This is Meditation, Really?
Questioner: If everything is happening within consciousness and the individual self is ultimately an illusion, then why does Acharya Ji emphasize finding meaningful work, and doing it with full passion so deeply that you forget time itself? Wouldn't immersing oneself in deep meditation be the most direct path to reconnect with the source of consciousness?
Acharya Prashant: I do all that so that from this entire statement the first little word disappears. What was the first little word? What was the first word in the statement right in front of you?
Questioner: If.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. ‘If’ means for somebody else. It’s an ideal; it is not something of your life. Now repeat the statement starting with If.
Questioner: If everything is happening within consciousness…
Acharya Prashant: Stop. “If everything is happening within consciousness;” is that how your life is?
Listener: No.
Acharya Prashant: Then what is the point in asking this question? For you everything is happening in the material world outside of you, not in the subtle world inside of you. For you, this is a mere idea. That’s why that little ‘If’ exists. And my entire effort is to remove that ‘If’ from your life. But you put that ‘If’ and you feel it’s a minor addition, won’t spoil anything. It spoils everything.
Next time you are thirsty and you come to me and I’ll say, “Let there be some water.” Instead of saying, “Here is some water,” I’ll say, “Let there be some water, or If there is some water.” You need water, not a story beginning with ‘If.’ It’s obvious, but you are coming from an ideal, and that ideal is contained in the second half of your question: “Why should we not meditate?” Some Baba-ji.
Read that second half. Illuminate me, please.
Questioner: Wouldn’t immersing oneself in deep meditation…
Acharya Prashant: What is meant by that? “Immersing oneself in deep meditation.” What do you mean by that? What is meditation? What is that oneself that you will take and immerse? What kind of immersion are you talking of?
Like taking a soiled shirt and immersing it in some water; how will you immerse yourself? Should I haul you up by the collar and then immerse you in some well? What do you mean by immersing oneself in deep meditation? Please tell me, beyond a trick of words, what is this, “Immersing oneself in deep meditation?” Please tell me, what is this? And what is this oneself? Ego.
Ego, right? What do you mean by meditation to the ego? But we are used to a lifestyle that is founded on avoiding facts, and to avoid facts, idioms, words, euphemisms are just so handy.
“You’re snoring.”
“No. I’m immersing myself in an altered state of consciousness, and it is a state of consciousness that the Upanishads too talk of. It is very adjacent to Jagrati (waking state); it is called Swapnavastha (dream state).”
“Sir, you have dozed away. You are actively snoring.”
“No, no, no, I have immersed myself in an alternate state of consciousness just adjacent to Jagrati (waking state).”
How much effort you put in deceiving yourself! “Immersing myself in meditation.” What is that? What do you mean by meditation? And what is immersion in that thing called meditation? And who is being immersed?
But he’ll never ask these questions, because some Baba-ji totally dominated your faculty to question with his get-up, the entire works, the demeanour, the voice, the body tone and you are ordered to immerse yourself in meditation. And he said, “Immersing myself in meditation.”
I said, have some taste for nakedness. Clothes are all right on the body, not on consciousness.
Our consciousness is also a very clothed thing, clothed and outwardly respectable consciousness. Continue with the…
How to immerse oneself in meditation then?
Questioner: And oneself in deep meditation, be the most direct path to reconnect with the source of consciousness.
Acharya Prashant: “Most direct path to reconnect with the source of consciousness.” I really wish we never went to school, we never attended any language or literature classes. At least we wouldn’t have so many deceptive words in our vocabulary. This is all that education has given us, more and more means to deceive ourselves. Reconnect with the source of consciousness.
Sir, where are you coming from? What do you mean by reconnect? When were you previously connected? How did the signal go off? What are you talking about?
“Source of consciousness.”
There is no consciousness. What is the source of this elephant? There is no elephant. How do you know something as a source? What do you mean by that? Where is this knowledge coming from? Is it knowledge at all?
But this is; do you hear this? This is what the world of spirituality is about: random mumbo-jumbo, elephants, no, dinosaurs in the room, and then you say the source of the dinosaur.
And if I’m sounding abrasive, it is only because these words, this advice, this kind of feedback, should have come to you much, much earlier in your life. But you have been pampered and you have been spoiled. So you’ll feel I am offending you, and you’ll feel that only because there has probably been nobody so far who could speak straight to you.
Have I abused? Am I spitting on somebody? I’m just asking a few innocent questions. And there should have been somebody in your process of education to ask these questions much earlier. But nobody did. So when I do that now, I appear like the fallen culprit; out to pinch and poke everybody and rub everybody the wrong way, and “Oh, he’s so abrasive!”
Am I abrasive? I’m asking, what do you mean by immersion in meditation and reconnecting to the source of consciousness? What is that? And all of that, anyway, started with an ‘If.’
You know what the scary part is? All of this is very much admissible in conventional spirituality, Lok-dharma. The statement that has been made is a beautiful statement in the domain of Lok-dharma. This is the very stuff of Lok-dharma, just hollow but high sounding statements.
Real spirituality is not about something that sounds elevated, or admirable, or respectable. Real spirituality is actually a very shameless thing.
We said, stripped of all covers, all clothing. One has to have taste for nakedness, not for the well-dressed-up priest.
And this makes me angry. Somebody put these words in your mind, right? They are not original. Who was that person? Who did that? Some religious authority or some book where you read this stuff up, “Reconnecting with the source of consciousness.”
Had we been a really conscious society, the author of these lines should have been jailed. And that would have been perfectly constitutional, because deceiving somebody invites Section 420, and having a scientific temperament and a spirit of inquiry is a fundamental duty under the Constitution.
Learn to ask this question whenever you are bombarded with high-sounding fluff; matlab kya? What exactly? What exactly does that mean? Please tell me. Please tell me in the language of the air and the water and the dust and the earth. Tell me in the language of the bare facts. Don’t give me pointers and abstractions and idioms and euphemisms. No.
“Oh, karma will return to bite you.” What exactly does that mean? Please tell me. Interrupt, don’t let the fellow continue. Please wait. What did you just say? Karma will return to bite you. What does that mean? Karma Is it some dog or something? What? What is that karma? And how does it return to bite me? What exactly do you mean by that?
“You are my ardhangani, my life partner.” Wait. Wait. Hold on. Explain. Or we break up right now. What is this ardhangani business? Bisexual? What? Half of you, half of me, welded together? And what do you mean by life partners? What does that mean? What kind of partnership are we talking about?
But the Truth is the casualty when these kinds of sugary idioms rule. I’m immersed in your love. What? What do you mean by that? You have soaked up something belonging to me? And if you did that, that wasn’t with my permission, sir. What have you done exactly? Is that a confession? I’m immersed in your love. Gives me weird images, obscene ideas. I’m immersed in your love. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, stop that and get out.
But it sounds so poetic, enchanting, and you’re mesmerized. Romantic mysticism.
What exactly do you mean by that? Please tell me. The most common statements that come to you, the ones you are most used to, are the ones that deserve your scrutiny the most. Don’t let them pass. Grab them by the collar; say, wait! You can’t shoot and scoot. Yes, now, tell me, what exactly? Matlab kya? Enough of your fluffy poetry.
