Truth Behind Acharya Prashant’s 60 Million Subscribers
Questioner: Hello Acharya-ji. Well, I've been listening to you for two years now. But the contemporariness of the sessions that we see is so mind-boggling that, you know, it's as if I'm talking to a live person who understands my context exactly. I'm not just listening to some philosophy; I'm actually connecting the life that I'm living with higher possibilities.
But my question is different. The Buddhas and the Krishnas barely had any followers. And they barely do. But then someone who is bringing the real meaning of Shri Krishna to the world, at least for me, I can see that, has 60 million followers on the Hindi channel. I think we are going to become the biggest channel in Asia or something like that. Top two or three in India. I think it is number one. So, has there been any shift in the consciousness of people? Is the thing that we just discussed changing? How should we see this whole thing?
Acharya Prashant: Every single video is complete in itself. It is not a continuity. It is not dependent on the adjacent video. It is a total, whole, complete, independent package.
How many likes, comments, or even views do you see there? 60 million is a number. They happened to click on the subscribe button, and that is because we very aggressively chased them, very, very aggressively. And when we were not chasing them, you know the situation. In 2018 or something, 3,000 videos on the channel and 2,000 subscribers. 60 million is the number of doors I have knocked. 60 million is the number of people I have touched. 60 million is the number of people who, at least once, nodded to me. 60 million probably is also close to the number of broken promises.
That reflects no shift in the nature or center of the audience. That just tells you that somebody has been relentless in pursuing the world. This number does not reflect the state of the audience. This number reflects the chase of the chaser. The tragedy is that the audience has remained much the same in spite of the chase. But that's not how you will look at it. You will say, “You see, the world offers him so much respect and love. 60 million have come to him” Nobody came to me. Nobody came to me.
I had to chase them. And even after I chased them, they disappear after just clicking. The world has not changed. What do you think? This algorithm would ever support the work I'm doing? What kind of La-La Land are you coming from? The algorithm is meant to give you dopamine peaks. This face gives you dopamine? Really?
People change not just the channel, not just the app, but even their phone if I happen to appear. And you really believe that the world has so grown so good, and the algorithms have grown so favorable, that we gathered 60 million of them? Not just 60. You take it across all platforms. We have recently done 100 million now.
Wow! Surely, the Earth deserves to be renamed. Let's call it paradise. 100 million subscribers to the Truth. What more can you want?
That's 100 million deceptions. That's 100 million self-betrayals. Because these are now not people who do not know. They know, and yet they avoid. These are also probably people who get notified, since they have clicked the button. So, they are getting notified in some way or the other. At least once a week, at least once a month, some notification, some news, some information is reaching them, and yet they are avoiding. And that's how, at the practical level, the Truth is silenced, not through resistance, but through indifference. And that indifference gets fortified today in the name of freedom of choice.
“It is my choice not to watch him. It's my choice not to watch this man. Don't I have freedom of choice? Is this not a free country? My choice. I don't want to watch him.”
You know, it's funny. The number of people who both subscribe and unsubscribe to our main channel daily is almost as big as the total number of subscribers of a mid-sized channel. Lakhs of people unsubscribe from our channel every day. In fact, just the number of those who unsubscribe us, if they happened to constitute a new channel, that would be a sufficiently big channel. I'm talking of the unsubscribers per day. It's just that those who subscribe are a little more, so the channel appears to be growing.
Who are the ones unsubscribing? Typically, those who happen to come a little close and got burned.
Who are the ones who subscribe? Some nice thumbnails. Some juicy short clips. Something very nice... Or some advertisement funded by the foundation. Subscribe. Result? Now, notifications. Unsubscribe.
That's the game. What does it mean? Nothing. Nothing is happening. YouTube is nothing. Even the Gita community is nothing. You might be a lakh people now. The core of the Gita community, the nucleus, is small. Small, very small. 80% of the people here have no commitment at all. And it is their dropout rate that is the maximum.
