Witness

The 99 floors of consciousness || Acharya Prashant (2018)

Acharya Prashant (AP): Great things are happening on the screen, don't get so excited, it's just the screen. Irrespective of what happens on the screen, it's not real. That's how you have to look at things. Great silence on the screen. Is it silence? No, it is the silence of… read_more

40 min

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, Pranam! I do not want to ask philosophical questions as you have also rightly stopped me from doing so many times in the past. But here are some thoughts, knocking about in the head, and I want to know how to make them practical and behaviourally… read_more

What Does It Mean To Be Practical?

Practicality doesn’t mean being cunning, deceptive, or shrewd. Practicality is a doing that is born out of understanding; you understand something and then action happens. There is a deep, intelligent understanding which immediately translates into action. This is really what practicality is about.

Can Thought Truly Be Selfless?

13 min

Thought is a servant; thought is a shadow. The shadow cannot betray its owner, its master. So, what changes is the nature of the ego itself, not the nature of thought. So when we say, for example, selfless thought, that primarily implies that the ego has improved, loosely put. Since I have become better, so have my thoughts. Now, I cannot remain the same and say my thoughts have become selfless, and if I do that, then I'm being pretentious and just fooling myself.

Solution to Overthinking

The one who has something to live for will never be mentally sick. And mental illness is a pointer that life is devoid of essence. I have no time to be anxious. Even anxiety requires time. I don't have time. Not that you aren't great. Obviously, you are great and powerful. The entire world kneels to you. You're wonderful. But as far as I'm concerned, no vacancy. Give all your inner space to something that is beautiful for you. Let there be no vacancy.

Connection Between Thoughts and Wrong Relationships

13 min

I’m already bad, and through the thought process, I make a choice that makes my condition worse. I will always choose a woman who does me no good. And if a woman exists, coincidentally, who can be of real help to me, the job of thought will be to push that woman aside. Ditto for the other combination. As a woman, you don’t want a man who will challenge your most fundamental beliefs.

Why Do We All Act so Blindly?

18 min

Questioner: * I am Darshan, and my question is very simple yet complicated. So why do we not work? So even after knowing that if we work, we will get something that we are looking for. So, to take an example, I had the opportunity to interact with a lot… read_more

How Did Bhagavad Gita Help Subhash Chandra Bose?

10 min

There is no revolution possible without wisdom literature. The quest for independence of freedom fighters was actually a manifestation of their inner quest for liberation. What kind of revolution can one do if it's the body that's always at the top of your mind? You require a Gita to tell you that this body is perishable and would anyway go. Gita only teaches you, "Endure and fight."

Sir, I Feel Addicted to You

10 min

The ego seeks security from the world and even when it comes to the truth, it still wants to somehow uphold its security. It is all right if one wants to guarantee one's security against the world. But when it comes to truth and beauty, that's when one should just drop the defenses. It is all right to be immersed. It is all right even to be drowned. It is all right even to die. What is the point in conserving something that is anyway imperfect?

Why Do We Insult Our Scriptures?

27 min

In modern times, reading and respecting the Shastras is often seen in a derogatory light. An Asura disregards the scriptures, saying, “What I know is right. My own experience determines the Truth,” rejecting them because they will not allow him to do what he wants. We have come to a point where we are not merely ignoring but actually insulting the scriptures. If you're sincere about knowing life, why avoid a document with deep insights into it?

To help the other is to help oneself || Delhi University (2022)

Suffering under peer pressure? || IIT Bombay (2022)

Questioner (Q): Sir, if we do something to make someone else happy by deceiving our own self, is it worth it?

Acharya Prashant (AP): No, you cannot make someone else happy by deceiving your own self. That kind of a thing cannot exist; that kind of a thing exists only… read_more

Feeling Caged in Your Chattering Mind?

