Why do I speak to you? || Acharya Prashant (2016)
*Questioner: This process that you mention, of observation, is that something that you put into your life?*
Acharya Prashant: I don’t think about my own life, so how can I take care of it?
And I am not giving an ideal answer.
Since you asked, I am saying. I really think very very little of my own life. Last nine days, I don’t know whether I have thought of myself. I don’t know whether any of these people have thought of themselves. Thinking about yourself is a sure way of missing yourselves
*Q: I am asking this because I have not heard anyone saying what you are saying…*
AP: So, what does that prove?
*Q: How do you formulate these…*
AP: I am not formulating any of this.
*Q: Why are you up there and saying all that you are saying, from where does this come? How did that happen?*
AP: Why is the wind blowing?
Go, ask the wind.
Why must everything happen for a reason? If you will ask for an instantaneous reason, there is a reason. But if you are asking for a definite and real reason, there is no real reason.
Why I am here?
Because this place is less noisy compared to that place. In the afternoon, we were sitting there. That place disturbed the audience, so we said, we will sit here. Now, this is the reason. Now is this reason of any significance?
Ok, why we were sitting there? Even behind that there is some reason; because this cafe offered us a slight space and view, and all those things. Now is that reason, taking you any further.
Why are you in Rishikesh at all?
Because there was a strange co-incidence, you met someone and then it came-up that it will be a nice thing here. Now does even that help us know the ‘reason’?
You can go infinitely backwards into the cause-effect loop, the chain, and yet not reach any place meaningful. So, it’s suffices to say that there is really no reason. All reason is always for some psychological advancement. And that happens only when you are thinking of yourself. Here, there is not much of that.
You know, this is one thing, that really puzzles the mind. The mind comes to it and it pauses. It can make nothing out of it. It can draw no meaning, it can find no reason. This one thing. What is this one thing?
‘How can anything happen without reason?’
Now from here, the mind can go nowhere. And the mind gets stuck and it is beautiful that it gets stuck. Because it is the point, where it actually gets numb. It tries to feel around, it tries to detect some kind of a reason and when it finds no reason it almost feels paralysed. When such things happen, celebrate them. When such things happen, it is for you, a proof of something beyond the man-made because whatever is man-made is always for a reason. So, if there is something happening reasonlessly, it is a proof of God. Celebrate it.
There is much happening reasonlessly, you don’t detect it.
When you do detect it, feel grateful.
Gratitude is not really a word, that comes readily to the western mind. Western mind is steeped in the principles of individual freedom, personal space, privacy, personal choice, respect for individuality and such things. And when there is all of this being held as important then all of this can not be surrendered. So, there can be no gratitude.
Gratitude means not only of a sense of pleasure at having received something gratitude involves faith. Gratitude means that I am seeing that I am broken, yet I want to say thank you. If you are being gifted with something, then it is obviously so easy to say, thank you. And that is no expression of gratitude. Gratitude is when you are being killed, and yet you are thankful for it.
You people don’t know that. You don’t know that. You like it only when somebody pleases you. The moment, your essential disease is attacked, you withdraw. So, you know no gratitude. India has known a bit of that.
There are enough shops here that will please you and you will come out, ‘WOW! what a performance?’
Is the Teacher their to deliver performances? Is the Teacher there to entertain you? Is the Teacher there to give you something that you like and analyse and feel good about?
Then you don’t know the difference between the Teacher and a Guru.
The Guru is a death. What do you think, you will befriend the Guru?
The Guru is your end, an an absolute fullstop. You know the concept of master but a master is no close to Guru. You can know Guru only first of all you know God. And that is strange because unless you know the Guru, how will you know the God. That is why, one of the most devilish things that I see happening here is, is the debasement of the word Guru. The way the word has been corrupted here in this place, is what makes mis place, I will again state devilish. Guru is the most sacred of words. You don’t throw it around, you don’t splurge it.
You know, how beautiful you look, when you don’t know.
This look of wanderment, the way you were totally lost, this is called beauty. The knowledgeable face can never be a beautiful face. Beauty and innocence go together. When you are free of all your manipulations, then you are so beautiful.
Even the face reflects that. There is actually a physical difference in the quality of the face. The eyes have something very animal like in them. Where you don’t know, then your eyes are just like that of an animal and then they are so beautiful.
You pick-up a puppy, as you go back tonight. Pick-up a puppy and hold it close to your face and look into its eyes. And then you will know what it means to live without knowledge. And how beautiful it is.