It is very strange. On the community, you see these labels, right? On some of the accounts, there is no label. That means their account is not subsidized. 80% of the Gita participants donate less than ₹200 per month. And the funny thing is, it is this category that drops out the most. Very funny. Those who are contributing, they don't drop out. Those who are not contributing, they are here for free, almost for free. ₹25, ₹50, ₹78, they are the ones who drop out. It's only a small number that has any kind of commitment.
We are talking of 60 million. I would be glad if I have 6,000 dedicated students.
Questioner: I was listening when you were talking to the event host in Bhubaneswar. And I could read the body language of the host, and I could see people in the background, the way they were reacting to the things that were hard-hitting.
And I just saw some people indicate to their relatives, “Let's go, not worth it,” because they've been listening to a lot of spiritual icons before that. And they were quite nice and comfortable there. But the moment the hard-hitting neem laddus started coming from all directions, they couldn't take it.
Acharya Prashant: We are chasing the world very, very furiously, more furiously than you can ever imagine. You just don't know the intensity with which we chase the world. You also don't know the intensity with which we chase the Gita participants.
On Shivratri, the counselors' team, a lot of them were very surprised. They said, “We saw faces here that were absent for years, one-and-a-half years, two years. For years, they had not even received our calls, and now they suddenly showed up on Maha Shivratri.” And in between, they refused to pick at least 50 calls. And then they had the guts to come and sit in the Maha Shivratri session. And that's the reason this decision has been taken: You want to come to the foundation's home, you please speak in person to a foundation member.
We are not an online course. You can't just fill up the form and turn up and occupy a seat. Speak to someone. The moment we said, “Speak to someone,” the attendance reduced. That's the kind of people we have in the community. They don't want to speak to the counselor because the counselor will ask them, “What is it that you are doing? Three years back, you were donating ₹5,000. Then you made it something, then you made it something. Now you have made it ₹500. So, actually, the benefit you are getting from Acharya Ji has reduced to one-tenth.”
The logic this fellow has is, “See, everybody else is paying only ₹25 now. I'm at least paying ₹500.” This is the logic that these people have. And that's the reason they don't want to talk to the counselor. They don't pick calls.
It's a gathering, yes, but for name's sake. I'm not at all confident of the quality of the gathering. And I have said that often. I don't trust you because I know how much we have to chase you. There is a very small nucleus that is dependable, dependable, but very small.
All the others are bystanders. If something happens to the foundation, they would, in fact, start sending mails: “Kindly delete our name and demographics from your database.” Like rats that jump off a sinking ship. Tomorrow, something happens to the foundation, as is likely to happen. It's likely to happen because we are trying to save you. And that's the reason something or the other is going to hit the foundation.
And then we'll receive a deluge of mails saying:
“Please, please, please delete all proof that we were ever connected to the foundation because, along with you, we don't want to get into trouble. You see, we are people of the chola-and-chola type. We are respectable middle-class householders. And we have daughters to marry. Who will marry my daughter if it comes to be known that she was, or I was, her father was, once a student of such a controversial foundation? So, please delete everything.”
That's the kind of people I have. And I'm not someone who would ever tolerate any kind of self-deception. So, I know who I am. I also know who you are. I also know our relationship. I'm not going to flatter myself that I am getting a lot of love and respect and commitment. No, not at all. But yes, I'll continue to chase because that's my life, my choice, my decision. I'll keep chasing you.
I know very well, you don't have it in you to reciprocate. But I'll still keep chasing you. What else to do with this life? I have a life, and that's the way I have decided to live it.
Questioner: For the ones, the small nucleus, I think they appreciate. Not appreciate, i think that's an understatement. I mean, they may become like Anand and maybe Ashoka, perhaps. And that'll make it worth it, do you think?
Acharya Prashant: Ashoka came decades centuries later. Allow me to die first, then. Continuously, you keep talking of this, that. All that happens rarely, and that too after centuries. I don't care about posterity or legacy. There is this life, and that's the way I think it's best spent.
