You’ve Already Won: Now Fight the War

Questioner: Namaste Sir, I’ve been following your teachings for almost two years now, and I cannot say thanks enough for giving what you have given. Thank you so much, Sir. I’m feeling too hearted, my heart is very full right now, and the words are not coming out easily.

With all the clarity that you give through the teachings, there is a point when you realize a lot of things, and you understand that whatever you have collected in the form of people and relationships in your life is not because you basically wanted something out of everybody. That was the reason for you to have them in your life. There was no strong foundation basically of those relationships.

The moment you accept the truth, things start falling off on their own. Then there comes a point, as you say, that the moment you reach higher, you get the company of the higher; the lower falls off. Then there comes a gap when you are moving towards the higher, the lower is falling off, and you do not have enough people in your life. Not that I need people for company or that I’m craving for people now, because what you are giving me is always filling me up. I do not need anything right now.

But I feel guilty that when I was in that environment, that society was not really giving the essence of who I am or helping me in any sense. I had all those people. Maybe there was a chance I could bring some people to you, but today I don’t have people to. I want to be able to receive what I have received from you. I don’t have people left in my life. My husband is there; he started listening to you recently. I just feel guilty about it, that I don’t have enough people in my life to bring and give them what you are giving. I don’t know how to handle this.

Acharya Prashant: I hardly have too many people in my life; I can count them on my fingertips. But I have people on my planet. How are they not people in my life? How are they not a family? Why do I need to feel related only to those who are present in, let’s say, the contact list of my phone?

Truth be told, I don’t have the numbers of even a single person present over here personally. Maybe some of us are related to the Foundation, so the Foundation has some details, but on my phone, I have nothing. Still, truth be told, there is a very intimate connection, and I’m as sincere as possible in my relationship with you.

So when we talk of people in my life, you see, the implicit assumption there is, first of all, because that’s the first thing. So first of all, you have to be, by way of the body or by way of interest, related to someone. That’s the first relationship, and that’s the relationship I’ll call life.

So, I have my brother, my nephew, my niece, my mother, my sister, my friends, a lot of friends, and these are the people in my life. That’s the conventional usage: these are the people I’ll call the people in my life. “Okay, this one, this one, this one, five of them, together we live in the same house, so these are people in my life. Four of them we go together on vacations, so these are the people in my life. Oh, some of them, you know, they are batchmates from old school or college, and we have kept in touch. So these are people in my life.”

“There was somebody I gave birth to, so that’s a person in my life. Then there was somebody whose body gave birth to me, so that’s a person in my life. And then there is a person I’m related to via the body, my husband or wife again, so that’s a person in my life. And then there are people I’m related to by way of my interests, so that’s a person in my life. I’ll start from there because that’s the first thing.” That’s how it goes in our mind.

“I’ll start from there.” Why do you need to start from there? Because the philosophy we have been taught puts a great deal of emphasis on these people in life. If I too were to consider, first of all, this limited set of people in my life, then I would have never managed to reach out to you. I would have remained confined to those few people in my life. Today, all of you are people in my life, at least from my side. Fine.

Questioner: So Sir, I agree to this. Now, because I have really, I’m trying to learn every day from you and I’m trying to create new for myself, I am literally starting from scratch. I’ve made a decision to go back to academics. I’ve gone back to academics after 24 years.

Acharya Prashant: Wonderful.

Questioner: I’m learning the course in a different country just for this sake, so that I can create new, I can make a new circle, and I can join, make people join, something which is really worth it.

But maybe that’s the gap I’m talking about. It might take a little bit more time till I really know people. The new people I’m talking about. But I don’t know this guilt, I understand this is just a guilt which is basically, I’m constantly noticing it because I feel there’s a kind of hurry. I think there’s a hurry to just do it, and not because of that. You know! I repeatedly constantly reminding or getting this reminder that time is very short and you have to do things faster than ever. So I think that’s the guilt which is constantly coming.

Acharya Prashant: This guilt is fine, but you must also remember that the right journey begins right from the destination. One has to live both these things together. On one hand, as you said, one hurries towards the destination. That’s the world of forms and appearances and names, where the destination is always afar. So one hurries, I too keep hurrying. In that world, the destination is always afar, and in some sense, the destination is unreachable because the kind of project that we are talking about will never be fully completed. So the destination will never be fully reached. That is in the outer dimension; the destination in some way will remain unreachable. So you will constantly feel the need to hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. And that’s fine.

At the same time, there must be a point within you that is already at the destination, already at the destination irrespective of where you have reached in the outer plane. So even as you hurry, and you must hurry in the context of the discussion that we are having today. Do we have time? No. So you must hurry. But also,

You must know that if you are pursuing the right one, then the pursuit can happen only from the right center, which means you are already at the destination.

