You are at war with me.Thought is your weapon || Acharya Prashant (2015)
Speaker: In asking, “Can something be understood?” you have conveniently protected, hidden: somebody . Can something be understood by whom? That whom is very important to protect. That subject is very important to be defended. And because that subject is very important to be defended, so you will feed objects even to understanding. Because the nature of the subject is divided, small, because the subject is such that he cannot be total, so you will conveniently pick up small, fragmented divided objects even in matters of understanding. Isn’t it surprising how we cannot do without objects? We turned God into an object. We want an object for understanding. We want an object to love. When we say, “What is truth”? We want an objective definition.
Everything needs to be objective. Everything needs to have a shape, size, color, outline; a limit. Everything needs to be something so that the somebody who is asking the question may be protected. Because the somebody cannot go beyond the something . This trick always work upon us. We are never able to beat this trick. We want to understand intelligence, we want to understand sensitivity and we want to understand God. Don’t you see what you are doing? Making object of God, you are only protecting the subject that you are. That is what you are doing. With that objective in mind, whatever question you ask will only add to your misery.
You are saying, “Leave the disease alone and change everything else about me”. When it is said that, “Understanding is objectless” it is not merely an academic statement. It is not merely a theoretical assertion; it has something to do with your day to day life, with your moment to moment breathing. Because there are no objects except the ones that are mirror image of you as the subject.
When you say that “I understand something”, all you mean is that you now have a conceptual framework about it. All you mean is that now you have conveniently settled to a conclusion; which is a thought . A thought that pleases the subject that you are. A thought that is not disruptive at all because it is emerging from your own structures. What emerges from your own patterns and structures cannot disrupt your very patterns and structures. It is impossible. Your thoughts can be of no help to you. Your analysis can be of no help to you.
You might be pleasing yourself with great conclusions but you are just kidding yourself. They cannot help you.
What arises from the mind will have the same quality as that of the mind. It cannot provide a different quality to the mind. If you think that your thoughts can change your life, they cannot.
So much you say, so much you write, so much is your need to express. But it is of no avail. Your plans cannot carry you into the beyond. Your thoughts will not unravel the mystery to you. Your conclusions have not brought you to the truth. Your understanding has not shown you anything beyond your knowledge.
We have a deep need to feel competent and smart. It gives a kind of temporary relaxation to feel that I know; that I have put my finger on the real thing. Adequacy is so intoxicating. It is such a deep fulfillment that even its fake shadow is deeply pleasing. Under no condition would we be prepared to accept that we know nothing at all . And when I say, “Nothing at all” , there is no allowance for anything at all . If you amuse yourself by telling that I know a little bit, this little bit is sufficient for your tendencies to raise an entire world. A world in which you are the master, the authority, the knowledgeable one.
Look at the way you have put it: “Can sensitivity be understood from the confinement of the mind?”
Do you know when we put the article ‘the’ ? T-H-E, the. Do you know when is it to be used in language? When you are referring to something *know*n. The first time you see a tree, it is a tree and then it is the tree. See, what your language is telling about you, “Can sensitivity be understood from the confinement of the mind”?
Do you really know your confinement?
‘The confinement’, as if you are referring to something you are so aware of! You know your confinements and still you are confined!
What do you mean by saying, “The confinement of the mind”? You know, what is mind? Then why play games? Who is there to be deceived? Even the slightest belief in the capability of your thought and your expression; and you are finished. Ego is very adjustable in a sense. It does not demand too much of space. Give it a little bit of levy. Just a little bit of seat and it will park itself. It does not say give me an entire, wide, spacious throne. Just give me a bit, an inch, and of course we are so generous that we give it much more than an inch.
You are sure? You will understand sensitivity from within the confinement of the mind or outside the confinement of the mind? When you say, “I do not understand something”, you imply that you know at least that it can be understood. Do you know this much about sensitivity or understanding? The world wants you to be puffed up. All full of confidence. Chin up. Bright smiles. That image of the successful and intelligent man, who knows. In fact the world does not like it if you declare that you do not know. The world desperately wants you to feel that you know and what you do not know can be known; so says the world. The world says if you do not know something then there are the universities, the teachers, the encyclopedias and the internet. Either you know or you can know. One man humbly declaring that neither he knows nor is there a possibility of knowing. It is a danger to the entire world. The world does not really dislike your arrogance. It feeds on arrogance, it live on cautiousness. But the world starts trembling in front of humility. One man declaring that knowledge and the pleasure that arises of the knowledge, are fake. That all our confidence about the lives that we are leading and the world that we are living in, is misplaced, the threat to the whole order. But through various ways and thousands of mechanism they have filled you up, they inflated you.