I'll keep knocking at your doors. I'll keep giving you trouble. You cannot avoid me. My job is to annoy. I can even stare back at you from the mirror. How will you avoid me? I once said that. Somebody was running away from the foundation. I said, “You can avoid looking at me, but how will you avoid the mirror? What if you look into the mirror and you find me asking, ‘Hello. Kitthe?’”
I might not be known as a great teacher, but I'll certainly be known as the great chaser. My job was to chase you. And that tells less about me and more about you. Every single call you choose not to pick, every single message you choose not to reply to, is not a message from anybody else. It's a call from me that you are not attending.
Every single session you choose to discard is a rejection you are stamping on my face. That process is me. I don't live in dualities. It's not me and my process. The process I make is me. You reject my process, you have rejected me. And that's fine. My need for reciprocity is quite low. I don't very easily feel lonely. I don't very easily feel rejected. I'm human. I do, but not easily. You can keep rejecting me, but I don't feel rejected. There is something wrong with me.
My system is a bit different. I don't very easily feel insulted, either. You can keep doing things to me. I stand. So, I don't even expect love from you. I don't even expect you to understand. The fact that I chase you is purely internal to me. It's got very little to do with you. You don't reciprocate. I'm fine with that. In fact, when you do reciprocate, then I'm taken by surprise. In fact, I smell a rat. Something is fishy. “Too much, I love you.”
When you attempt to hit me in the teeth, to me that is normal because everybody has been doing that. When you stab me in the back, again, that is the usual fare. Everybody has been serving me that. That's fine.I am not saying this out of self-pity or anything. I'm used to it. It's almost like not expecting mercy from your opponent in tennis. You lob the ball up, and he will smash. You don't say, “Oh, why did you smash it so hard?”
Similarly, you slap me in the face. I can't complain, “Why did you slap me so hard?” Because that's your job. Your job is to smash it. My job is to keep sending it back to you, right? My job is to keep the ball in the rally. Don't deceive yourself. You're not here out of your own sweet will. I'll never let you have the pleasure of claiming that. Sorry. No.
Not a single one of you is here because you chose to be here. No. To choose freely, first of all, you must have inner freedom. You don't have that, at least not yet. You are here because I have brought you here.
And that's not a boastful or arrogant claim. That's the naked fact. I leave you, you'll be gone in no time. The doctors have been saying, “Why is this fellow not taking a break? Look at his schedule. On the very first day of the month. Every single day is allotted to this or that, and along with all the administrative tasks, and the book that is being written, and all kinds of miscellaneous things. Why is he not taking a break?”
Because I know I take a break for a month, and you will be gone. That's who you are. These are not sessions. These are ways to keep you trapped. I leave you free for a week, and you won't be there. I'm encircling you all the time. Look at what you are otherwise surrounded with in your usual life. Look at your relatives. Look at your workplaces. Look at your friends. Will they allow you to be with me? Look at your beliefs. Look at your religion. Will that allow you to continue with me? Therefore, I have to be continuously at work, just catching up, just catching up. I can't take a break.
When I'm not in the sessions, I'm doing something else to catch you. My life is nothing but a long trail of multidimensional chase. Chase them from this side, from that side, from this side. Trap them here, hold them there, stop them there. Don't let them go, because your entire universe is designed around lies.
It's like this. Have you seen a semi-open umbrella in its conical shape? Have you seen? I am the apex. I am the top. And the rest of your life is a huge conical slope. I leave you from there, and you just slip down rapidly, with acceleration. There is nothing in the rest of your life which will bring you back to me.
Suppose you drop out. Is there anything or anybody in your life who will bring you back to me? In fact, everything in your universe will celebrate the moment you drop out. I'm holding you at the top of a hill, a hill with steep and slippery slopes. The moment I leave you from there, you'll be gone, never to be recovered. Even I'll be unable to retrieve you. And that's the reason why I have to be continuously at work, just to hold you there at the top.
Your entire universe is this slippery cone. That's no fault of mine, but I'm paying for it. But I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm paying for the lies and the falseness that your universe is composed of. My suffering is not mine. In fact, in my suffering, there is nothing that is mine. When it comes to my personal life, there is no suffering. Or, if there is something, that is very little. Ninety-nine percent of my suffering is you. But that's fine. That's a choice. It's a choice I've made.
