The final help and support || On Advait Vedanta (2019)
Acharya Prashant
ਸੁਖ ਮੈ ਬਹੁ ਸੰਗੀ ਭਏ ਦੁਖ ਮੈ ਸੰਗਿ ਨ ਕੋਇ ॥ ਕਹੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਹਰਿ ਭਜੁ ਮਨਾ ਅੰਤਿ ਸਹਾਈ ਹੋਇ ॥੩੨॥
sukh mai baho sangee bha-ay dukh mai sang na ko-ay kaho naanak har bhaj manaa ant sahaa-ee ho-ay
In good times, there are many companions around, but in bad times, there is no one at all. Says Nanak, vibrate, and meditate on the Lord; He shall be your only Help and Support in the end.
~ Guru Granth Sahib 1428-3/4, Salok Mahala 9-32
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Questioner (Q): Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji is saying:
“Says Nanak, vibrate, and meditate on the Lord; He shall be your only Help and Support in the end.”
It is my tendency to seek help from those who I consider as good and reliable. I want to see the truth of what Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji is saying here, so that I do not seek help from others. When I seek help from others, it usually spoils or strains my relationship, and help does not come my way. How can I see that the only real help would be coming from the Lord?
Acharya Prashant (AP): It depends on what is the quality of help that you call as final. There is help that comes from the world, and there is help that comes from the Lord. Which of these two helps do you more desperately want?
The verse that you are quoting says, “He shall be your only Help and Support in the end.” ‘End’ does not mean a particular moment of death, etc.; ‘end’ means the highest. So, it is being said that the Lord shall be your only and final support.
Now, it depends on you. What is it that you consider as your final support? And what would that depend on? That would depend on what you perceive yourself as. Which kind of help would you value more? That depends on which need do you experience more. Is that not true?
You might have a need for a new kurta (shirt), and you might be needing some water. A fellow comes to you with kurta, a fellow comes to you with water—which of the two would you value more? Depends on which need do you value more. If you value the need for kurta more, then you would be very forthcoming in thanking the one who is bringing the kurta to you. If you feel your thirst deeply, then you will profusely thank the one who is bringing water to you.
So, there is something that the world brings to you and something that the Lord brings to you. You find out which one is your greater need.
Q: My need is to understand what is going on with me in my life in terms of understanding myself. Also, I do not understand what you meant by the ‘highest’. I do not see the Lord there as such, and I do not know where the help would come from.
AP: So, when you say you are looking at your life, your need is to understand your life, essentially you will understand what is it that you lack. Otherwise, there is no need to understand life. Even the need to understand life arises from a discomfort with life, experiencing that there is something odd in life.
So, there is an internal need, and therefore one gathers self-knowledge. What is it that you are needful of? That is to be found out. What is it that you are really needful of? And that which you are really needful of, is it being brought to you by the world or the Lord?
Self-knowledge is, in a way, an understanding of the self’s needs. Some of those needs can surely be fulfilled by the world. But are they your deepest needs? Then what are your deepest needs, and who will meet those needs? So, that is to be found out by looking at life. “What am I looking for?”
Q: A month back I asked a question about numbness and how it affects my life. You gave me a good lesson on self-centeredness and explained that if I am not able to do much for myself, then I should start working for others so totally that I forget myself.
There is one thing I do not understand. ‘I’, the self-centered one, knows only self-centered action. If that is the starting point for helping others, then won’t that too turn out as a subtle selfishness, a kind of a do-gooder thing with gratitude?
AP: It’s okay. It’s not self-centeredness that is problematic. Misplaced self-centeredness is problematic. Incomplete self-centeredness is problematic.
When you say that you are being self-centered, what is it that you are centered on? That which you are calling as the self—do you know it? Know it, and then be self-centered; it is okay. No problem.
In fact, there is actually no option but to be self-centered. Whatever man does, he would always be self-centered. Doesn’t matter whether you are the lowly looter or the highest saint—both are self-centered. It’s just that one knows the self, and the other does not; one operates with a vague conception of the self, the other one sits firmly with total clarity of the self. Nevertheless, self-centeredness is common amongst the two.
So, look at your tendencies. See what is it that you want. If by self-centeredness you mean common selfishness, try being selfish and see whether it fulfills you. Why should we blindly or just moralistically declare that selfishness is bad? Let’s give selfishness a chance, a fair chance. If selfishness can fulfill you, go ahead. If not selfishness, what is it then that would work for you? Surely not selflessness.
If selfishness doesn’t work for you, then go for deeper selfishness, a deeper understanding of the self. Work in your own self-interest, but know at least what the interests of the self are.
Q: There is this quote from you which says, “Seek light, see light, and then be light.” But when I was reading Krishnamurti, I came across a line which said that seeking is a kind of self-expansion and an escape, and you cannot get freedom out of it. So, how to resolve the contradiction between these two statements?
AP: When Krishnamurti is saying seeking is an extension of self-centered activity, he is talking of the stuff that you usually seek. Krishnamurti is not talking to those who seek light. People seek darkness and its various shades. Here are the people, and they are seeking darkness in its various hues and shades. Krishnamurti’s way is to tell them, “Don’t seek.” My way is to tell them, “Seek light,” because people are usually seeking only darkness.
So, Krishnamurti comes and tells them, “Don’t seek.” What he means is, don’t seek darkness. I come and say, “Seek light.” Why do I say “seek light”? Because I know that seeking is a habit with you. If I just keep saying, “Don’t seek, don’t seek,” that would not fulfill you, because in your deepest identity you have taken yourself as incomplete. If you are incomplete in your own eyes, then you will seek. You cannot be prevented or banished from seeking. No amount of good advice is going to work.
In fact, it would be a disaster if you remain inwardly incomplete and yet put on a pretense of not seeking. That is called tamasa (darkness). Inwardly, you continue to take yourself as incomplete, and outwardly, you follow the commandment of not seeking. Now, not only are you incomplete, your incompleteness will also become cemented, it will become immortal. Do you see this?
You are incomplete within, and yet it has become a thing of fashion with you to say, “Oh, I do not seek anything, I do not want anything.” So, you do not change. You do not seek anything, you do not want anything, so there is no change. So, what does not change? The incompleteness within. It becomes permanent.
I say, you will not stop seeking. Seeking will continue. It is your most fundamental restlessness that seeks. You will seek. I cannot prevent you from seeking. And if you don’t seek, you will become a hypocrite. So, I just channelize your seeking. I say, “Seek light.” I do not say, “Don’t seek”; I say, “Seek light.”
But obviously, all of that must be done with a lot of caution. If you start seeking light with a great inclination towards darkness, then your so-called light will just be an extension of darkness. And Krishnamurti has repeatedly emphasized on this. He says, “If you seek light, it would be just another form of darkness,” and he’s right on the money. What he’s saying is exact and precise.
But such is the human condition. On one hand, there is a great danger that if you seek light, you will seek the wrong kind of light, you will just see darkness disguised as light; on the other hand, there is the equally dark option of not seeking at all. Between these two possibilities, I prefer the possibility of seeking light with all its associated dangers. There are a lot of dangers associated with seeking light because the ego does not like light; it will seek some false kind of light. But that is still better than not seeking at all.
Isn’t it better to die fighting in the battle than not fight at all?