Waiting for the Right Partner?
Questioner: When I was reading the works of Sri Aurobindo and Mother, you know, I mean companionship and love, of course, such essentials of our lives which I have not been a success at so far.
Acharya Prashant: No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. May I just interrupt?
Questioner: Yeah.
Acharya Prashant: The essential is Truth. Companionship is not essential. Right?
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: If companionship is a hurdle in the way of Truth, you better do away with the companion.
Questioner: Hmm. I did away with the companion.
Acharya Prashant: Companionship is not the final thing. The final thing is something else. The companion has to be a medium towards that thing, otherwise the companion is toxic.
Questioner: Yes.
Acharya Prashant: So, companionship, even love, even love is not essential. What is essential is Truth. I know many people would be hurt by this. Love is not essential. When you say love is essential, then you get into love of the totally wrong kind because you have taken love as the final thing. Then attraction, sensuousness and attachment become the names of love. So, love is not essential. What is essential is being attracted to someone who elevates you. If your love is of that kind, wonderful. Otherwise, the essential thing, the central thing, you know what is essential is something without which you cannot exist. That’s called essential. Essence means — ‘core.’ Essence means — ‘Self’, ‘Aatma.’ Essence means — ‘The Truth.’ So only the Truth can be essential. Nothing else is essential. If love takes you to the Truth, love is fine. If love is a bar against the Truth, love is not fine.
Questioner: Correct.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, please continue.
Questioner: So, when I was reading their work, there was this thing that I came across, which was really thought-provoking for me. They spoke about, Sri Aurobindo spoke about, he spoke about three levels or three kinds of partnerships if you can call them. He said, ‘There is one at the vital level, vital partnership, there is a psychic partnership and then there is a spiritual partnership.’ So, my question is how do I find the spiritual partner and how do I know or recognize it?
Acharya Prashant: Just the same way you find the right guru. Go back to that question.
Questioner: Okay! The authenticity in my core.
Acharya Prashant: You must know what you are seeking from the person. If you get it from that person you are with the right person.
Questioner: What are you looking for. What are you seeking. Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: If you are just looking for decent looks and you know, somebody to accompany you to the movies, then anybody would do but if you are looking, really, to not to make a waste of your life and if you are looking to someone who just refreshes you, gives you freedom from all the staleness we carry within from all these centuries, then you will find the right person. What are you looking for?
So right partner is not determined by the attributes of the partner. The right partner is determined and achieved by the intensity of your hunger, and your enquiry. Just as I said, ‘You go and ask the right questions from the Guru and if the Guru comes a cropper, you leave.’ Similarly, when with your partner you need to ask certain questions. Maybe not in the same way you formally enquire from a Guru but the essence of the question has to be the same because the essence of the suffering is the same. Are you a different person in front of the teacher and a different one in front of the partner? No. That’s not the same. Right?
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: So, the suffering consciousness is the same. Even when you are with, irrespective of who you are with actually, your mother, father, your dog, your cat, the purpose has to be one. The purpose is — ‘I have to be better.’ Not in the sense of earning more money. I have to be better inwardly. I have to come out of this inner haze. Does my dog help me with that? You have to be austere and rigorous to that extent, you know! I know many people would hear this and laugh that even a dog needs to be measured on a spiritual yardstick. Yes, Of course! Why must you keep a pet if the pet is going to make your life hell? Every single thing that you do, you must ask, is it going to liberate me from my bondage and my ignorance? Why must I wear a ring? Why must I wear an earring? Why must I comb my hair this way? Why must I take a walk to the shop? Why must I breathe? Why must I wake up every morning? Why must I do that? The purpose has to be liberation and one has to be absolutely one-minded on that. No wavering. No second thoughts. I know why I exist because I know how I exist. Once you know how you exist, you know why you exist. How do you exist? You exist in agony and therefore why do you exist? You exist for liberation.
Are you with me?
Questioner: Hmm. Yes.
Acharya Prashant: So, it’s not a complicated question at all. Men and women all have this question and it has been romanticized endlessly and it has been turned into something mysterious. As they say these days ‘mystical.’ You know, how can you know whether the heavens have really chosen that particular phase for you? The heavens have chosen nothing. Your angst has to choose its doctor. But that’s so unromantic. Am I supposed to choose a doctor? I mean, I mean come on. I am looking to visit a discotheque, not a hospital. Right?