Questioner (Q): Man is typically a social animal who seeks to coexist with the society around him. I am a vegan but many people around me are not, and that creates a difficulty for me. I want to speak out my thoughts on animal cruelty and get into animal activism,… read_more

The mind chatters only about little and inconsequential things. First of all, the matter would be a petty one; secondly, irrespective of how long the chatter is, the matter can never be brought to an end; so it is inconsequential. The mind loves to engage itself with itself. The mind loves to roll in its own stuff. Give the mind a proper purpose. Let the entire body, your entire system, everything in your existence be focused, be channelized towards the right purpose in life.

How to Overcome Sadness?

6 min

Why do you have so much personal time? How are you available to grief? Your consciousness is too self-centered; it needs expansion. Even as you grieve over one death, billions of goats, rabbits, lambs, fish, cows, and chickens are slaughtered. Commit your time. Dedicate it to a higher purpose. We attach great sanctity to our personal lives. Give it up!

How to Handle Insults?

20 min

Any kind of harm that comes to you can only come due to a lack of self-knowledge. If you do not know who you are, you will be forced to believe whatever others tell you about yourself. We don’t even realize how big a slavery that is! Every time you allow circumstances to rule you, you are actually acting like a dead object. You are alive only if you have something within that circumstances cannot touch.

J. Krishnamurti's 'The Observer Is the Observed' Explained by Acharya Prashant

'The observer is the observed; an honest observation dissolves them both.' Or, 'The observer is the observed, and both are false.' We lay a lot of emphasis on the world, assuming it to be the Truth. If the world is an entity independent of everything, then it has to be the Truth, right? Truth is that which is independent of everything.

Is Meditation Really as Beneficial as People Claim?

13 min

Meditation is a way of life. Meditation is the most beautiful love affair you can have. People talk of romance, why not romance the truth? Romance is your unending date with the truth. You see, when you are on a date, it’s not as if you are looking at the other person all the time. Especially if you are meeting that person frequently. It could be a working date then. “Fine let’s meet somewhere, let’s sit across a table, you have your own laptop, I have mine and we work.“ And that’s a date.

Living Without God: Principles For A Purposeful Life

Any belief is stupid because all beliefs come from a lack of investigation, and a lack of investigation comes from deep fear and a feeling of insecurity. If you are insecure and afraid, then you will not dare to ask questions and investigate. And it is from that fear and insecurity that the concept of God has arisen. Now, God and reality are two different things. God and Truth are not the same thing. The mark of religiosity or true spirituality is an abiding faith in the truth.

Advait or Dvait?

4 min

It doesn’t matter whether you talk of *Advait* or *Dvait*. Do you finally admit that you cannot proceed any further with words? If your *Advait* says that I have come to the final truth, then your *Advait* is bogus. If your *Dvait* says that this is the ultimate expression, then your *Dvait,* too, is a fallacy. You may say *Advait,* you may say *Dvait,* you may even say *Trait,* or you may say anything of your choice. You are free to say whatever you want to, but all of that must surrender.

The Making of a Rare Vivekananda: The Role of Ramakrishna

Swami Vivekananda was an ordinary man—Narendra, and he too had his ordinary pursuits. It was the magical touch of Paramhans, that turned him into Vivekananda. And he wasn't too eager either. Many times, he ran away from Ramakrishna. It is a gigantic task, it doesn't just happen on its own. If you leave the youth to how they are, it is not liberation that would happen.

Mind Alone Is Bondage And Liberation

29 min

The mind is the entire set, the whole universe of objects that the ‘I’ has a relationship with. Not the entire set of everything that is there in the universe. One does not have a relationship with everything. But whatsoever one develops a relationship with becomes mind. An object untouched by the self, the ego is just an object. But the moment the object is touched by ‘I’, it becomes vishay or mind. And, mind is an accumulation, a congregation of objects that it is in relationship with.

Decoding the East: Insights Ignored by the West

Before trying on your own, you do not even know the problem in its entirety, and you are going to somebody and the whole process demands time, energy, space and sometimes even money. So, before you engage, obviously you need to have tried your uttermost. So, that’s something obviously to be supported, but equally, we all know how limited we are beyond a point, and when we come to that point, it becomes obvious that one needs to look beyond herself, that one needs to seek help.

