Clarity

The balance between order and disorder should not be decided by personal likes or dislikes, but by what the task at hand requires. Sometimes a project demands discipline and order; at other times, more important work requires leaving things messy. The right action comes from responding to the actual need, not personal preference. Even sacrifice can be meaningful when it serves something important, but “staying backstage” should never become an excuse to avoid what one cannot tolerate.

True learning is not built on memorizing answers but on understanding reality. Memory may help in examinations, but life constantly presents new questions that demand clarity, presence, and intelligence. Education becomes meaningful only when knowledge is deeply understood and lived, not merely remembered. Real understanding frees us from dependence on rote learning and enables us to respond wisely to every new situation.

Freedom begins when a person stops handing over the authority of life to others. Society, family, and tradition can offer opinions, rewards, or disapproval, but they cannot truly stop someone unless there is inner dependence on their approval. Many conflicts that appear external are rooted in psychological dependence, fear, greed, obligation, or the desire for validation. Clarity does not come from controlling every outcome; it comes from ensuring that decisions are not driven by inner confusion, and then allowing life to unfold naturally.

You are not truly young, you carry centuries of inherited beliefs, prejudices, and conditioning. Youth is the ability to change and create the new, not follow fixed patterns. Before asking what to do next, question and free yourself from the past. Only by breaking from inherited constraints can genuine freshness emerge.

Who is a practical man? One who understands before acting. To be practical means to understand and put it into practice. If my work, my action, and my practice is arising out of clarity, then I'm practical. Clarity is not some state, clarity is not some picture and clarity is not ideal. Clarity is not something to be achieved. Clarity is your inherent ability - your very nature to understand, to know, that is called clarity.

There is nothing called woman’s liberation in isolation. Woman is oppressed and the man too is oppressed, albeit in a different way. Woman’s liberation is man’s liberation. Together they suffer, and together they will celebrate. Their attempts to have freedom only for themselves are their bondage. She is love, he is awareness. There is no love without awareness. Let both know, let both be with each other. In that alone lies liberation for both.

Clarity is not a state. Clarity is like clean air, air free of pollutants. It is not something you arrive at. It is not a finality. There is a lot that you believe in, and you must keep testing it and rejecting it. You can never say, “I have achieved clarity.” It is a lifelong process, because pollutants keep entering the air continuously. So you have to keep clearing the air continuously. That is the process.

Truth is not about lofty words and scholarly theories. Truth is, first of all, a deep desire to help. If they see that you want to help, they will listen. Then they will listen even if they are not able to make perfect sense of your words. To your words, people listen later. The first thing that they listen to is your empathy. They want to see whether your face and your eyes carry their pains. If your eyes contain not a bit of the pain that they live in, they will not be able to listen to you.

When I say, “I want the right action,” surely I have an image in mind. That image is coming from the past. But the right action, by definition, is one that cannot come from the past. Please remember that whenever something really right happens in life, it does not happen as a result of one’s decision. The really good, the right action, happens on its own, provided you do not become the decision-maker and the actor.

We have a great interest in claiming that there is something special about us. But there is nothing special. We too are just machines made of material, just a system. And this system, in the course of evolution, has now given birth to another system, which you call artificial intelligence. But calling it artificial is just vanity. We too are equally artificial. This “I” feeling that we carry is just a product of our physical constitution.

There is no issue at all in being with one person or even five persons. That’s fine. The problem is the desperate center the need arises from. And when that center, that desperate, that unexamined center, is at the root of the relationship, the relationship will never be auspicious. Never. Let your relationships come in a natural way. You are all right with yourself. It just so happens you come across somebody worth being with, and then there is a natural companionship

Oh, we are so selfless towards our kids, come on, and then we expect compliance and returns and obedience, basically ROI. It becomes very difficult to explain to the other that, no, you cannot act selflessly, not because of you, but because you are Homo sapiens. Our species is not designed to act selflessly. Therefore, trying to practice Nishkam Karma (selfless action) without knowing what the “Self” is, is actually self-deception, not selflessness.

If I’m working in a machine that helps accumulate money for one person or a group of persons, and then that money is used for the ugliest kind of consumption, for example, one that worsens the climate spectre, then there is a problem. The question is: where is the heart placed? If the heart of the system is at the right place, then at the micro level you can do your best in it. Minor flaws will remain even in the best system that you construct on your own.

On one hand, there is a great danger that if you seek Light, you will seek the wrong kind of light; you will just seek 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 — that is still better than not seeking at all. Isn’t it better to die fighting in the battle than not fight at all?

You think of the right, free, and spiritual life as planned, tasteless, and boring. No, it involves great love, great rejections, great revenges. Everything happens in a much more intense way than in your normal householder’s life. You say, “I’m leading a worldly life because I want to have fun or because I’m in love.” But one day you’ll realize where real love lies, and you’ll knock at the doors and won’t be permitted.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Jayant has initiated, and he is saying that he used to lead a mechanical life that starts the story, and then he got into spirituality, now he wants to be in love always but that does not always seem possible. Right?

