Sir, I Feel Addicted to You

Acharya Prashant

10 min
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Sir, I Feel Addicted to You
The ego seeks security from the world and even when it comes to the truth, it still wants to somehow uphold its security. It is all right if one wants to guarantee one's security against the world. But when it comes to truth and beauty, that's when one should just drop the defenses. It is all right to be immersed. It is all right even to be drowned. It is all right even to die. What is the point in conserving something that is anyway imperfect? This summary has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation

Questioner: I've been watching you a lot these days. I've been binge watching you. Like on Netflix, YouTube videos, all the sessions Both Pratyusha, Vedant Samita and my husband was even joking the other day about how in our childhood our parents used to play Astha channel, you keep him playing in the background these days.

And I know it's because I want to gain that knowledge, we all have problems in life and your videos provide comfort to me. But at the same time, I don't want to make you my entertainment. That just feels wrong. The objective should be gaining the knowledge, applying it in my life, making it better and maybe someday making, you know, other lives better by using that.

So, how do I strike this balance between my mind enjoying this too much and reveling in it versus actually sitting down in a disciplined environment and learning from it? I feel as if I'm addicted to you. I don't want that.

Acharya Prashant: It's a delicate thing. It's a. I'll share with you how it's been with me whenever I have found the right company over the last four decades, comprising of the time, I have been conscious enough to understand something. Whenever I have found something right, something nice, something beautiful, something auspicious, I have never cared for any kind of balance. In fact, I have totally allowed myself to be drowned, to drench, to sink, to fall. I have not bothered to retain any kind of control of myself.

If the thing wants to take me in totally, if it wants to consume me fully, I have been, you could say, carefree enough or loving enough or bold enough to let that happen. The thing is if that which is compelling me so much towards itself is really right, then it will progressively make itself, what should I say, redundant for me. I trust that or that book that much, let me go to it and let me go to it fully. And when it has given me the most that it can, then it will set me free of everything including itself. It will say now that you have learned most of it, go out, act as my ambassador and spread the light. The thing is that light cannot be spread before I have it. And I cannot have it if I hold myself away from the source of light. If I hold reservations, if I am caring for self-preservation and I say, I will necessarily maintain some kind of little distance between myself and the source. If that little distance is maintained, then the light will remain where it is and I will remain a mere recipient of the light.

You know how it works between two candles. Even if there is a little distance, the second candle will remain a mere receiver of light. It will not be set alight itself. It has to go to the lit candle without any reservations. And once both the candles are a flame, there remains no point in them remaining together anymore. Then it becomes very obvious, very sensible for the two candles to pursue two different spheres of darknesses. No, there is so much darkness around. If there are so many candles, what are they doing? Just aggregating together. One has to be very, very bold in these matters.

The ego seeks security from the world and even when it comes to the truth, it still wants to somehow uphold its security. It is all right if one wants to guarantee one's security against the world. But when it comes to truth and beauty, that's when one should just drop the defenses. It is all right to be immersed. It is all right even to be drowned. It is all right even to die. What is the point in conserving something that is anyway imperfect?

If there is a rare chance at gaining perfection, why waste it away in one's fears? And my own experience has been that I have never been harmed by truth and beauty. And I've also never been held captive by them. The truth is not there to enslave us. It is there to set us free. If you go very close to the truth, even if you go very, very intimate, it is the truth that will kick you away. The truth will say now that you have me, what are you doing here clinging to me? Now go out, go away and radiate to the world what you have gained. So that kind of bondage which we apprehend is not possible. But yes, that kind of bondage is very much possible. If you go to something that is insecure in itself and wants to own you, cling to you or possess you for the sake of its own security.

So that much care you must always ensure that if you're going to a book or to something or watching a video, you have to ask yourself is this for the author's good or mine own? If you are going to someone who is still worried about his own welfare or security, or whatever, that fellow will never set you free. That is what is called possessiveness. That is what is slavery and bondage. But if you feel honestly assured that the more you read, the more you immerse, the more your bondages are dropping, then don't hold yourself back.

It will be a great mistake to prevent the auspicious from happening. And when it happens, remember, truth is like a tyrant. It does not brook nonsense. It does not tolerate a competitor. When the truth comes, I have experienced, it's like complete ownership of the one thing over your entire life. There have been phases of craziness. You are immersed in a book and you can't sleep. The entire night you are just with that one book. Even in my office I found myself reading the book. That book made me super efficient in the office. I would wind up everything in two- three hours flat just so that I can go to the office library or to the office canteen or even to the lavatory and continue to read there. I fondly remember those phases. Huh? I wish we all pass through those. That's what should be rightly called as love. Not the very ordinary thing that we experience and label as love. Love is when your consciousness is totally besotted with something sublime. Let it happen and then don't be afraid of it.

So it's a good problem to have. I can continue this addiction of mine. Then if the object is good, the object will not allow you to remain addicted. That's the thing with the right teacher. The teacher liberates you from everything including the teacher. Right? A point comes when the teacher makes himself just a friend. So the teacher is gone. The teacher then turns into a comrade. So if the teacher is obsessed with keeping himself, If necessary, then the teacher himself is quite insecure. The teacher wants the student to graduate as quickly as possible and not remain a student all the while.

So don't worry too much about that. If you are a good student that only means that you will graduate very quickly from the school. So don't worry that the school will hold you prisoner. The opposite is true. If you are a good student, if you're always immersed in the library, that means you'll be very soon out of the library. The school will say, "Please go. You're not allowed to attend classes anymore. You have now graduated. Go out." Or if you want to stay in the school, come join us. Become a teacher or become a librarian, whatever.

Questioner: So, you also mentioned, you know, a thing compelling you too much. Sometimes some people call it their calling. And I've often wondered, do I go looking for this calling or it'll come to me sometime? Because as of today, I don't have any burning desire in me to give my all into some higher cause. I try but I keep drifting among different causes and that feeling inside is not there yet. So, how do I cultivate that?

Acharya Prashant: You have to first of all, know the facts. You have to be in touch with at least the factual reality if not the higher reality. Take two contrasting examples. You are in a burning house. How will you know that you must immediately swing into action? First of all, your senses must be alert. If you can neither feel heat nor see the flames, then you will say, you know, what am I supposed to do in life. I'm just lounging on this chair. There is nothing to do whereas the fact is that there's a lot to do.

Now this example is from the scary side. Take a contrasting example from the side of beauty. There is something extremely enticing, something of immense beauty but you are snoring next to it. How will something compelling happen to you? Even for beauty to entice you, even for beauty to make you act, you must, first of all, know clearly what's going on. So does calling come to you or do you find a calling? Both of these things, it's like grace. You cannot control it. At the same time, you will not receive it unless you have cleared the barriers. Your sleep is the barrier. So know, know a lot.

Waking up means being conscious. You have to know what is going on both outside and within yourself. And then you will know what is worthy of being done in this world. When you say calling, you are asking for something to do in this world, right? In this world, how will you know what to do in the world if you do not know what the world is all about? So, you have to know the world, you also have to know yourself. And from that arises clarity about what to do in life. Oh, when both of these are known, the situation of the world and the relationship that I have with the world, when these both are known, then it is very, very clear what one must spend his life doing.

Questioner: Thank you sir.

Acharya Prashant: Welcome.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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