What is the process of gaining mental clarity? ||Acharya Prashant (2014)

Questioner(Q): What is the process of clarity? Is it just listening with immersion and no resistance? What is Truth? How we decide it?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Listening without effort, plus if there is Truth in what you hear, there is change and transformation, and that Truth becomes the master. We will take it step by step.

What is the process of clarity? So, there is a lot that the mind has acquired. Whatever has come to the mind has come with a promise. What is the promise? The promise is, "I’ll give you peace", that can have different names; love, joy, whatever”. But the promise is always there. The thing has been accepted by the mind without that promise.

The mind’s whole objective in accepting conditioning is that conditioning is worthwhile, otherwise the mind won’t accept conditioning. Mind feels inadequate, mind feels incomplete. Whosoever promises it completion, the mind latches onto it. It, him, her, whatever.

Whenever from any direction, there’s the faintest possibility of emancipation, of freedom from that incompleteness, inadequacy, the mind says, “Please, give it to me. Whatever it is, give it to me”. That is the promise that the mind is holding on to.

So, what is the process of clarity? The process of clarity is, ‘I accepted something based on a promise. Is the promise being met? That’s it, ask. This ideology came to my life with the promise that it will give me peace.

Organized religion came into my life with the promise that it will give me peace, a particular person came into my life with the promise that it will give me peace. Is it giving me that? This is the process, ask this question. And if it is not giving you that, clear it away, that is clarity.

Whatsoever comes to you, if it is not giving you that which is your deepest longing, and your deepest longing is for peace. Whatsoever comes into your life, if it is not giving you that, clear it away. Get rid of it, that is clarity. “It is not that, it is not that. I was deceived, I made a mistake and its all right if I made a mistake. It can be cleared; it can be corrected”. It could be a thought, it could be a vision, it could be a target, it could be an identity, it could be your self-image, whatever it is, is it giving me that or is it a source of strife, is it a source of conflict?

Ask, whatever is present in the mind, what is it doing to your life, what is it that it is bringing to you? How do you feel when you are with a particular idea? When you are with it in awareness, how do you feel?

How do you feel when you are really with a particular person? Not just bodily, sitting side by side. When you are really with him in attention, how do you feel? Does it bring peace to you? Or in fact looking closely at that person makes him even more despicable? He can be tolerated if you do not look at him closely, but the more attentively you look at that person, the more repugnant it is? So, that’s it.

Similarly with books. Ultimately is this giving that to me. Or, with the teacher. “Ja guru te bhram na mite, bhraanti na jisaka jaay. so guru jhootha jaaniye, tyaagat der na laay” Bhram mit Raha hai? Bhranti ja rahi hai?

Is it clearing away confusion? If it is giving you that, that the clouds are being cleared, the sun is now shining in my inner sky, then it’s alright. What is that book doing to you? What is that video doing to you? That is the only way of knowing and that is the process of clarity.

Ask yourself, is it making the mind even more clouded, is it loading me with more beliefs, more content, more stuff, more load, more baggage, or is it making me lighter? Featherweight, flying around in the wind. And once you have seen it, please be honest. Please be honest.

So, you are asking, what is the process of clarity? Is it just listening with immersion and no resistance? No, you see, it is not only a particular action which you are calling as listening. Hearing something out in a particular period of time will not be sufficient. Is this what you are calling as listening? Is this something that is a part of entire life or is it something that is limited to a few hours?

If by this what you mean is that’ I listen to life with immersion and in a resistance less way’; beautiful. But if by this what you mean is that,’ I hear out a particular person, or a particular book’; then that won’t help much.

Listening is a quality of life itself, its an all-pervasive thing, not limited to few hours. If what you mean extends to the whole spread of your life, then what you are saying is very nice, good. The immersion cannot be time bound, as is , resistance lessness cannot be time bound.

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