Even humility is a part of that inflation. You do not know humility. For you humility is a concept that has been stuffed into you. So the fellow is inflated with humility. We have lots of people who are full of nothingness. (fleering ) They are very-very full of nothingness. Absolutely inflated with the concept of nothingness! Ask them, “What do you have”? They will say, “Nothing”. Oh! Well it is such a huge and solid and massive nothing! It is not the vacuum of the Buddha . It is a colossal rock, their nothingness. There is no difference whether you act arrogant or whether you act humble.
Do you know what arrogance is and what is humility? Both are just dream stuffs that you have used to make yourself up.
It does not matter that you are good or bad, it does not even matter that you are raising a question here or not raising a question. Those who write questions have their own smart reasons to write questions. Those who do not write questions have their own smart reasons to not to write questions. How does it matter? Those who come are neither better nor worse than those who do not come. Those who come, come because they are sure that they are gaining something. Those who do not come might be sure that they are not gaining something. But surely both are sure that they know what is meant by gain and what is meant by loss. (sarcastic laugh )
And if you do not gain stuff for a while, desperate we become. The fellow who acts humble is actually worse off than the one who is acting arrogant. Because at least in terms of morality, arrogance deserves to be shunned. You have some reason, even if a defective reason to have a re-look at his arrogance, even if it is just a moral reason. But he wants to look at his arrogance. Why am I arrogant?
But the fellow who wears silence, who keeps quiet, who acts humble, the nice lady is more dangerously placed than the arrogant man; more dangerously placed. You are carrying every bit of the poison that he is carrying with no mechanism at all to tell you that it is a poison.
When you ask questions, do you know what you are asking? You are asking what I add to my diet to build up my health. Can you tell me some sauce, some pills? And what is your diet? Poison! You consume plate after plate of poison everyday and you think that what you are missing in life is a little bit of taste. That the aroma of your food is not quite good. So can I have a little bit of seasoning please? But poison is your very diet that you will not give up. You are made up of that.
And when I say this, my words will fall upon deaf ears, because you know what is good for you. It is impossible for you to imagine, to conceptually visualize a poison less life. Simply impossible, you cannot do that. So even as you sit in front of me, even if you agree with me, you will consume poison right here, right now. Because you operate only out of your thought and analysis. You are so damn scared. You will agree with me in a conceptual way and you do, I do not deny that. Most of you who are sitting here are sitting here because of their conceptual agreement with what I say. But that cannot help you. It is like telling the doctor: Yes doctor, I understand. I understand that one should not take poison. And even as you are saying this, another morsel of poison has gone into your mouth. You are busy taking poison even while agreeing that poison kills.
Your very way of listening, your very method of approaching, is all yours . You are holding on to yourself like a scared girl holds on to her dear doll. And the girl is so sure that she must be scared. She is absolutely sure that there is reason to be scared. In that sense she is very confident of her knowledge. You too are very confident of your knowledge. Look at your face, the confidence with which you think. When you are lost in thoughts, have you seen how your face looks? You are so sure. Absolutely assured you are. You know you are doing the right thing, look at your eyes, you know your calculations will lead you to the truth. You know that. You should just have a camera in your living spaces and that camera should be able to give you footage of yourself when you are not really aware that you are being watched by the camera. And then look at your face. At no moment in the day does the very fact of your ignorance strike you. Look how you smile. You know you have been able to manipulate things. Look at how you plan; you know this is how things work. See, how you think? Even at this moment your face is so full of yourself. You really are somebody. Behind the expression that you are carrying, is somebody who has set his teeth, who has clinched his fists and is determined not to give up.
Even at this moment, you are actually at war with me. Thought is your weapon. And you are fighting and fighting. In fact, I must praise your determination. You might have been otherwise a laggard and a loser in life. But in one sense, you are not a loser at all. You will not allow yourself to lose this battle. You will not allow yourself. Your fists are clinched with all your might. And you will fight to the last breathe.
You remember your determination Sushmita that night? (referring to the questioner ) You were at war. You are always at war. Each one of us here is at war. And you will fight to the last breathe. And when you are at war, you have to be sure. And you are so very sure.
A wrenching sense of the fakeness of it all simply does not strike you. It does not. You are sure that it is real and important.
