The unrealistic expectations of the ego from its self-created world || Acharya Prashant (2015)

Questioner: When I send Advait’s broadcasts to the world, the world sends me back some stupid videos and posters, and that irritates me a lot. Though I delete them, yet I remain disturbed. What is this disturbance?

Acharya Prashant: This disturbance is your hope that your relationships are all not really false. You send out Advait’s videos or posters, and you are hoping that these would be appreciated. To whom have you sent these posters? To your own circle, right? And when your own circle then reacts in the ugliest of ways, then it hurts you. It hurts you because it proves that the quality of your relationships was bad. That is what hurts you.

This fellow belongs to my circle, and he is reacting in this way? And even if today, I may have gone beyond him, I may no longer be having an active relationship with him; yet till a few years back he used to be close to me, and to receive that ugly reply from him is to be reminded of what you were till a few years back.

Who were you? The one who was actively friends with the same kind of people. That is the reason why their numbers are there in your phone directory.

How deeply you have put yourself in muck is revealed only when you try to come out of it.

You might be comfortably lying half asleep, half conscious on your bed and the world—all your friends, and relatives, and such people—in their great show of playful intimacy would be tying a thousand knots around your hands, and legs, and neck, and abdomen; and you would be laughing and giggling with them. After all, they are your friends and they are just playing with you.