Love is neither molecular nor even…

There is a lot of pseudoscience and superstition being floated in the name of spirituality by people who you are influenced by. And therefore, the common man gets the message that spirituality means some mumbo-jumbo. Spirituality is not this godman business. In fact, a really spiritual man can never contradict science. If you are really logical, you will turn spiritual. You have no option. Spirituality is the natural destiny of logic.

You didn't emerge from the jungle so that you could collect external riches. You were doing all right even in the jungle. There was no need to leave the jungle and do something that was extraordinary and go out of your way to do something that no other species had done. There was no need. You were doing all right. But you emerged from the jungle so that you can have inner development.

The kind of knowledge that AI puts in the hands of the common man today is unprecedented. And it must be put to the best possible use. Think of all the evils that we suffer from. Don't they come from our false beliefs? AI is the litmus test. If you believe in something, go test it with AI. You may not get the veritable Truth itself, but the chances are that you will get something much better than what you currently believe in. AI is a huge opportunity and those who are missing out are doing themselves a great disservice.

In ancient India, in the great universities — Taxila, Nalanda — logic and mathematics were taught before religion was taught. If you do not know logic, how will you understand Ashtavakra? Only a very sharp intellect can rise above itself. You look at the prophets, saints, and see how adept they were, even in worldly matters. Do not put the intellect aside when it comes to the regular, mundane affairs of the world. Use your intellect to the fullest.

Had it been greatly liberating to spend a week in the hills, then those who are spending their entire lifetime in the hills should have been automatically liberated. But instead of liberation, you see a lot of superstition. So, mindless adventure trips or picturesque trails will not help. Do we want to go to the hills to really change our lives or to shed our tension and continue the same old routine? We need to have questions. And when we approach the hills or the seas with those questions, with honest inquiry, then it makes sense.

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The being of the meditator — it's the living proof of the origin. Things rising, things falling. Things experienced, things perceived. Tornadoes swirling. Stars collapsing. Entire universes expanding and contracting. And yet — nothing at all. Just nothing. A great void — that, by its own will and decree, sucks everything into itself. And then, on a change of mood, let loose the universe. That's the origin.

If the intention is right, then one can convert labor into work. And if the intention is misplaced, then even a great opportunity for work can be degraded into mere labor.

Most of us unfortunately do not know love. Not at all. All we know is coded, scripted responsibilities.

I picked up sports, I got into dramatics, debating, writing, so much. I was a bit chubby when I entered, I just lost so much weight. I had to get all my jeans restitched. Because I was busy all the time, there was so much to do, and one didn't want to miss out on any of those things. All the sports, and I am talking of the mid-90s, India didn't really have too many sporting facilities in all the towns and places, not accessible to everybody.

Questioner (Q): The theme of today’s interaction is inner growth. Usually when we talk of growth, we talk of external growth. For example, for an individual growth usually means job promotions, better income, or more comforts, etc. For a company, growth may mean growing in profits. For an institution, it…

Growth and development are different concepts. Growth is external. Development is much more internal, and it is for the sake of my own inner experience that I get into everything external. Whatever I do, morning till evening, it has to be something that gives me fulfillment.

Question: Sir, an Indian origin developer from Google recently released a version of ChatGPT called GeetaGPT, where the AI (Artificial Intelligence) basically acts like a God. And you could ask questions based on spirituality or philosophy, and it would answer as if it’s coming from Shri Kṛṣṇa himself. So, my…

And those who have reason and logic on their side —they very respectfully retreat when faced with an unreasonable kind of animal. Why this respect? “No, we don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings.” It's not about feelings. It's about facts. Facts must always prevail over feelings.

It's human nature to strive for freedom, for purity, for sacredness. So you would not be alone in this. Unknown to you, in some other place, somebody else is doing the same thing. And if your circles keep expanding, one day the two circles will come into contact. And then something great will result.

There is one kind of education that just deals with sustaining the body, including earning money, shelter, etc. It is important to have both Avidya (knowledge of the world) and Vidya (knowledge about the self). The second kind of education, which is completely missing, is the awakening of the intelligence and the finding of oneself. If you do not give attention to this education, you will find yourself rejected by life itself — you will find that you are just living a degraded life.

Man is taking extreme measures in the external world due to his extreme inner hollowness. This hollowness comes from a philosophy of endless consumption and from technology that is capable of producing endlessly. But the purpose of our life is the spiritual urge to be liberated. And when we don't find this purpose, we indulge in stupid things like religious extremism and extreme merrymaking.

Questioner (Q): The right action dictated by spirituality is what the world requires, but if the world economy was to be structured around it, then wouldn’t that make most of the prevalent jobs and business models obsolete? If everybody becomes spiritual, won’t the world’s economic system collapse? If the economy…

We have to accept responsibility for our lives, our times. At the center of our lives lies nobody else but the liver, the individual, the person. If you are the living entity, then your life is your responsibility. Philosophies from the past, knowledge from the past, traditions from the past, myths from the past — they are at best resources available to you in the form of knowledge, ammunition. But whose responsibility is it to utilize the knowledge, to load the ammunition, and fire it? Yours.