You will resist me with the utmost ways you can produce. There are various ways of resisting. One way is to avoid me. The other way is to sit in front of me. If you go away and avoid me, again your own sense of morality will pinch you. But you are so smart. Sitting here you have assuaged your sense of morality. You have proven yourself to be good, spiritually inclined and you have been able to defend yourself as well. You know when a tank or a huge gun is firing. There are two ways to avoid the fire, either go away very far or come right in front of the gun. Powerful, long range, big guns cannot hit you if you are right in front of them. And you know that.
How long will you keep knowing? It is not that some part of your knowledge is non-factual. I am saying that your entire mind stuff is fake, rotten, diseased and poisonous; the entire stuff and the very foundation of it. I am not asking you to clean up a part. I am not suggesting an incremental change. Whatever you know is rubbish. It is absolutely rubbish. Not a part of it. Not that some part of it is alright. Think and know that you are thinking rubbish. Decide that what I said was worthy of writing down and know that your decision was rubbish.
But you are so smart, you are so confident of your decisions. You know what to take from me and what to not to take from me. You know what to accept and what to reject. You know when to come, when not to come. You do not need improvement, you need dissolution. Do you understand that? Every single grain of the structure that you have built up, the structure that you are, is suffering, is illusion. Even the smallest thought about the most trivial of daily matters is misplaced. Move one step and you know that the step is wrong. You cannot do anything right. Anything!
It is good entertainment. Watch the faces of people as they stand on railway platforms and the market place. Watch husband and wife talking to each other. Watch people arguing with each other. It does not matter what they are arguing about. It does not matter what their objects of conversation are. What is striking is the sureness on the face. They know what the whole thing is all about, “I know”. Visualize. One woman talking to the other; two men discussing politics; one man explaining the market conditions to the other business man; somebody writing an email elaborating his situation. Have you seen your face while writing an email? Have you seen how deeply you believe that you know? But you are writing. When you are writing these questions, see your face. You know what you are asking. But you all are very humble people, full of humility. (sarcastic laugh )You are people full of humility.
It never happens that the very ground under your feet appears shaking, appears like giving away. It never happens, right? You always feel sure of your standing. It never happens that you just crumble down, collapse, just sit down where you are. It does not happen. It does not happen that nothingness of it overpowers you. It does not happen with your daily living. It does not happen, right? It does not happen that walking, eating, talking, you just stop and you do not know whether to proceed and how to proceed. You just stop, aghast. Powerless, energy less; it does not happen. A sense of great awe and wonderment never overtakes you. You are always on top, always in control. You are always your master. Aren’t you? You are always composed. You have thoughts. (sarcastic laugh ). You have thoughts. Confident young men and women. You go down a busy market, rapid paces; it never happens that you suddenly find that energy is gone. That you are nowhere to go, that the engine has just been turned off. It does not happen. In the middle of a heated argument, it does not happen that you drop dead. That the stupidity of it all hits you hard and an entire motivation to carry on withers down. It doesn’t happen. It never happens, right? That you are struck by the thing that you see.
You never feel that you have no relationship with the face that you are looking at in the mirror. It never happens. You never stop. You know, you are that face. You know that, you are so sure, very confident. This is my face! It does not happen that you just stand there, energy less, direction less, motion less, thought less like an idiot. You are never an idiot. You are always very intelligent. And it does not befit intelligent people to stand stupidly in front of mirrors wondering at the face that you are looking. Intelligent people do not do that, right? When they look at the image in the mirror, they know they are looking at themselves. They know I am that, the face in the mirror. And you must be intelligent. You cannot be idiots.
It never strikes you that all this is just so fabricated. It cannot strike you. Because it cannot strike you via thought! And thought is all that you have. Even as I am speaking to you, you are probably analyzing what it means to be struck.
Thought is not the arrow that will pierce the mind. Thought is not that arrow.
No gun can ever shoot itself. Have you ever seen a gun that can shoot itself dead? You must be self-assured. The world does not like shaky people. The world does not like people who are wobbly, wondering. The world likes people who have figured out stuff, who know the game and who know how to win the game. That is how you are, self-assured. Even right now you are just disappointed, you are not wondering. And disappointment my dear is another thought. You will not go off thinking. You are just disappointed. You are not letting yourself loose. What kind of experiences have you had? How scared are you? And a scared man is a very dangerous man, very-very dangerous man.
Till you think you can know, knowing will not happen. Till you are asking a question, no solution will come to you.