Just that I don't want you to believe that these 100 million are really nice people who wanted to be devoted to wisdom, and therefore they came to me. No, they didn't.
Questioner: I myself am an example of one of your ways of being. Your grasp on people is that I ran away after a couple of months after I joined. And then my first counselor here riled me up. He literally used words and a tone that I had never heard from anyone else. And that really disturbed me to the core. And then, just to prove to him that I did not run away, I joined again. But then I realized that this was a trick much later, maybe six months, eight months, something like that.
Acharya Prashant: No, it might not really have been a trick. It just worked. Our team of counselors is not that experienced and not that skilled, either. They are raw people. In fact, most of the time, they make a rather rough call. We receive an email: “Kindly refund me my ₹50.”
There are these gurus you worship, and they ran away with your millions. You demanded refunds, and you still worship them, right? You actually weighed them against their weight in dollars. What happened to your millions? Hundreds of cars and jets were bought. Did you receive a refund? But you're still fanboys and fangirls. And here, if you receive a rough call, then, “Oh, please refund me my ₹50.” Sir, the cost of refunding ₹50 is ₹75. Yes, because there is a cost to any process. But we do refund.
So, it was not really a trick. It just happened to work. With most people, it doesn't work. That does not include the value of my life, my time. We are only talking of the amount that goes from the foundation's bank account. That does not, in any way, include the value of my life, my time, my teaching. And the foundation is still surviving. It will still survive. Because, just as there is no distinction between me and my processes, ultimately there is no distinction between me and my foundation. Even if everybody leaves, I will survive as the foundation. I am the foundation, literally.
So, you can't give me a thing or take away a thing. I stand firm in my inner Truth, doing what I must. I exist to give. I'll continue giving. You run away. I will still exist. I will die, and there is something that will not die with me.
And I'm not talking of Jivatma here. Come on.
Questioner: I'm Nikhil. I'm a post-doctoral fellow from PRL Ahmedabad. So, I just wanted to share an incident. Previous year, on Teacher's Day, I gifted my post-doctoral supervisor a couple of books authored by you, Sangharsh and The Vedant. So, he is basically a person who has a strong scientific temper. At the same time, he questions even small, intricate details in whatever we do, experiments or anything.
It actually happened to be a bit of a surprise for me, though I was having an assumption during that period of time. But he refused straight away that if we go through such kinds of things in life, then we have to change in life. So, the thing is that why, even for such kinds of people who have that kind of questioning capability when it comes to science and everything, always tend to refuse or not embrace change when it comes to self-knowledge?
Acharya Prashant: Because they need a shock that you are unable to deliver. Because you have stakes. Those who feel that just because they know a thing or two about the material world. Makes them somebody, basically needs to be delivered a shock, so that they are shocked out of their somebody-ness and they realize that, in spite of knowing this or that about the scientific world, there is still a very vacant in the internal world. That shock is the way of telling them. That's all.
There is nothing new in this. We have discussed this an endless number of times. You may know about this, that, the pillar, the phone, the desk, the table, the chair. You can know about all these things. How does that mean that you know anything about yourself, which is the ego? But the ego has to be credibly demonstrated that it does not know, and that needs a shock.
And to deliver a shock to somebody, first of all, you should be free from that person. If you have stakes with respect to that person, you'll never have the guts to deliver the shock. I can speak openly to you only because I expect nothing from you. But he is your guide, your supervisor. And your material welfare, money, degree, thesis, reputation, and many other things are linked to him. And that is also the reason why you are gifting him books.
“Sir, sir, sir, nice books, sir. You know, sir. Please, sir. Be happy, sir.”