Clear Your Dues Before Checking Out

19 min

It’s not as if you have to indefinitely stay dithered or bonded, not really. At the same time, it does not mean that the relationship has to be so material or so transactional, that once the money has been squared off or once you are sure that I have given them the requisite care, attention and emotional support, now I can just break away and separate them from my life. We are talking of neither of these ends.

Prakriti, Attention and Truth

You rather have to be relaxed and just receptive. It comes to you. You don't have to chase it. You simply have to unlock your door, and these two are very different approaches. What does the devotee do? He just opens his doors and waits, calmly waits. He doesn't want to enforce his will. Non-resistance. Active pursual would all be within yourself. You are actively pursuing the beyond within yourself.

What Is Rest?

11 min

Rest is to realize that whatever you are doing is ultimately not going to benefit you in terms of result. Rest is to not to hope for a result, but to be already there and because you are already there, so the activity is happening. Now the activity is a game, a pass time, just for fun. You can indulge yourself or you can change the activity. The activity doesn’t really mean much.

Beliefs: Reconciling Perception & Reality

20 min

We all are such wicked creatures. We feign helplessness just to exhort, extort pleasure. We cannot even be honest enough to say that I am a pleasure seeker; therefore, I'm doing all those things. All your helplessness results in pleasure. All your assumptions lead to pleasure. All your dishonesty leads to pleasure. So everything is just for the sake of pleasure. If somebody comes and says, “You know, I'm helpless,” Just figure out where the pleasure is, and you will know the dishonesty.

Stop Asking These Spiritual Questions

4 min

Think of yourself. Even the Supreme or the Absolute that you think of is just something within the universe, so stop caring or wondering so much about it. Look rather at your own life, your own daily actions. What do you work for? Who are the people you relate to? Where does your bread come from? These are the questions that matter much more than any of the traditional, spiritual queries or you could say that these daily mundane questions are the ‘Real Spiritual’ ones.

When You are Alright, then the Sound of Your Footsteps Is Compassion

When you are not bothered about the other, that is when you are totally compassionate. When you are not trying to change the other, that is when you become an agent of change. Compassion is not about thinking all the time of others. You cannot try to be compassionate. When you are alright, then the sound of your footsteps is compassion. That is what compassion is.

Is Your Mind Your Best Friend or Your Worst Enemy?

10 min

The mind is both your best friend and your worst enemy. It’s your friend when it operates with intelligence and attention, but when there is no attention, when there is no care or love, then intelligence does not function. And then, the mind is your worst enemy. A prisoner knows no joy, no freedom, no love. Your own sleep keeps you imprisoned. The moment you wake up, you are free.

The Multitasking Debate: Efficiency vs. Presence

12 min

Even when you think you are not multitasking, you are actually multitasking. Multitasking is an imperative, but don’t be a multiple-divided person. Multiple selves are not welcome; multitasking is alright. We live lives of multiple selves. One self, other self, and all those selves are all fake, borrowed.

The Biggest Act of Cruelty Today

Spirituality is about realizing that all nonsense emanates from the DNA. You are born with nonsense that body identification is the fundamental problem and the root cause of all violence. It’s the body that is violent because it is the body that is coming from the jungle. We share this body with the chimpanzees, with the dinosaurs, with the lions, tigers, every single animal in the jungle is this body and therefore, all the problems of the jungle are contained in this body.

What Does Equanimity Mean in Life?

12 min

When you know that you can not be harmed, then you let the change come to you. Then, you do not lose your inner poise in front of changing conditions. This is equanimity. For equanimity, you require a very good driver, a totally dependable driver. Our driver is the Ego. It does not allow the Absolute to drive us. The Ego is so arrogant that it goes and sits on the throne, the sacred place, that is reserved only for the Beloved, only for God. It has no right to be there. Dethrone it!

How to Get Rid of Pain and Suffering?

17 min

If you are suffering, all that you need to be told is that freedom from disease is possible. No positive, affirmative statement needs to be given. If you are really crying out of pain, do you need to be given dreams of the pink of health? No, You only need to be assured that this pain is not your nature, and that is all.

Why Isn't the Gita for Everyone?