Questioner: Shattering!
Acharya Prashant: I want to go to Switzerland and you are sending me to Apollo hospitals. I mean, why do you talk of the partner as a doctor? But the partner has to be a doctor because, because you are a patient.
Questioner: A patient.
Acharya Prashant: You are sick and you don’t want to acknowledge that because you are pretty. I am so handsome. I am so tall. How can I call myself a patient? You are a patient. Better have some humility and acknowledge that and then you will know the one to partner with, otherwise you will be in all kinds of wrong relationships.
Questioner: And they come in the garb of the promise initially, but then it all comes off, you know. I mean.
Acharya Prashant: Promises anybody can make. The thing is if I really want something I’ll test the promise. No? Are those promises ever validated? Do we pass them through scrutiny? No. We don’t. Why? Because we have not bothered. Not bothered. I may write there that I am very concerned about not getting infected, but am I even bothering to ask that person, ‘Sir, are you vaccinated? Sir, are you vaccinated!’ I don’t even bother to ask that person whether he is vaccinated and I keep telling myself, ‘You know, I care so much about my health and public health in general.’
So, all these are games we play with ourselves. We tell ourselves one thing whereas we live a totally different thing. It’s not others that deceive us. We keep deceiving ourselves endlessly and the funny thing is, when we discover that others too have deceived us, we cry ourselves dry. How can you complain now? The very name of the game was Deception. He was deceiving you, you were deceiving him or her. He was deceiving himself and you were deceiving yourself. All kinds of permutation combinations in deception were happening all the time. Now that something has come up, you are crying. Explain!
Questioner: So, once you have gone through, you know, the path of, obviously, stumbling down and then discovering who you are, even after that there are, I mean, it is happening, so, they will pop up right. In the garb of looking right.
Acharya Prashant: Test, test, test, test
Questioner: Looking in the sense of not looking right. I mean, obviously, we are not that shallow anymore. So, looking in the sense, oh! all like they are deeper than that, and all that. So, how do you spot a lie?
Acharya Prashant: See, see, see, does an infected person look different from a normal person?
Questioner: No, no, no.
Acharya Prashant: So, what do you do? You test, test, test. Always carry RTPCR kits with you. Keep testing. By the looks, you will never know whether the fellow is infected or not. You must test and how will you test? Through your own angst, through your own enquiry.
Questioner: So, is there no depth left in the men anymore? I mean, I mean what? What is the game? Predominantly.
Acharya Prashant: If there is no depth left in the men and women are usually unable to see that, is there any depth left in women either? Had there been, I mean generalizing, you are generalizing, I am generalizing, but let’s play this game. If there is no depth in the man and the woman still falls prey to the man, what kind of depth does the woman have?
Questioner: Hmm. Correct.
Acharya Prashant: That’s the utility of depth. You don’t fall prey to shallowness. Without the real thing, nothing in life falls in the right place. At times we might be deluded into thinking, that things are going well with us. They cannot! They cannot! Even if it is happening it is going to be very short-lived and end is going to be tragic. You can happily run your car on a flat tyre for 2 km and then…
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: You can have powerful steering. We have power steering these days and the engine is very powerful, 200 horsepower and you are an insensitive driver, so, you don’t quite notice the vibrations in the vehicle. For 2 km you can happily run the vehicle even at 60 or 80 miles an hour with a flat tyre. That’s all.
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: And then when somebody calls you up or gestures from outside, ‘Hey! Hey!’, he is such a fool. He is unnecessarily raising a scene. All these are conspiracy theorists. I am so happily riding my vehicle and the fellow is warning me from there and playing it up. No! They don’t like my happiness! That’s what so many people verbally or non-verbally say to me. They may not say that but it's lit large on their faces, ‘We are so happy, probably you don’t like our happiness.’
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: I want you to be really happy. I know the thing that you call happiness. I know how deceptive it is and what kind of pain it would leave you with. Therefore, I am warning you against false happiness. I am not an enemy of happiness. I don’t like this movement into deeper and deeper pain in the name of happiness.
