When one is angry at God || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, I have been at a stage in life where I would get angry at God. My understanding of God at that point was, that there is an external entity out there, overseeing everything, trying to protect the entire world.

Eventually, I could see that there are things that I am doing wrongly, and what I am facing is the result of my own actions. At that time I could not get where I was wrong, and why God was not guiding me. But, there was still anger in me for God.

Acharya Prashant (AP): So, I said that one has to proceed both totally and sequentially into it. So you admit that you are making a mistake, the mistake is not coming from nowhere.

"Where is the mistake coming from?……. And where is that coming from?….. And where is that coming from?….. And where is that coming from?" And all this is so enthralling that you will forget to suffer. It’s all so very linked to each other through a cause-effect chain.

And you soon reach a point where you start seeing the absence of any real self in the whole chain of events. You start seeing that it is all so very dictated by forces that you cannot even identify with. And then, it becomes difficult to suffer for a stupid reason.

The more you go into your suffering, the more you will see the falseness of the sufferer.

Okay, let us not even call it the ‘falseness’, let us call it – the ‘not me’ character of the sufferer.

Q: Now I understand that there is no external entity as such when it comes to God.

AP: There is no ‘I’ as such. You cannot say, “I understand that there is no external entity.” If there is this internal entity, then correspondingly there would be an external one as well. So, that statement should be reserved for future use.

As long as ‘you’ are there, there are external entities. Don’t just jump into conclusions. Your life is not theoretical, it is experiential. If life is experiential, how can the basis of life be theoretical?

Q: So, until I experience it, I will go with…

AP: You are already experiencing a lot. When I say, “Life is experiential,” by that, I do not mean that you have to experience something more, or something wonderful, or something divine. What I mean is – that all your statements are coming from the suffering that you experience. Is your suffering theoretical? Is your confusion theoretical?

When these are your experiences, then you must talk only from your experience. And this has to be clearly understood.

God is not an experience, but suffering is an experience.

Therefore, your suffering is an important judge, not of God, but of your ego.

But there are those, who do not understand this, and they start talking of experiencing God. Now, God, or Peace, or Truth, or Anand (Joy), they are not elements of experience. But still, experience is very important. Why? Because it is your frustration with experience that brings you to Spirituality. Therefore, the experience that frustrates you, must vanish.

Hence, the aim of Spirituality is not to provide you with more relishable experiences, but to give you Freedom from bothersome experiences.

We will therefore continue to take experience as an important judge, as an important indicator.

As long as you are experiencing suffering, where is ‘Liberation’? So, experience is an important indicator. Of what? Not of God, not of Truth, but of your Liberation, and that does not mean that you will 'experience' Liberation. That only means that – you will not experience suffering.

Do not make it mean to you that, you will start experiencing Liberation on top of the suffering that you are experiencing.

Q: But, now I am not able to relate to – who or what is meant by God.

AP: Is there a need? Is there a need to really even talk of God?

Q: But, when the Scriptures and the Saints keep praising God, I am not able to understand.

AP: The Teacher is there to explain when that happens.

The Scriptures, first of all, implore you to look at yourself.

If you are suffering, then God is nothing but Freedom from suffering.

If you are longing, then God is nothing but the fulfillment of that longing.

If you are lonely, then God is nothing but Freedom from loneliness.

Therefore, what is God depends on who you are.

‘God’ is that – which fulfills you.

And why do you need fulfillment? Don’t ask me that. It is you who is saying that you are unfulfilled.

And there are several here who have mentioned that – “Acharya Ji, why do we need Mukti (liberation)?” I don’t need any Mukti, you need Mukti. That’s why you come here. And then you ask – “Why do we need Mukti?” Don’t come here, go away. Nobody needs Mukti.

Adhyaatm (Spirituality) does not start with – all is okay, all is well. It starts with – “I admit I am unwell.” And if you admit that you are unwell, how do you not know what ‘Liberation’ means?

What does ‘Liberation’ mean to an unwell one?

Liberation from the un-wellness.

That is ‘God’.

And therefore, God is not absolutely, or universally, lovely or desirable.

You will love or respect God, only as much as you love the dissolution of your suffering.

The more you want your suffering to cease, the more you will love God.

These two are just two ways of saying the same thing.

When you say, “I want my suffering to cease”, let me put it differently, “I intensely want my suffering to cease”, then you are speaking in the negativa. The statement can be put in an affirmative way as – “I love God intensely.” The statement which is expressed in a negative sense as – “I want my suffering to end”, is the same statement as – “I love God.”

And, the more one of these statements would be, the more the other statement would be. In fact, even among these two, your yearning to be free from suffering must come first.

The more intense is your self-love, the more intense would be your love for God.

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