It depends on the pain you are willing to take. Sometimes Duryodhanas have to be turned into Arjunas. It’s just that, it’s relatively easier with an Arjuna. But what to do when even Arjunas are not present to receive the Gita? As long as somebody has anything, anything that resembles consciousness, as long as somebody has even the faintest remnant of consciousness left, Gita can be brought to that person but it will be tough, difficult.

The Life Journey of Acharya Prashant

11 min

I didn’t try to sweep things under the carpet. If I have seen something, I have seen it. I didn’t try to pretend that I understand when I didn’t. I didn’t try to trivialize something just because I couldn’t wrap my head around it. If something was beyond my comprehension, I let it stay there. And the process remained continuous, in that sense, not the exact word, but, a bit laborious, and demanded patience.

God's Presence Everywhere: What Does It Really Mean?

6 min

Gita and philosophy and Vedanta have nothing to do with God. They are in search of Truth, not God. These are different things — Truth and God. Secondly, all the objects that you look at, you look at them in search of something. In search of the Truth, you look at all these objects. In that sense you could say, I am looking at everything in search of the absolute. To the ego, everything carries a promise, a possibility of the absolute. That does not mean that all the objects that you look at contain the infinite or something.

Rising Strong, Defeating Overthinking

11 min

If you will wait for complete inner silence, you will have to infinitely wait. And that is one mistake that most of us make, we say, “You know I’m not yet 100% certain.” You will never be 100% certain. If you’re 99% certain, 1% uncertain and you decide not to move, whom are you favoring — the 99% or the 1%? Why do you favor the 1%? If you are 99% certain, 1% not certain, then move.

Who Created the World?

14 min

Brahm is not the creator. When you desperately want to invent a creator, then you come up with īśvára. But Vedanta is not very enamored of īśvára. So, Vedanta says, "Īśvara is just Maya, just Maya.” Because you experience the universe, therefore, you feel the need to justify the origin of the universe. Therefore, you must have an īśvára. But how can the creator of a false universe be real? If the universe is false, what do you say about its creator?

How to Set Priorities in Life?

You ask about balancing priorities, but "balance" is a very violent word. It denotes competition. ‘Or’ denotes either this or that — this is conflict. Life does not proceed like this. A polymath, like Leonardo da Vinci, mastered many fields. There was no ‘or’ in his life. His life was full of ‘And’. Most of us live a life of poor man. Life can be very, very, very rich. But not when you say “Either this, or that.” Life is rich when you say, “And, And, And.”

Why Are You Scared of Truth?

There is nothing more scary than the Truth. The primary function of Truth is to negate all your falseness, to show you that you are living in lies. Truth supports you in the sense that, without its help, you cannot even see falseness. Truth cannot be pleasant to what we are. Truth can only be pleasant to the Truth. Before the Real can come, this false one must disappear.

Where Is the Kurukshetra of Your Life?

Arjuna’s hell was in his daily tasks, and so is yours. Arjuna could sense the evil in what appeared normal to others; you must also be able to sense that there is something extremely fishy in what seems normal to others. Your house, your workplace, your society—these are your Kurukshetra. That’s where you have to fight your Mahabharata. That’s where you need Shri Krishna and the Gita.

Why Is God So Biased?

Why do you think that, first of all, a creating entity, a creator, exists in the same way this world exists? Secondly, why do you think that all values that you hold dear to your chest must be espoused by that God as well? You like somebody to be merciful to you, so you say, “Oh, God is merciful.” How do you know God is merciful? Are you bigger than God? Have you penetrated God's head—if there exists somebody called God at all?

Yoga - The Biggest 'Spiritual' Myth Today

17 min

You have ample gurus who come over and say, “You know, you do this and then you can do whatever you want to do.” Now the moment you hear this kind of philosophy that Yoga will help you do better whatever you want to do, I suppose one must run away. Because that’s exactly antithetical to Yoga. Yoga is not about doing whatever you want to do; it’s the ego that says that, not the dedicated, devoted, wise mind. That does not come from there.

How Do We Know Anything about Life? Where Do Our Thoughts Come from?