There is the look of guilt. There is disappointment. But you still know that you must be guilty, but you still know that there must a reason for disappointment. You still know. You will not leave the field of knowledge. It is not happening. It is just not happening. You were probably happy a while back, which was a thought. You are not so happy right now, which is another thought. But you will not give up thought. And this one thought will make way for another thought.
Whatever you are certain of, that is your bondage. Just figure out what you are certain of. More certain you are of something, the more bounded you are. Maya rides on certainty.
Whenever you feel sure of something, just stop in your tracks, stop dead; because you are wrong. You are just wrong. Whenever you come to a conclusion, reject it, because it is wrong. I am saying wrong because you understand only that language, right and wrong. I cannot say drop the conclusion. You do not know what that means ‘dropping’. I tell you it is wrong, it does not mean that its opposite is right. Its opposite is equally wrong.
The more surety there is in your conclusion the more wrong it is. Now, what all have you concluded?
You think you love somebody, seriously? You are sure? You think you know the right action? You think you know your responsibility? You think you know the face in the mirror?
Of course you know! (sarcastic laugh )
Of course you know. Look at your thoughtful faces. Look at how the mind-machine is working to its full potential. It has to be your conclusions. Such intelligent questions you ask. I know what the quality of your mind is. Whom are you deceiving by asking such profound questions? I know what you are after. That little bit of flesh! That little bit of security!
Jahan teri yeh nazar hae, meri jaan mujhe khabar hae. ( I very well know where your eyes are, Bollywood song)
And there is nothing wrong with eyeing whatever you are eyeing. Alright, it happened. But you are so sure that it must happen and must keep happening. You are so committed towards defending it. Deep trenches you have dug. You are hiding there with your weapons. Sometimes you fire left, sometimes you fire right. Sometimes you fire with a shaven face. Sometimes you fire with lots of beard. But you are firing all the time. And you have only one enemy; realization. And in realization there is no place for your knowledge.
Innocence simply does not shine. Cleverness ret large. You could not have been feeling bad, had you not been clever even at this moment. I am not fighting your history, I have nothing to do with that. I am seeing what is here, right now. Even right now you have reasons to feel bad. How can you feel bad if you are not so clever?
Only the clever man will feel bad. Even at this moment, I do not see jaws dropping. I see your heads down, not your jaws dropping. Shame is just thought. Shame is just more thought. By being ashamed you are only proving that you are very smart, very-very smart.
You know that there is something to be ashamed of. Yes, so I am ashamed of myself, very clever. Sometimes you indulge, another time you are ashamed. At both times you are clever. You know when to indulge and you when to pay for your indulgence by feeling ashamed. So clever you are. And you compensate. You move around with a weighing machine, a balance in your mind. And you think that thought X can neutralize thought Y. You think good character will take care of bad character.
Sometimes you will have an ugly expression of happiness on your face and other times you will have an equally ugly expression of sadness on your face. But your face will never be clean of expression. Never empty of expression, never innocent. At some points you will be burning in the desire to consume. At other times you will be burning in the fire of repentance. But you would never be at peace. Sometimes the mirror would be reflecting fairy lands, at other times the mirror would be showing lands of demons. But never is the mirror empty like the sky. How smart you are? By expressing guilt you think you are going beyond. No. You are so clever that you express guilt so as to continue with the expression.
You get bored of one thought. You get bored of consuming, so you bring in another thought. Consume, consume, consume; think, think, think. Then, renounce, renounce, renounce and think, think, think!
Consume or renounce, thought must continue.
Bad thought, bad thought, bad thought. Good thought, good thought, good thought. But I am so sure of what is good and what is bad. See, look at what you do. You write stuff to me. You never write stuff to me about your happiness. But when you are sad and repentant, you write to me. And deep within you have a desire to gain my acceptance. You are so clever and so sure. You know what is good thought and what is bad thought. And you think I operate in the field of good thoughts, that is your concepts of me. You know what are bad things, you do not mention them to me. You know what are the good things, you mention them to me and you think I will be pleased. That is the concept, the image that you have of me.
So, everything according to you is within the range of thoughts. And you have located me as well wthin the field of your thoughtful universe. You have given me a safe home somewhere. You know what are the things to tell me, you know what are the things to not to discuss with me. So clever you are. So clever you are. What do you think; I am a patriarch, some kind of fashionable saint? What do you think; I am anybody within your mental domain? But you are confident that you have figured me out. You are very confident; you have figured me out, right? Treat him like some kind of a respectable elder. Give him parental kind of respect. Yes? You are very-very sure of everything including me. You know who I am. You know who you are. I salute your convictions. You know so much. The entire piece has been unraveled.