That is not the way you bring about change in somebody. The ego needs either loads of love or a huge shock. And often, the load of love too is delivered only in the form of a shock. There is no other way. Because the ego is a huge, long-lasting stupor, an inebriation. The ego lies sleeping within itself. You'll have to shake it up to wake it up. And that necessarily involves discomfort. You don't have the guts to deliver that discomfort because discomforting him would mean discomforting yourself. You discomfort him, and he will reciprocate. And you don't want to absorb that. So, you say, “Fine, fine, fine, sir. I'll just scratch your back and other body parts.”
And that's what we all are doing. Somebody's report card says: “26 invited, 2 remaining.” What have you done with the remaining 24? You're still serving them chhola and showing them your chola. Or did you break off, break away? Did that happen? You are still friends with them, are you not? The shock never arrived. You never said, “Now that you have dropped Gita, sir, I have dropped you.” And that's the reason your report card shows 2 by 24, because to those 22, you don't have the guts to deliver a shock to them.
Questioner: As you once said, even you had, in the past, been spending a lot of time behind those people who were not considering it. And then you realized that it is better to move on because there are so many people that we can reach. So similarly, on that day, it so happened, it's a mere random coincidence, you can say, like a Brownian motion, that there was a PhD student with whom I speak regarding science and also sometimes a bit of philosophy. So, I gifted him those books. And he is reading them daily and discussing them with me.
So, in totality, I can think that some good has happened. But let's see how life transforms.
Acharya Prashant: No, “let's see” doesn't work. When it comes to your inertia, you say, “Let's see.” I pour my heart out. I don't just wait in inertia. I make things happen. I make things happen.
I don't say, “Let's see. Let's wait and watch.” That's not the way things happen. One has to actively go out and fight the war.
Questioner: Pranam, Acharya Ji. Two or three months back, I had invited my mother to the Gita sessions, and she has been listening to them for around one year, giving all the exams and all. I had one reflection for people. Since she had suffered a heart attack, the conversation we were having on the call, me and my mother, she had received the initial treatment. There was anxiety and stress. Obviously, it's a life-threatening thing. But the initial management was done, and that duration coincided with a Gita exam.
I just told her, very jokingly, “Why are you getting distracted and all? Just give the exam. I'm also giving the exam.” So, that is something you have gifted to me. I've become someone like that because I've been a very pampered child, the only child of my parents. So, I would never imagine that I would have such a conversation with my mother at a time when she had suffered a heart attack. And she gave that exam. And she scored something like around 17%.
So, I beg your pardon for saying this, but it's a shame for people who skip exams. After realizing this: somebody who is under the stress of a life-threatening condition gave the exam, scored in it, and she gives all the exams. Everybody used to drag me away from this, saying, “Okay, you are going on this path, that path.” But I don't know from where I had this thing in me that all conversations eventually boiled down to Acharya Prashant.
And everybody, each and every guest invited. I had a very decent conversation. People were very, I think 99% of the people were very receptive to what I told them about your teachings and what I have gained from them. So, that was a reflection that I wanted to share.
Acharya Prashant: There have been so many teachings. There have been so many teachers. One has listened to so many satsangs. And most of that has not benefited people. One of the major reasons is that you have never been tested. These tests are the difference. They are the uniqueness. These tests are something that has rarely happened before.
Spirituality has remained synonymous with just sitting and listening, and never being tested.
For the first time, at this scale and at this frequency, I'm testing you. And that's the reason you run away from the tests. Anybody who avoids the test is somebody who is nurturing the evil within himself or herself. You don't want to be exposed. You want to nurture the hollow, false inner confidence that you know, that you are somebody, that you understand.
Write the test, and you will be exposed. Write the test, and the proof will be in your face. And that's the proof your ego will not be able to tolerate. And that's the reason you run away from the exams. There is no other reason. The exams will show you your place. The exams will show you where you stand. The exams will show you that your confidence is hollow. If you know anybody who does not write the exams, know that person to be self-deceptive. Know that person to be living in an inner La-La Land. And also know that person to be very, very afraid. Very afraid of the Truth, and therefore very afraid of the exams.
Practically, I understand that nobody can write all the exams. That's the reason we don't have just four exams per month. If I want you to write a minimum of five exams, we conduct many more than five so that, out of these many, you can write five. That's the reason we extended the time and created an entire window from 9:00 p.m. till midnight, so that you can choose a suitable time for yourself.
