fun!" Now, that's fun. You could run only for 5 km, you ran for 8, and then you say, "Yes, good fun."

Drenched in sweat, possibly even in a bit of blood, you say, "Good fun." That's fun. Fun that you have paid the price for.

Every cell of your body is saying, "Come on, let's go to sleep, come on, let's go to sleep." You don't want to go to sleep. You have something to do, something—anything. You want to complete a book, you have an assignment, you have an exam, or you just want to be awake. No reason at all.

And then, after long hours, you find the twilight breaking, and suddenly, some birds are chirping. With your body breaking down, you say, "Good fun." That's fun. Fun that you have paid for. Fun that is legitimate. Fun that you're not stealing. Fun that you own.

Doesn't sound juicy? I speak on behalf of all those who have been the jewels of humanity and yet have been terribly wronged by us. We might respect them, but we never love them. Our love is something that belongs to all the idiots, necessarily. I love the scientist, uh, I respect the scientist, but love the dog.

What is this dichotomy between respect and love? Why can't you love the one you respect? And if you can't love the one you respect, what does that tell you about your love and your respect?

Questioner: I'll give you an anecdote. Maybe my choice of wording was wrong. So, my Jija, unfortunately, he passed away. So, my mama and maami, they both were, of course, very sad. My maami believes in God, my mama doesn't.

The time which my maami took to recover from that was way faster. She felt one random day that maybe the goddess took him from me because he would be in a better place. My mama doesn't believe, so in this aspect, what I have seen is that she believed a story. She believed a romantic version of God, and she came out of it quite quicker than my mama.

So, my main point was that.

Acharya Prashant: Sorry, this is the floor, huh? Literally, the bottom. Actually, the rock bottom, there are some rock pieces here, right? If the gentleman here falls, how long will it take to recover? And compared to him, if I fall, I'll take longer to recover, right?

Questioner: Right.

Acharya Prashant: But to ensure this quick recovery, he will always have to sit right at the bottom. If you are anyway always living in a state of consciousness that's full of suffering, then more suffering doesn't hurt you that much.

Even suffering is some kind of displacement. You have to be, first of all, joyful in the initial sense to suffer later on. If I am never joyful, how can I suffer? If I'm never joyful, how can I suffer? If I am sitting so low, it will take me no time to recover. Are you getting it? But that's too big a price to pay. It's a very, very known thing, please understand.

If you want to avoid suffering, stay in imaginations. That is why the exploration of truth is such a difficult thing. If this be the Axis of Consciousness—you know where the minimum suffering is.

Let's say there is this vertical Y-axis of consciousness, huh? How much I understand, how much I really see, how much am I in touch with the truth—that's Consciousness. Where on this axis is the minimum suffering? Right at the bottom.

Therefore, people, in order to avoid suffering, stay right at the bottom of consciousness. But I'm saying that's too big a price to pay. That's why people avoid facts. That's why when you start talking reality to people, they quickly say, "Let's change the topic." Have you seen that?

You start talking to people, and they get afraid. They say, "Please, please change the topic." Because they exist at the bottom most level of Consciousness, and there is very little suffering there. When you are exactly at the zero level, there is no consciousness. You are inanimate. You are material. Do you suffer then? When you fall, do your shoes suffer? No, because they are inanimate. They have zero consciousness. If you have zero consciousness, you will not suffer. And some people are so afraid of suffering that they reduce their Consciousness to zero. But if you reduce your consciousness to zero, you have also reduced your life to zero. Because life is consciousness.

Are you seeing this? So, I can live in all kinds of fantasies, and the more you live in fantasies and stories and imaginations, the lower your consciousness is. Your suffering might actually be lower, but that would also mean that you're not alive at all.

To students like you—it was like 12 years back, I once delivered a lecture, and it was titled "Awakening Begins with Suffering." Might be there on YouTube—Awakening Begins with Suffering. And therefore, most people do not want to awaken, because if you awaken, you will suffer more. Lying at the bottom here, there is very little suffering. The more you awaken, the more you rise, the more you suffer.

Greatness lies in willingly embracing this suffering. It is for cowards and idiots to say, "I don't want to suffer; therefore, I don't want to be conscious." I willingly want to embrace suffering.

Questioner: Good evening, sir. Sir, my question is a follow-up to this question. You said that as consciousness rises, more and more suffering also rises. So, would not there be a limit to this? Like when you would be at the highest consciousness…

Acharya Prashant: The curve has an inflection point. It's not as if suffering would keep rising infinitely. It rises and then falls, peaks, and then subsides.

Questioner: What is that highest Consciousness when there is an inflection point? And beyond which, it begins to fall down? And at what point does it fall down to completely zero?

Acharya Prashant: The point of inflection?

Questioner: The point of inflection also? And also, at what point does it completely fall down to zero but the consciousness is…

Acharya Prashant: That you don't have to think of. That’s the final point. But the point of inflection is when you stop resisting the suffering. It's in your hands. It's not an objective coordinate. It is a choice that you make.

When you start feeling comfortable with your suffering, your suffering starts to drop. That's the point of inflection. The more you keep thinking, "Oh, you know, I don't like this. Why do I have to pay such a high price for living honestly? No, no, no. When will this end? It is just an examination. When will the vacations begin?" Fall in love with the examinations. The examinations will no more be a big deal.

You have to allow yourself to embrace anything for the sake of honesty. And then it's your resistance that becomes your suffering. Now, when you are no more resisting it, it's no more suffering. Acknowledge it, accept it, surrender to it as early as possible, and you will get the inflection.

Also, if the point of inflection doesn't come, then the suffering will keep rising, which means you will crack. You're not built to take infinite suffering. At some point, you will simply crumble.

Therefore, the point when you say, "This is my life. I have chosen it. I'm all right with it," that point should come as early as possible.

See, it's like this: One gets fat when deciding to start running in the morning, and that's painful. The body is not designed for that, or the body has not come to a point where it cannot take that. The more you keep telling yourself, "Oh, this is paining. This is aching, my knees. What do I do with it? Everything. I don't want to get up. And, you know, the entire day I feel sleepy."

The more you keep telling yourself these things, the more difficult it will be the next morning for you. Simply tell yourself, "This is life. This is life, and I have chosen it." Now, there's no looking back. There is no other world. There is no other life. This is my life. I've consciously chosen it, and I'm not going back. Once you acknowledge it fully, the suffering drops. Complete admission. Jab select kar hi liya hai, to ab rona kya hai.

Is there a point? Will those tears help you now?

Simply get on with it. The game is on. What we are saying, actually, is all suffering is more or less about cribbing. Stop cribbing, and the suffering drops. The more you crib, the more the suffering continues. Just stop cribbing, make the right choice, and then be settled with it. Keep paying the price. The choice has been made; the price will have to be paid. I can't crib now. Cribbing is dishonesty.

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