When You Are Alright, then the Sound of Your Footsteps Is Compassion
Acharya Prashant: The desire is to be able to distinguish between the true and the false, the wise and the unwise, the real and the unreal, right action, and the wrong action. That is the desire. The only thing is that whatever will come out of the desire, will necessarily be a misplaced action. The very desire of the wrong action is, that it is an action coming out of desire. Now, if I desire to know the right action, can I ever know the right action?
Please go into the situation. What is the right action? Right action is that which comes from actually nowhere, just happens. And therefore, it is fresh. And therefore, it does not need the assistance of the past. I want the right action. When I say, “I want the right action”, surely I have an image in mind. I say, “This is the right action”, that image is coming from the past but the right action by definition is the one that cannot come from the past. This means, that all my efforts to distinguish between right and wrong, wise and unwise, true and false, will always be unsuccessful or will appear successful but will yield very harmful results.
It is an auspicious sign if one wants to make that distinction. We want to know the difference between love and hate. We want to know the difference between right living and wrong living. The only thing is what is the agency, that will decide on this? Who will decide? Who will be the judge? Now, if I am the judge, then the beginning to find the right action is itself a wrong beginning. I want to find out what is the right action for me. Remember, the right action. And my first action in finding out this right action itself is wrong.
What is the wrong action?
That I have chosen myself as the agency that will choose the right action. I have chosen myself and thereby, I have chosen my thoughts. I have decided that I will think and decide the right action for me. Now, here things have already gone wrong. Now, whatever conclusion you come to, would definitely be a wrong conclusion.
The wrong conclusion may sometimes depose as right. And that is why the habit continues because at least sometimes we get the feeling that I made the right decision. So, that sustains the hope that if one time I could make the right decision surely it is possible next time also.
Please remember that whenever something really right happens in life, it does not happen as a result of one’s decision. If your decision is coinciding with the happening, it is just a coincidence. The really good comes to you from a very unknown place. It does not come because you called it. It does not come because you drafted it. It does not come because you had anything to do with it.
Since morning one is crying for rain and it indeed does rain in the afternoon. The personnel self wants to believe that the rain has come as an answer to my prayers. Have we not seen it often? That I had been wishing since morning that it may rain today and it did rain. So, my prayers have been answered. That is the kind of coincidence that makes us believe that something good can happen out of my effort and decision. The really good, the right action, meeting the wise one, entering the true, that happens on its own. On its own. And is prepared happen to all the time, provided you do not become an authority of your own, provided you do not become the judge, provided you do not become the decision-maker and the actor.
What we are doing right now is giving some kind of code to reality. This code has two shortcomings. First of all, it is not perfect. Second, even to the extent that it is helpful. It only goes halfway. In the sense that it points and then leaves you to cover the rest of the distance.
Are you getting it?
And even as a pointer, it is not a perfect pointer because I may point towards the sky and say, “Look at that star”, and then you may look at other stars. I am not even talking of reaching the star. So, I am saying first thing is, the pointer itself is not perfect. I may point towards something else and you may think of it something different. Secondly, even if you come to know what I am pointing at, the distance has to be covered by you, not the one who is pointing.
So, what we are trying here, this language, this communication, this session is a special exercise, suited only to this occasion. It must not be tried indiscriminately outside with others. There you have to use ways that are suitable to the other person and to the other occasion. There the method of communication has to be different.
What method?
That depends on the occasion, which means no method, or which means the method has to be dynamic, continuously changing.
When let’s say a Krishnamurti says that methods are false. What he says is particular methods are false. What he says is one or two or four methods wouldn’t suffice because reality is dynamic. What you call as the universe, is time and space and constantly changing. And it is in the universe that you are applying the methods.
So, you need not four or five methods, you actually need forty thousand, fifty thousand, an infinite number of methods. And the precise method, the right method, suitable for that moment can come neither from idealism nor from memory. It can come only from being present and having the courage to try the unknown, to let the unknown happen. Because the method that will be suitable in front of your friend or your life partner or your colleague in your workplace will not be a method that is being applied in this camp. And the method that will be suitable with one colleague will not be a method that would be appropriate with another one. And the method that is appropriate with one colleague at one time will not be functional at another time. Even with the same person, different ways, different words, a totally different approach would be right at another time.
That approach cannot be a product of thought. That approach has to come by living in a very freeway, in a very care freeway. So, the other one is coming from the front and you are just doing what you doing. In just doing what you doing, in not really bothering for the other, you are actually displaying great compassion for the other. And that is the right method. You will not even know how you have had a healing effect upon the other without even wanting.
Because you have been surrendered, because you have been moving as one with existence, only the right thing will happen through you. You wouldn’t even have to try to be an agent of change. Your very presence will cause the right to change all around you. You wouldn’t even know why your wife is suddenly behaving in a more peaceful way. You didn’t try, in fact, you are not even thinking of her, and yet the change has happened.
Change does not happen when you actively trying to change the other.
If you look at it, it is some kind of violence. When you actively targeting the other, trying to change him, is it not an act that is beyond you? Are you not trying to play God? Are you not trying to play God?
Yes?
Is it really befitting a human being to think he can change another human being? Or is it our first responsibility to turn inward? Not try to change the other but to be what we must be. It is a paradox. If you will look only at one side of it, then you come to very stupid conclusions. I am saying, when you are not bothered about others that is when you are totally compassionate. When you are not trying to chase the other that is you become an agent of change. Compassion is not about thinking all the time of others.
Oh!, you know, she is so saintly. All her life she was working for others only. She deserves to be called a saint because her life was full of selfless service for the underprivileged.
No.
This is not compassion. This is some crude attempt at being compassionate. You are trying to become compassionate and compassion is not a cultivated thing. You cannot try to be compassionate.
Getting it?
When you are alright then the sound of your footsteps is compassion.
That is what compassion is.
Would you remember this? You are just going your way. You are going your right way as a healthy being and the sound of your footsteps, is compassion. Remember this.