Do you remember when we started? We used to have just four exams, one every week. Do you remember when we started? Those who are veterans with three years of experience will know. There used to be just four sessions a month, and you used to enroll either for Gita, or Ashtavakra Gita, or Sant Sarita. And there used to be just four sessions. I realized that if I gave them just four sessions, they would attend one. So, I said, “I'll give 15 so that they attend four.”
Then we started organizing the exams. And you would miss the exam, and then the next exam would be the next week. So, we said, “No, give them more exams so that they write at least something.” It doesn't matter if that makes my own life difficult. Do you understand what it means to create an exam almost every day, every second day? Do you understand? Please.
And then, if one option is off, there are stalwarts in the community who raise a huge hue and cry: “Why have my marks been deducted?” You should be deducted. Forget marks, even you should be out. And if you care so much about a flawless exam, join the foundation. Or volunteer and make the exams foolproof for us. Come. We are not a for-profit firm. It is your foundation. Nobody is earning a profit from here. If you find something that needs improvement, volunteer. Don't complain. We are not providing you services here. You are not a client or a customer. You are a student, and behave like one.
Do you understand that?
But then, you don't even want to really count and acknowledge all the trouble that the foundation takes for you. Do you understand the toll that these sessions take on my physical self? Do you understand? Do you understand what it means for a person to be speaking this way continuously for two hours or three hours, or sometimes standing for two hours and three hours, sometimes four or five hours? Do you understand? Please tell me.
Try this. Just try this. At this level of attention, from this depth of meditation, speak for any stretch of time, and you will know what kind of energy it extracts. And why should I be speaking so frequently to you? Why can't I just speak four days a month? Why can't I speak to you just four days a month? Because you anyway do not listen to more than four sessions a month. So, I might as well say, "You listen to four sessions, I'll speak four times."
Why do I have to speak 15 times in the Gita sessions, Hindi and English combined? And then there are the other sessions. This afternoon, you said you watched me live on some channel, and that was a 2-hour session. This month itself, there were three visits to three different cities scheduled. One got cancelled. One was cancelled by us. And still there are two coming up. You understand what kind of toll it takes? You don't want to think about that because you will then have to be grateful, and you want to avoid gratitude.
As I get up from here, I won't just go and entertain myself or sleep. I'll work. And there'll be people waiting for me in the conference room. Before I reach upstairs, they'll be all set for a meeting, and the meeting will continue almost till dawn. And in between the meeting, I'll be listening to your reflections, and also dictating notes, and pandering to the remaining business of the Foundation, all the miscellaneous things.
And then you say, "Oh, we don't want to write exams because we already know." Let's see how much you know. Let's see how much you know. You too know that you do not know, right? And that's why you skip the exams.
Questioner: Sir, recently I helped my mom attend your session live. And just after I made my mom attend your session live, my father called me and started scolding me. And also, Sir, when I watch your sessions live, there are a number of questions: "Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?" And even when I make people understand what you're doing, it brings me into a conflict. Is it worth it to make them understand what is the value of the Truth, or just…
Acharya Prashant: Leave them, your wife, your mother, your father, you see what you want to do. I haven't dropped from the skies. I too had a background. I too had baggage. In fact, I had quite a loaded baggage. Think of someone who had all kinds of lucrative options laid out in front of him in the most decorated and tempting way possible. Imagine.
I could have picked up anything. It was all not just waiting, but actually calling out to me. This one said, "You come." This one said, "You come." This one said, "You come." Do I tell you it was very difficult for me? Do I tell you? Then why do you come and share these things? What's your age?
Questioner: 21.
Acharya Prashant: 21. This was exactly the age I cleared my UPSC. And when the results were declared, within a month, I was just 21. And 22, rather, because the process of declaration takes another year or something. And three, four, five marriage proposals. You know what these people do? From the UPSC, they extract the phone numbers and addresses of the successful candidates and then send them letters and mails. Do I ever tell you how sexy that one was? And I bet she was. What do you have? Ask me what I could have had.