I put it this way in the context of the Gita: when you are fighting the right war, then you have won even before the war has begun. That does not mean that you will no longer fight. You will still fight, and you will fight for the sake of victory. You’ll still fight, and you’ll fight for the sake of external victory. But inwardly, you are victorious even before the first shot has been fired or the first arrow in the Gita.

Inwardly, you are victorious even before the battle has begun. Outwardly, you can win or lose; anything can happen. So you will strive really hard to win, and in spite of all your external efforts, it is still possible that you might lose. Shri Krishna never guaranteed a win to Arjun. Never. And there have been so many Arjuns who have lost. That’s fine.

The Gita is not made precious or valuable by the fact that Arjun won. No. Arjun may win, or Arjun may lose. The real thing lies in having the truth represented by Shri Krishna at the heart. That’s where you start from. If the war starts from the realization that was imparted by Shri Krishna in the form of the Gita, if the war starts from there, then you have won even before shooting the first arrow, and you may still lose externally. Externally, you may still lose. It is possible. It was a very closely fought war, we know that. Any party could have won.

Inwardly, you must know that there is no need to hurry. I’m already home, and I am home, relaxed and complete at every point in the external journey. Now, the journey itself means incomplete completion because you have not reached the destination. That’s why the journey is there. So journey means incompletion. In the middle of that incompletion, you should be totally complete.

You should definitely be chasing great targets in the world. But even as you chase great targets, you must not suspend your contentment.

You must say, 'I am contented even as I chase and hurry up.' Yes, I’m chasing. I’m hurrying. I’m striving. I’m struggling. But even as all that is happening, I’m still already home, satisfied, fulfilled, contented, alright, relaxed. Outwardly, I’m totally stretched out, even tired. Inwardly, nothing tires me down. Inwardly, I’m always relaxed. That’s what one must meditate on.

Questioner: That’s the difference I can say, which has come after listening to you. The struggle was forever. It has been there forever. The only difference is outwardly, the struggle used to pull me away, and life was always chaotic. Now, the difference is chaos is there, but the clarity doesn’t let it get in. It is just an engagement with the chaos. It’s not worrying me and dragging me with it.

Now, as you say, inwardly you are already settled. You already know where you need to be. And still, you are just knowing that there is a lot to be done, and you still don’t know what to do or how to do. You are just moving ahead without any direction, uncertainty, and just stepping ahead. I don't know, here is still a lot of chaos.

Acharya Prashant: And you can handle that chaos only when there is a great order within. Then all that chaos becomes bearable. Otherwise, that chaos will get to you. That chaos will make you go mad. Right?

Which means the more settled, relaxed, and still you are internally, the more capable you are of inviting chaos externally, jumping into chaos without fear. Because now you know that chaos cannot reduce you or harm you. Internally, you must be still. Externally, you see, it’s like this: externally, work hard, very, very hard, strive and build a huge castle, the castle that is needed in these times, the project that is the demand of this age. Build all that with your sweat, your blood, all your effort, resources, and time, everything. But if all that comes crashing down, you should still be okay. If all that is taken away from you, you should still say, fine. I was already at the destination. So externally, you can rob me, destroy me. Internally, you can do nothing to me. I’m still my own master.

Questioner: I can only thank you for giving this to me. I mean, thank you is a very small word for you, Sir. It's like I can forever be grateful.

Acharya Prashant: I’m grateful.

Questioner: Thank you so much, Sir. I don’t know how to really say anything about this. Thank you so much.

Acharya Prashant: Just help me take the work ahead. This is genuinely needed.

Questioner: I agree to that.

Acharaya Prashant: So, continuing the same line, maybe inwardly one comes to a point where nothing is needed. Maybe I can say I’m at that point where inwardly, for myself, there is nothing more that I need. But outwardly, I need a lot, and that has to come from you. I need you to take this thing ahead.

Questioner: The reason I went back to academics, and I’m saying this for the first time. I’ve never actually disclosed this, right now you are in front of me.

Acharya Prashant: I got it. Thank you so much.

You see, please adopt this as your own baby. This is not my work, with me or without me, till the time I’m here or after me. This is your work, your job. You get this? In the spirit of the first question itself, it’s not upon me. It’s your thing. It has to be built by you. And irrespective of whatever I may do, my efforts or my intelligence or whatever, or the lack of it, I cannot do much on my own.

This is not the age for solo kind of heroism. I need each of us to rise up and do as much as they can. Without you, I am nothing.

Listener: (Addressing to original questioner) I’m here today because of you. So your contact list, your newest contact brought me here.* Even though I wanted to come here, I didn’t know how. I would have contacted Shashi ma’am (volunteer) also, but her number, as you know, Indian number, is not reachable all the time. So what you’re doing, what you’re manifesting, it’s happening.

