What is it to be human? || (2014)
Acharya Prashant (AP): So let us just talk about what is it to be human. What is it to be human? To be human, is to be two and yet be one. To be human is to be body-mind. To be a person, and at the same time, to be human is to be the source of all. To be human is to be these two, and to be human is to be one, when these two are together, when the body-mind are one with the source. If as a human being, you are just body-mind, then you will be in for a lot of suffering. If as a human being, you consider yourself to be the source, then you are in for an equal dose of suffering because you are still meandering in thoughts.
Questioner (Q): How?
AP: Because, if you think you are the source, you are still thinking. Because that is…
Q: A little little thought, thought thought, a big thought…
AP: Yes. So, to be human is to be both at the same time; parallelly, simultaneously. I am very much a creature of flesh and blood and at the same time very much divine, that is what is to be human. I am both! That which you can see, that which you can hear, touch, and that which cannot be touched, which cannot be heard, which is beyond all perception, I am both! And I am both at the same time, this is what it is to be human. To be human is to be both together and hence one. Now, ‘to err is human’. Yes, the body-mind will err, they will do a lot of things that they will label as an error. They live in the domain of words, where errors are always there. They live in the world of right and wrong where something is proper, and something is a mistake.
So to err is human, alright, yes, of course! But it is more human to forgive! Let us just say that it is completely human to forgive. When you are just one part, the body-mind, then you live in the world of right and wrong- ‘morality’. In that world, there are errors and propriety. This is proper and this is improper. This is not a mistake, that is a mistake, that is when you are just body-mind. But when you are both, body-mind and the source together, then there is no error and hence there is no forgiving as well. Are you getting it? The challenge is not to become divine; the challenge is just to become fully human. We are not even fully human, but our arrogance is such that we will never say that ‘I want to become fully human being’. We will say, ‘I want to become divine. I want to go beyond humanness’, which is not a challenge at all; which is just a mental fabrication.
The challenge is just to become fully human and to become fully human is to have both these together, the body-mind and the source. When both these are integrated, one with each other, immersed in a union, that is when you are fully human. You live in the world of senses, and you live somewhere else as well. (Smilingly) And these two are together. You are dancing on the soil, and you are dancing somewhere else as well, and these two are together. You are saying something, and you are deeply silent as well, and these two are happening together; this is what it is to be human. You are engaged in vigorous activity, and there is no action happening at the same time, at the same point, this is what it is to be human, both together. Both and together, that is complete humanness.
