You've Had Enough of This Person

Questioner: Namaskar Acharya ji! I am reading a book called “Freedom from the Known”, where the author, Jiddu Krishnamurthi, talks about removing authority to be free from the ego. What does he mean by authority? Can we take anything to be the authority and then say, “I’m not going to accept this.” And then, he says that don’t even have the authority of your past self. The confusion I have here is that: more often than not, in our life, we learn from our past experiences.

Acharya Prashant: See, the definition of authority is: anything that proclaims itself to be the Truth in itself, that’s called authority. Author means original; authority means originality. Only the Truth is original - the point from where everything comes. So, when Krishnamurthi says, “There is no authority”, he means no object can be taken as the Truth. Whether it’s an inanimate object such as a book or a living object as a Guru - nobody is to be taken as the absolute Truth. Obviously, the Truth cannot come this way in a form; the Truth cannot be objectified, it cannot stand in front of you as a thing, or place, or person, or a book, or whatever. So don’t be too quick to accept your own assessments and judgments. When you fall for something, don’t you take it to be real? Only the Truth is real.

When you are afraid of something, aren’t you taking the thing as real? If you knew something was unreal, could you be afraid of it? So, nothing is to be taken as the Truth. Why? Because whatever you’re seeing is being seen by ‘you’. To take a seen thing as the Truth is to believe just too much in the capacity of the seer. Who is the seer? You are the seer. So, to take anything as the Truth is to be egoistic; “I’m seeing this thing as the Truth, therefore it is the Truth.” And that’s what the ego wants to believe in. The ego says, “This world is real. If I have fallen for a woman, my love is real. If my dreams call me, beckon me, my dreams are indeed real. I must invest in them.” Why all this? Because they’re mine. The love affair is mine, the dreams are mine, and the opinions are mine. Therefore, I want to take them as Truthful.

Now you see why he says, “Don’t take your own likes, dislikes, experiences, and past as authority?” Because they are yours. Whose experiences? Your experiences. Whose past? Your past. None of that is to be taken very seriously. Obviously, all that exists; you cannot just dismiss it. But none of that is to be given the status of the Truth.

When something is given the status of the Truth, it becomes unquestionable. Inquiry gets stifled. Whatsoever is there in front of you, is in front of ‘you’, and you are no absolute. Therefore whatsoever is there must be available to enquiry, investigation, and questioning.

When you’re questioning something, you are in fact, not questioning that thing. You’re questioning your own seeing. Because whatsoever that thing appears like and means to you is your own perception; all those meanings and appearances are in your own frame of reference. So, when you question your own world, your own objects, you’re in fact questioning yourself. That questioning cannot happen if you declare that you’ve already come to the Truth. Never, never believe that the journey has ended. Never believe that the ego itself is the Truth.

Questioner: Still there is some confusion that persists in me. For example, a few minutes back, I talked very fast and you rectified my mistake, so I learnt and slowed the pace. You just said that we should not give our past experiences the status of Truth. But the truth was that I did speak fast, and that authorized me to change my behavior. So, my past experiences are authorizing me to change myself right now and that’s how we grow.

Acharya Prashant: No, authorizing is not the same as taking something as the authority. Equate authority with Truth. Would you remember this? Equate authority with Truth. That’s why nothing is the authority. To authorize is to license, to allow. That’s a totally different thing.

Please understand this: Even though the ego, or the self we believe in, is classically and absolutely unreal, to us that is the only reality. What do we do? We can’t hoodwink ourselves. We can’t say, “Oh, the ego is false and therefore I’m not suffering”, when actually I am. Doesn’t matter how many times somebody like Jiddu Krishnamurthi comes and teaches you the fallacy of the ego, your suffering would still remain, right? So, you have to work your way out of the ego through the ego, in the middle of the ego. And you’ve to say, “Well, all this is not the Truth, but what do I do if everything in my body wants to take it as the Truth?” Therefore, what do I do? I’ll start from where I am, and investigate. Inquiry is the way.

Tell the ego, “Alright, alright, you’re telling me you’re real.” And what does real mean? Unchanging, uninfluenced, not composed of fragments, and timeless. “You’re telling me all these things about yourself. May I please enquire? I’m not absolutely dismissing you, I’m just asking, just asking. May I just ask?”. So, don’t unilaterally dismiss the ego, but instead engage it. She keeps saying so many things; talk to her. You’re not to believe in her, and you’re not to pretend that you don’t believe in her at all. Because you do believe in her. We all do.

Even if you believe in someone, can’t you enquire? So tell that to the ego, “Well, you’re such a lovely lady darling, but I just wanted to know a few things; just asking: Why was your face so different yesterday? No, no, I’m not alleging, I’m just asking. If you’re so eternal, how has your face changed in a matter of a day? No, just asking. Just asking.”