And the father is a minister, and he's saying, "You will get this, that," and, in that time, crores in dowry and everything. And not one, but several proposals of the kind. Do I talk of all that nonsense to you ever? Ever? Because that's shitty. Why should that be brought in? But you keep bringing in the same shit. What do you think? My mother was born enlightened or something? She too wanted me to get married. She too wanted me to have that regular kind of job and the usual kind of life.
Do I narrate to you that it was very difficult for me? No. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, the right thing is the right thing. It has to be done. Do I tell you I too had the tendency to compare myself against my peers? What are my batchmates from IIT doing? What are those from IIM doing? Or could I have joined the services? Why don't I chase them on their LinkedIn profiles and see how far they have reached? Oh, this one too has settled abroad." "Oh, almost 90% of the batch has flown away. I could have told you all these things.
And you will say, "Oh, it is very natural for you to compare and miss that life." Do I talk of these things to you? What is right is right. Full stop.
Once you discard a lane, you don't keep turning around to look back at it, right? Given up means given up. You don't keep checking at some frequency, "Oh, so what's happening there?" Sir, you have given that up. Why are you even bothering to peep now?
For more than a decade, I didn't know what my batchmates were doing. I was out. Totally out. Preparing myself to serve you. That was not really the objective. I had no objective. Just that what's right is right. There was something that was not worthy of being taken up. I gave it up, and that's it. Full stop. Why do you keep narrating what your mama is saying, what your papa is saying? They are human beings, normal human beings, deluded human beings, egoic human beings, like anybody else. But because you are probably more deluded than them, so to you they are very big.
"You know, my mama said that." Who is your mama? How does she matter? Who is she? Why should she be brought into this discussion? Do I bring in my mama? Last time she came, I said, "You're becoming too famous." Busy giving selfies. She has become known. And I did say, I said, "Had you had your way, this session would have never occurred or taken place because that's not the life you wanted for me." Yes, that's the life she never wanted for me. In fact, even today, this is not the life she wants for me.
As a mother, she totally dislikes the life I'm living. She takes pity, actually. Why is it now, now? Why this selfie business? You are enjoying all the fame.
Sir, these are your personal battles. Fight them at your end and finish them off. This is like one's daily shit. One doesn't flush it out in public, right? All these things are done behind closed doors. Or do you do it in public? Swachh Bharat, remember?
Everybody is washing his dirty linen here. "But then my wife says, you know, don't touch me." "Sir, but what do I do? There is a lot of lust, but I also like the Gita. Wife says, if Gita, then no fita."
Why are you telling all these things to me? I too had my days, my occasions, my relationships. Do I talk of them to you? Do I talk of them? Or do you think I have come to this age totally untouched like Baba Brahmachari? Do I mention these things to you?
And I have had my feelings and egoic emotions, like everybody else has. These are personal things. Maybe I still carry scars. My job is to manage them at my end. I'm not going to put all that in your ledger and say, "You know, it is because of you that I had that breakup. So, you compensate. Each one of you will donate rupees 15 more this month. Acharya Ji had a breakup. With all of you!”
What nonsense?
My filth, mine to wash. I have not come to you unscarred. And it's not dignified to reveal anything beyond that. Let this suffice: everything that you go through, I too have gone through, probably in a worse way, probably in a more painful way. Probably I'm carrying, as I said, deep scars. You portray as if you have a mama and a papa and I am a Apaurusheya. As if you have an ego and I was born egoless. As if you have desires and I have never had any.
I too have had desires. I was one like you. Passed through all these things. And what's to be left behind has been left behind, and it's still being left behind every day. Deal with it. Simple. Deal with it. Don't weep so much. Just deal with it. Everybody passes through it.
Heartbreaks, house breaks, this, that, phone breaks, jail breaks, everybody passes through it. Nobody is an exception. Been there, done it. So, don't display your tears. Wipe them and deal with life.
Questioner: Thank you.
