Why is it easier to believe in the world rather than the Truth? || Acharya Prashant (2015)
Listener : Sir, Why the Truth is so rare? Truth is something which is non-fictitious and this world is fictitious. And why the world is not so rare and Truth is rare?
AP : Are you asking, why you believe strongly in the world and not in the Truth? Is that what you are saying? – Because you have been taken in, because you have assumed a lot of things, because you do not inquire, as simple as that.
L : Why in the first place we ignore them? Why not in the first place we inquire them? They are the two sides of the coin, we could have like either.
AP : Had you been of the quality, who would inquire rather than believe then you would not have been ‘you’. The one who appears to be born as ‘Praveen’ had no option but to believe. Praveen was born with ignorance, with seeds of ignorance.
So if you really want to know why you believe rather than inquire then you will need to ask the question –‘Why was I born at all?’ and when you will ask this question –‘Why I was born?’ you will have to ask –‘What is it that feels like having taken birth?’.
Where do my parents and my date of birth go away at the time of sleeping? What happens to all my experiences since birth after I have slept? What basis do I have to conclude that this event of taking birth is real at all? Who took birth? And from where did he come? And to where does he go?
These are again not questions that have answers. These questions are asked just to show the clever mind its place. Just to quieten it down because it is talking too much. So he need a question to which it won’t have an answer. And there is no answer to it. But quietness is possible. Answer to this question may not be possible, but quietness is possible. And quietness means, ‘I am no longer bothered with this question.’
Now when you are no longer bothered with this question then you cannot be bothered with believes either. See, how by not being bothered with the question you have come to the solution of the question.
What was the question? – ‘Why do I believe rather than inquire?’
Who believes? – This susceptible, vulnerable mind. Right! That is open and eager to receive information from here and there and then grandly and arrogantly believe in that information. When the mind is shown his place then the mind can no more have confidence over whatever information has come to it and whatever the mind has; has come to it from somewhere.
The most fundamental belief that the mind has is that –‘You exist’. When this belief is questioned, then everything surrounding this belief gets questioned. Your ‘I’ sits in middle of your all knowledge. Question the ‘I’ and you have shaken up all your knowledge. When your belief in your knowledge and information goes then you are open to inquiry. Are you getting it?
You keep believing in the person, who is asking the question and the person will never get the answer. The only way to give you an answer is to destroy you, or dissolve you, or quieten you.
Can the Truth be given to the false? Can the immense be given to the limited?
You come to inquire about the Truth, to ask about the Truth with your little container in your hand and you say pour the Truth in this. Now you are already in the Truth but you are obsessed with the container. The only way is to take away the container. You are already in the Truth.
You may never get an answer to how it all begins. But I assure you it can end and that is of use to you. This question that –‘How does it all begin?’ is of very little use. Why? – Because it never really begins. It only begins to the sleeping mind. It only begins to ignorance. Does it really begin?
You are dreaming that there is great fire and you are sweating profusely. And again and again you are asking in your dream –‘How did it all begin?’, ‘How did it all begin?’ Did it really begin? – It never really began but for sure it can end, you can be waken up. Woken up you would no longer ask this question –‘How did it all begin?’
If you are asking –‘How did it begin?’ It only means that you still believe that there is a fire. Would an awaken man ask this question –‘How did the dream fire begin?’
L : Because Sir, it has not ended yet. Something which didn’t begin, how can you end?
AP : If you think it began then some firefighter in the dream will come and try to douse the fire. (Laughingly)
A dream fire can be doused only by the dream firefighter. And in your dream you can only think of fictitious ways of quietening the fire. The dreaming man can only dream of ways to put of the fire. Will he not? But will he ever know that even as he is dreaming of fire, somebody coming towards him step by step to wake him up. What he is dreaming of? – He is dreaming of firefighters and he is thinking that these firefighters will put out the fire. He will never, never come to know that even as he is dreams and sleeps, the real helper is already coming close and closer to his bed side. He will not only extinguish the fire, he will actually extinguish the dream, the state of the mind itself. But this cannot be known to you in your dream. So you will never know who is really coming to help you.
You can keep imagining that your friends and the world is coming to help you. Keep imagining, that’s anyway all that you can do. The ways of real help cannot be guest. You will never know how help is coming silently to you, in what form.
Does a sleeping man can ever know who is coming to wake him up? How will you know then who is coming to help you?