Questioner: Yes, Acharya ji, thank you so much!

Questioner 2: So, it seems like the entire game is mind playing against itself. Initially, it doesn’t even look at itself; it looks at things outside and keeps going by the present trend, or by the societal norms from childhood. But then, maybe because of certain teachings from teachers like you, or because of certain books, suddenly it starts getting an indication to look at itself at some point. Now the one looking at itself is in the same mind again. There’s this part of the mind that wants to look outside and just be carried away with it, and there’s this other fragment of the mind that wants to listen to your teachings and tries to enquire and find falsity in all these things.

Now, it looks like the whole game is almost rigged, right? Anytime the mind can favor itself and strengthen itself rather than dismissing itself. When I started observing, initially it was very obvious the mistakes that it was making. For example, falling for some attractive clothes, or maybe attractive women, or anything like that. It was very clear; I just asked two or three questions, and I found it very clear. But as I kept doing this further and further, I noticed that it became very easy for me to confirm certain things – like, let’s say, your teachings. The mind might just consume the teachings and it may not really digest or internalize them. Rather, it might simply confirm them right away without experimenting.

So, one trick I used at that time was to break certain patterns by traveling alone or doing something like that which will show the mind its falsity. Again it is becoming a fanboy to you, and it is simply accepting things that are being told by you, or are told by Krishnamurthi, as though they are right, as though it has been understood. So, these kinds of tricks become very difficult to catch, experiment, and let it not easily confirm. Any thoughts in this direction?

Acharya Prashant: Read nonspiritual literature; get into things that you’ve declared as false, just as you’ve declared, let’s say, Vedant to be the Truth. Remember that just as there’s a chance that you’re declaring Vedant to be the Truth, without having really known it to be the Truth, equally you might be declaring a lot of other things as false, without having known them to be false. So what do we do?

You know, separation from those things keeps hiding the fact that you still don’t know those things to be false. So, go close to those things. Do all those things that you might have rejected, or barred yourself from, for the last two or four years. Read commercial literature, read what consumerists do, see what’s their philosophy; expose yourself to be converted by them, and see whether their attempts have any effect. Mind you, they will have some effect, and that will reveal to you why you’re not still fully convinced of, let’s say, Vedant. So, get into all such things; read the news and see whether you can detect with precision what really is going on.

I strictly dislike spiritual people abhorring the world, rejecting it, or not being in knowledge of it. You don’t have to consume the world, but at least know how the world functions, and what all is going on. And then see whether you’re totally effect-proof. I’m advising in advance that there would be some effect. Visit a tempting shopping mall, some expensive place, and see all the glittering stuff there. See what is doing to your senses; see how people are operating. At some point, you’ll find yourself moving towards one of the items - don’t resist. Enquire what is it that you find tempting. Mind you, we’re not talking in the language of one thing being bad versus one thing being good; we want to find out. It is actually very much possible that when you visit that shopping center, you actually return with two or three items that you actually need. Not that it’s your money gone to waste.

So, read all these things, visit all these places, and engage the other kind of people. The more you keep them away, behind the boundary of otherness, the more you’ll fail to realize that they still exist within you. To what extent they still exist within you, you’ll know only when you’re with them. Be a part of one of the usual middle-class, or upper-middle-class weddings. Check whether you too are being tempted to join the dance floor, or be a part of one of the family pics. Whether all the lights, the decorations, and the glitz are having an effect on you. All that has to be seen. None of that has to be abhorred.

Now I’ll tell you a little secret; it’s a dangerous secret, but I think, you’ve come far enough to know it: A point comes when you’re in that wedding, and instead of falling prey to that wedding, you stand there thinking, how to use all that towards the right purpose. It’s like being surrounded by enemies with guns, and you look at your enemies, and instead of being afraid of something, you find yourself thinking how their guns can be utilized for the right purpose. You don’t want to destroy their guns, you want to carry their guns home because you need those guns.

You know, it’s a lousy warrior if he kills the enemies and leaves their weapons behind. Those lights, that decoration, that glamour - all that affects the ego so much. Why can’t we put it to the right use? But remember, this thing is dangerous because you never know when the thing you purport to use starts using you instead. So, this is not something you should start practicing in a hurry or too early. It’s just that a point comes in the journey.

Spirituality is about engaging with the world in the right way. It’s not about rejecting this, abhorring that, not being here, not being there; be everywhere, it’s a war. All the territory is to be won. You must know your enemy. If you keep shying away, you don’t want to even look at your enemy, how will you know what your enemy is like? But I repeat, these things are not for beginners. If beginners keep frequenting wedding parties, they’ll be carried away by the guns; or you could say at gunpoint. Instead of being the guns home, you’ll find that nobody returned home.

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