Personal problems, social problems, global problems, there is just one problem. Unless we address that, we can have a thousand names to a thousand problems and it’s very easy to address that and very difficult to address that because that problem is not outside of us, that problem is within us. That problem lies in our very building. So, it’s easy because the problem is near. It’s difficult because the problem is within.
Questioner: You know, in this book that I read, David Epstein, it did quite well actually, it's called “Generalist – Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.” So, there are so many things, many times one is endowed with, like personally for me I am drawn to a lot of stuff, so basically do I do it all? Is it possible to do it all?
Acharya Prashant: I am drawn towards all the stuff in the pharmacist’s place.
Questioner: Okay, I got it. Which medicine do you…
Acharya Prashant: Which sickness do you have?
Questioner: Which medicine do you use to treat your sickness basically?
Acharya Prashant: Yeah. The first thing is an acknowledgment of the sickness. That decides the medicine and then rejects all the needless medication. Needless medication is very close to more sickness. No?
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: All that in ignorance of the real disease.
Questioner: I was talking more work-wise in the sense there is music, there are lot of things so even…
Acharya Prashant: Doesn’t matter. All these are objects in our sensory world.
Questioner: Okay. The face has changed.
Acharya Prashant: We need to know who we are and therefore what is it that suits us.
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: Skill wise, at points in my life if I have been good at certain sports, I have been good at mathematics, I have been good at engineering, I have been good at management, I have been good at acting. What is it that I need to do?
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: You know! Its just not that I feel talented in some space so I take that space up. Talent is such a foolish thing. I would have probably made a good physicist but is that the need of my consciousness?
Questioner: Wow! This is good.
Acharya Prashant: Even today if I, if there is one thing that attracts me beyond Vedanta, its physics. I have even taught physics and data analytics but is that where my real need lies? Is that where the sickness of the world lies?
Questioner: What does the world need?
Acharya Prashant: If I become a physicist, that’s not going to heal the world. We already have enough physicists.
Concerned with this question are the words of passion, calling, and all such things. No! But I feel so passionate about, about what, let’s say, give me something.
Questioner: Singing.
Acharya Prashant: Singing. Yeah. Now there is hardly anybody who does not feel passionate about singing but hello!
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: I am not against singing. Is anybody in India who is not passionate about cricket? 74.6% of Indians want to get into the National Cricket Team.
Questioner: Either cricket or acting or singing.
Acharya Prashant: Those who cannot make it to the Wankhede stadium want to make it to the studios. Either the stadium or the studio. That pretty much covers up the entire population of the country. Shallow! Two hoots to passion. You see what you must do. Not what you are inclined to do.
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: Being born in India, obviously you will be inclined to take the ball or the bat in hand. I too was inclined. That’s not what I am going to do.
Questioner: Or perhaps use your singing in a way that it is conducive to serve the purpose.
Acharya Prashant: Now, now, now that makes sense.
Questioner: What sort of songs are you singing?
Acharya Prashant: But then again you have to determine if your songs are just a means towards some higher end, are songs the best means towards that end?
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: If the end is the important thing, then are songs the best means? If they are, continue with singing. If they are not, take that up which would be most efficient in taking you towards your goal. So…
Questioner: But Meera sang bhajans of Krishna ji too.
Acharya Prashant: Meera succeeded with songs in reaching Krishna. Not everybody succeeded with songs in reaching Krishna. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is Krishna important or the songs?’ The answer would be — Krishna if you are honest. If Krishna is important, are songs the best way? If the answer is ‘yes’, continue with singing. If the answer is ‘no’, don’t deceive yourself. Pick some other way. If you persist with singing irrespective of knowing that this is not taking you to Krishna, then singing is more important for you than Krishna.
Questioner: Hmm.
Acharya Prashant: And that’s bad.
Questioner: Good point. I like it. Lovely.
Acharya Prashant: Were Meera asked to pick between her bhajans and Krishna what would she choose?
Questioner: Krishna.
Acharya Prashant: Yes and Bhajans were good for her only because they were 100 percent aligned with her love for Krishna. Bhajans are secondary. Krishan is primary.
Questioner: Hmm.
