The Secrets of the World
Acharya Prashant: The questioner says, “Sir, Swami Vivekananda has said – The World is ready to give up its secrets if only we know how to knock. How to give it the necessary blow?” So the question is, what kind of blow must we give to the world to know its secrets?
No, you do not need to give the world any kind of blow. Swami Vivekananda is coming from Vedanta, and one of the central canons of Vedanta is that the world is, but your own reflection. And it is not very wise to keep doing things with the world for your betterment without really directly looking at yourself. So, it is not to the world that you have to deliver the blow; you have to deliver the blow to yourself.
There is really no secret that the world is holding or hiding. It is just that we have raised internal walls, and those walls scream the truth from us. Those walls deserve to get blows. The effort has to be largely internal. It’s not as if somebody outside, in his mischief or cunningness, is shielding the truth from us—no.
The world is like an open book to the one whose eyes are open; if you cannot read the world, then you have to look at yourself first, then you have to be mindful of your own condition.
How do you know whether or not your eyes are open?
Then we have to ask why we stumble at every other point. Do my expectations lead me to trouble? Do I find myself in the grip of anxiety, stress, and despair quite often? Does fear of the future trouble me? If you find one or more of such things coming to you, whether in relationships, whether in your career, whether in family, with friends, whether in the field of your profession or wherever, then you must know that you are not quite able to read the world. If the world manages to surprise you, it means you do not know the world. If the world manages to put you in despair or if the world even manages to throw great pleasures at you, it means you do not know the world.
Those who know the world find the world neither pleasurable nor are they disdainful towards the world. They are neither attracted to the world nor are they averse to it. And there is a great delight in knowing the world. There is a delight higher than the greatest pleasure; therefore, if they do not find the world pleasurable, it is not a loss to them.
Having given upon pleasure, they attain delight. How is it a loss? So, the world hides really nothing. The world has no consciousness of its own; the world is not an active agency by itself; therefore, the world cannot decide to hide things from you. It’s you who hide things from yourself. The inner wall that needs to be brought down is one of ignorance. It is this wall on which you must rain blows. And how do we sustain these walls of ignorance? By not looking at ourselves. Why don’t we look at ourselves? Because we are so enchanted by the world that we keep looking at nothing but the world.
Looking at this, that, something is so frightening - you have to look at it, something is so alluring - you have to look at it, something beacons you towards the future; obviously, you have to take care of it. And when you are so occupied with all these things pertaining to the world, you have no time to look at yourself – And no incentive because people around us are doing just the same thing as we do.
When no one is looking honestly and sharply at his mind, at his functioning, at his internal processes, at the doer-the ego, at his fears, at the real status of his psyche, then we do not feel encouraged to do it all alone. We would feel like a loner, and loneliness, mind you, is one of the characteristics that you do not really know the world.
So, do not attempt to fight the world; fight yourself. Because if your eyes are blocked or shielded, then you do not even know what the world really is like. How do you fight an enemy you know nothing of? Even to fight an enemy, first of all, you need some information. Right?
We do not know the world; how will we fight it?
So, therefore your first emphasis has to be on correcting the one who knows the world. Who is the knower of the world? Who is the experience of the world? Who looks at the world? Who hears out the world? We do!
So, find out what blocks you from listening correctly. What blocks you from seeing correctly? And it’s not difficult; these questions are not rhetoric. When you attempt looking at yourself, you will not meet with complete failure; you will know a lot. But that requires a certain silence, that requires a pause from your regular mundane activities.
You will have to stop a little. Once you develop the nark of looking at yourself, you must keep looking at yourself even in the middle of all your regular activities, right?
That’s a real thing - To be able to be observed in the middle of your action, to be observed yourself in the middle of your emotions and thoughts, decision making, and relationships. If you can observe yourself right when a certain thought is arising, right when you are about to commit to an action, right when a relationship is growing emotionally on you - that’s when you get insight, that’s when you are just able to avoid a lot of things or see the truth in a lot of things either way, so, that’s what needed.
So, It’s not a special art to read the world or know the world. It would be obvious. It is Sahaj (obvious/natural). It will just happen. It's like water meeting water - there is no residue left. You don’t really have to stir things up or put effort into it. So, just put your attention to the right place, and the right place is not out there; it is in here, and that will do the trick.
