You are not Brahm, neither are you the Witness || Acharya Prashant (2016)

Question: So, we are not the doer. Right?

Acharya Prashant: We are. Always. That’s what needs to be seen. We are always doing and doing and doing.

Listener 1: Yes, but we shouldn’t do. We should observe. Right?

AP: That can not be a statement of an ideal, that cannot be the desire. You have to stop at saying, ‘I am the doer’. Kindly don’t go about saying, ‘I am the non-doer, I am the non-doer, the doer is somebody else’. You are the doer, are you not?

You are the doer even when you should not be doing. So, keep doing and keep noticing that you are the one who is doing. And when you have noticed deeply enough then you will be so sick of doing that you will step back. Never say, ‘I am the non-doer, I am the witness, I am *Brahm*‘ Are you? You penny pincher!

Look at the state of the world, look at the wars, look at the pettiness, you talked of the garbage (pointing at questioner), we are the ones responsible for this garbage. The world is all one, the same mind. And then, do we have the right to say, ‘I am the fourth one, I am the Atman’?

I am the Atman and here is the polyethene!

(Laughs)

L1: So, how do we practice, approach life?

AP: Is life not happening life on its own?

Do you really have to approach this moment?

What are you doing right now?

Do you really have to do anything right now?

And without doing anything haven’t this last one and one and a half hours not beautifully passed?

Have you really been doing anything?

Then, why are you so worried that if I don’t do anything, what will happen to life?

Life has its own ways and intelligence, you don’t need to worry.

The future will take care of itself, you don’t have to build the future.

L2: It’s like making decisions through freewill.

AP: Did you decide to ask this question?

(Laughs)

I can speak for myself—I didn’t decide to give an answer

L2: Okay, you are surrendering to the flow of life. But you have got freewill to make a choice, not a decision, just the choice. Right?

AP: Is this question not beautiful? Is this question not genuine? Is this question not very very nice? Why can’t the entire life be like this?

Flowing sweetly.

L2: Yes, we are feeling.

AP: No, you are not feeling anything. You are just present and out of your presence, this question came. Because you were present, so this question came and in that way it had a certain beauty. Why can’t the entire life be like this? If it is possible in these two hours, why can’t it be possible the entire life?

L1: So, trying to formulate, if somebody makes me angry now and I get very angry and kill somebody and hit somebody very hard. And I am saying it is just happening, it is not me because I don’t have to control anymore.

AP: Where is that anger? Where is that person?

Where is all that? Where is that person who would hurt you? And how deeply hurt are you that you are still thinking of hurt? Why must you carry the hurt of the past with you to this moment? Would you be thinking of the future hurt if you would not have been carrying the wounds of the past? Why must you carry them? And if you are carrying them still, are you present?

If you are still thinking of the wounds of the past and therefore, asking about the wounds of future, are you present here? Where is that man who would throw a stone at you? Where is he? And why are you making advance preparations? Like some national army. They say, ‘All the nuclear arsenal is just a deterrent’. Don’t they? I have produced 1000 hydrogen bombs so that the other one doesn’t harm me.

Preparing in advance.

Why are you preparing in advance? When it will come, you shall see that you are strong, you are intelligent. When the stone will come to you, then you will know what to do. You need no advance planning.

Do I know what is the next question that you will throw at me?

And if I know then it would be so bad. If I know then this session would lose all its authenticity. The session has a certain flow, has a certain beauty only because I do not know what is going to happen. I have laid it open to you, it is in your own hands.

I have surrendered to you.

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