Understanding doership, confusion and sureness || Acharya Prashant (2016)

Question 1: Acharya Ji, you often say, “If you want it, pay the price.” And on the other side, you also say, “If you are the doer, it cannot happen.” These two statements cause confusion and put me into trap.

Please guide.

Acharya Prashant Ji: The doer is characterised by accumulation. Whatever the doer does, is with the intention to accumulate, to become more of himself, to gather. ‘Paying the price’ means – de-accumulation. De-accumulate, give it away.

That is what – ‘paying the price’ means.

These are two different qualities of action.

When you are the doer, you will never be prepared to pay the price, because ‘paying the price’ means – giving away. And when you are the doer, you are always gathering rather than giving away.

So look at yourself.

What is your action resulting in? If it is resulting in more of yourself, a bigger you, more stuff to think about, more stuff to carry and boast of, then you are the ‘doer’.

And it is not going to help.

But, if what is happening through you is resulting in a be-littling, in a reduction, in a dissolution – “I will no more have which I used to have. I will no more have that which I was proud of. I will no more have that which I was attached to”- then you can say that you are paying the price.

Question 2: Acharya Ji, I am more confused inside the session hall compared to the outside world. I am confused that I should speak or not, ask something or not, and this state continues.

Acharya Prashant Ji: That is my job – to totally confuse you. Because if you are not confused, then you are settled and determined about your ways. You will continue to move. Now, how will you move? In which direction will you move? In your self-assured certainty, what would you be doing? Who is verifying and stamping your deeds as ‘right’?

Absence of confusion means a certainty – ‘I know what I am doing is right’. Who is verifying the rightness of your deeds? From where is the test, the benchmark, the standard coming? What is the agency that is verifying? You go and buy something, and you are sure that you have made the right decision. You enter into a relationship, and you are not confused. You say, “I have done the right thing.”

Don’t you see that those who are manufacturing the thing that you are buying, are also parallely manufacturing the benchmark using which you will assess that purchase?

The car-maker is not only manufacturing the car, but also the mind that values that car. That is why they need to advertise so heavily – to produce the mind that will value the car.

They actually have production centers at two places. One is the factory where the car is being manufactured, the other is the TV screen where the mind is being manufactured.

Unless there exists the mind that values the car, who will buy the car.

So, there can be no confusion, because the confusion arises only when the assessing agency sees a discrepancy. Now the assessing agency is the same as the thing being assessed, now the judge and the convict are coming from the same point, can there be confusion in the judgement now? Will there ever be any confusion?

Here, there is confusion. Here there will be confusion because the convict here is really in the dock, because the judge here is independent of you. There you do something, and you yourself are your best judge. You say, “You know what, I will be my Guru, I will be my judge, and I will assess whether I have done the right thing.”

And when you are both – the doer and the judge, then of course all your judgments will be aligned with what you do. How can there be any confusion? It is good that you are confused here. May you be confused even more.

Confusion only means that – the convict is stubborn, he is still defending himself stoutly. A point should come where there will be not only confusion, but rather a total defeat.

Questioner 3: Acharya Ji, at one point you have said, “If you are really sure, all your energy rises into action.” What is this sureness that you are talking of here?

Acharya Prashant Ji: Is it something that you can impose upon yourself? Just by telling yourself that you should be sure, would you be able to invoke sureness? So, where is the question of – should I be sure, or should I not be sure?

When you are sure, you ‘are’ sure.

‘Sureness’ is not a mental state. Sureness is an absence of something. What is ‘sureness in absence of’? Sureness is an absence of contradiction. Sureness is an absence of conflict.

Sureness is not something that you wear, sureness is not something that you put on yourself, sureness is not something that you compel yourself to be with. Sureness, I repeat, is an absence.

Sureness is not a state of mind.

Sureness is not a positive or an affirmative statement. Sureness is not about saying, “Of course I am sure.” Sureness is about seeing something so cleanly, so directly, that it cannot be denied anymore. When you cannot deny it, then of course you are sure of it.

Sureness is not about some special vision, s ureness is just about the absence of blinders on the eyes.

Sureness is not extra-ordinary.

When you don’t have those blinders on, then you are sure about everything. Are you not sure that I am sitting here? And if you are sure that I am sitting here, then are you sure only of this, or are you parallely sure of the fan, of the light, of the curtains, of the door, of the other people as well?

When you are sure, you are sure of everything. You cannot be selectively sure.

If you are seeing me right now, then it is within you to also see the woman here, the man there, the equipment here, the door there, the plants, the winds, the birds, everything.

Are you getting it?

Sureness is a composite. Sureness is a totality. Sureness is not something that you force yourself into. It is not motivation.

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