Acharya Prashant: Please continue with it. And you will not know how it snowballs. You’ll not know.

Listener: Again, because of her, I am here.

Acharya Prashant: It’s magical. The power of compounding, the shape of the exponential, it’s magical.

Ten years back, I had almost retired. I didn’t want to get into it, because for myself, whatever I had needed or wanted to know, I was kind of there. I didn’t need to have a public life.

Questioner: Good evening. My name is Vikas. Can we say that, as we were discussing, our education system has been destroyed mainly by foreign things? And second, can we say that the wisdom we are talking about, the elders and ancestors, if they had gone through all our sacred books like the Vedas and Gita, they would have become more wise?

Acharya Prashant: Who?

Questioner: Our ancestors and elders. Actually, we have all the books, but maybe nobody reads them that much.

Acharya Prashant: Have you read?

Questioner: No.

Acharya Prashant: Then how are you able to claim this? You see, even this is coming from flawed education.

Questioner: That’s what I’m saying, that even if ......

Acharya Prashant: Sir, please stay with me, step by step. If I have not read a book, what right do I have to claim it’s a great book? Again, that is identification with the glory of the past. And that too is coming from the same flawed education that we are referring to.

You’re saying foreigners came and corrupted our minds and our education system. How do you know exactly? How exactly? Even this is a part of the social education received, or WhatsApp education. No? How exactly do you know? I’m neither supporting nor denying this. I’m just asking, how do you know? How do you know?

Questioner: In all our childhood studies, we have done from higher education, we have never in our system learned about the books we were supposed to.

Acharya Prashant: No, we have not learned about them. But our education system is not coming from foreigners. You have had an Education Minister right since 1947, and that Education Minister was democratically elected by you. Why blame foreigners?

Today, if climate change and the corresponding calamity find no mention in our textbooks, are foreigners responsible for this? Why do we need to drag foreigners into it? What stopped us, as a sovereign state, from having the right curricula? We were independent, we were sovereign. We were fighting China and Pakistan, and we were resisting the US, and we said we are non-aligned. We won’t go even with the USSR. We were sovereign people, free people.

And if we are a free people, who coerced us into having an enslaved syllabus? Nobody. The fact is, we didn’t want to. Let’s take it on ourselves. Today, you can do whatever you want to, right? You’re a free people and a free country. Why didn’t you do it? And if your leaders were not doing it, why didn’t you pull the leaders down? We have elections all the time, all the years, all the months. Some elections are happening somewhere. Vote the leaders out. Rather than blaming Macaulay, vote the leader out if he’s unable to bring in the right kinds of policies in education.

How will my present improve if I keep blaming some random external force from the past for all my miseries in the present? Why am I overweight? It is because of the Portuguese. You see, come on, I’m not joking. It’s because of the Portuguese. They were the last, you know, to leave India, Goa and their civilization. They turned Goa into some kind of a place that looks so much like Portugal, and it’s so wonderful and so different from India because they stayed in Goa for so long, the evil people. So, I feel like going to that place because it doesn’t require a visa and still has a Portuguese influence in culture.

Is that not an innocent question to ask? Maybe they did something mischievous at that point. Maybe they did indeed. But what stops me from being my own man today?

You’re talking of the ancient scriptures. That’s exactly what I teach. And it’s incredibly difficult to get people to study them. And that’s not because of the British or the French or the Portuguese. When I say, “Come, and we’ll study the Gita together or the Upanishads together,” that’s exactly the scriptures you are talking of, sir. Right? That’s what I teach. Come, the Gita, in the most rigorous way possible.

Listener: I would like to combine my question with personal as well as this topic. See, when I have trouble or any challenges in my life, I go to Acharya Prashant, write my question, and get the answer. So this is the information which I gather in myself. Even what you’re talking about right now is information. How can I make myself so much aware that this information becomes consciousness? What can be the rituals for it, for my personal life as well?

Acharya Prashant: Engage with it. Engage with it, which means you have to become vulnerable to the information. Which means you cannot just keep the information in your palm or in your pocket. Which means you have to allow it to hit your heart. Engage with it. And by that, I do not mean accept it. No, I’m saying engage with it — talk to it, have a to-and-fro relationship with it, wrestle with it, punch it, and allow it to punch you. Engage with whatever is being said.

I’m not talking of devotion here. No. I’m not talking of blind acceptance here. No. Engagement is a different thing. So I’ve said something, right? And it’s been said in a particular context, in a particular way. Go back and look up whether what I’m saying is corroborated by hard numbers. Because the topic at hand is so vast, even a week is insufficient to fully deal with it. So why don’t you go back and read more about it? Why don’t you check whether the numbers that I have quoted are actually genuine?

And there are so many gaps in the information I have provided. Why don’t you go back and fill up those blanks on your own? Because standing here, I cannot communicate everything.

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