There is a deep fear that keeps us terrified—the fear that things can go wrong at any time. And there is an inner laziness that makes us unwilling to figure out our own direction. So, we choose morality that comes with a ready-made action plan. 99% of what goes around in the name of religion or spirituality is just stale morality.

Had there really been love, you would have completed it well ahead of time and submitted it already. This means you need the deadline. This means that it is just an imaginative fancy that you would complete it even in absence of deadline. You remove the deadline, and you find you will do nothing at all. Or maybe you will do one thing, claiming that one thing is your true love, whereas the fact is that you need to know five other things as well. Maybe without knowing those five other things, you cannot even know that one thing you claim to be in love with.

No, I had no special inclination towards engineering. It's just that I was very clear. I didn't like the shape of the world as it looked to me. So in my limited knowledge the civil services- the IAS in particular was the place where one could bring about social change. But the only reason I went to the IITS was because we used to have a magazine called CSR, Competition Success Review. So that would contain the interviews of all the UPSC toppers mostly.

Foolishness is about maintaining the rotten ego while still expecting a great life; but it does not make profits because it can't. In cleverness, you are still rotten, but you have managed to appear otherwise to others; so you start making profits, but they do not suffice for inner fulfillment. In innocence, you can make profits but don’t care to, because you have realized that the very problem that made you relate to the world in a profit-seeking way is gone.

You’ve to remember the end. If the end is remembered, practically anything can be a means to that end. If the end is remembered, no means is important. Only that particular means is important that leads to the end at any particular moment. And, you don’t need to stick to any particular means. Because, life changes, so means have to change. The end alone is changeless, the end alone is endless. Everything else must come to an end, except the end itself.

That's the wrong relationship that the world is choosing to have with an unwise man. If you are to respect, you have to respect someone who is wise and who can bring his wisdom to your use. Instead, if you choose to have a relationship of respect with someone who is himself unwise, obviously, he can be of no use to you. So again, it's a failure of relationship—something is misplaced. Respect is something that has to be placed at the right point.

It is not that the way the world is, the ignorance, the stupidity, the suffering, the perverseness of it all. It's not that that hurts or surprises you. What shocks is that adverse things come from people you think of as decent, respectable and wise. It is not events or people, therefore, who are shocking you, it is the expectations that you hold of them.

My concern is the way we are. My concern is the face of the human being. My concern is the little sparrow. I'm not here to tell people what God has said. I'm here to take care of the sparrow. That's my concern. And the sparrow cannot be taken care of unless we go to the Gita. Hence, the Gita.

A good education system should have two components. The first is deep, clear, and factual knowledge about the world, without which we would become superstitious. And secondly, it must include a very important component that tells us who we are and why we need to be educated at all. This second component is almost completely missing today.

Questioner: Sir, my question is, that since you have graced multiple responsibilities throughout your life, from being a Civil Services officer to being a teacher, graduating from IIT and IIM to being an animal rights activist, how do you zone yourself out from one responsibility to another?

Acharya Prashant: No,…

We often say, ‘Oh, there is that little voice inside us; we call it conscience.’ Wisdom is to realize that your conscience is all artificial. 100% influenced. And that’s why the so-called inner conscience is totally outer and varies from person to person. People have done horrible deeds based on the advice of their conscience. Hitler, too, in his own eyes, must have been a man of conscience.

Always begin from your inner condition. Your inner condition is of illusion and consequent suffering. Vedanta asks: For whom? To you, it is not phenomenal. Therefore, you have to learn that it is phenomenal, and that's what the Gita is about. What Arjun is doing is that he is embarking on a course of action that will keep proving to him that the phenomenon is not a phenomenon but a reality.

The question is, if one does not have the courage or the intention to bring even trivial change in life, how will one bring deeper change in life? That's the question. I'm not saying that deeper change will necessarily follow external change because there are a lot of people who keep changing their hairstyles every second month and yet there is no real inner change. We know all that.

If you are full of inner ignorance, desires, temptations, jealousy, and greed, even the most spectacular technology cannot help you. In a wise man's hands, AI can be put to constructive use. Unfortunately, most of us are far from being wise, and so, AI will be put to violent, destructive use. This has to be fought by having something within us that is immune to the world. If the world cannot touch it, then the world cannot damage, co-opt, or enslave it.

There is just no meaning in existence, and yet we all move around with a self-appointed sense of seriousness and purpose. Existence itself, consciousness itself, is a joke. The human being taking himself seriously is the joke. Real humor is when you can destroy your own darkness. If you are someone who cannot tolerate jokes, you need to check your insecurities. Laugh at yourself. That's the best joke.