Questioner: Acharya Ji, there is a quote by you, “Seek Light, See Light, Be Light.” I was reading a book by Krishnamurti where he said, “Seeking is a kind of expansion. It’s an escape. You cannot get freedom from it.”
I am confused between the two. Please help.
Acharya Prashant: When Krishnamurti is saying, “Seeking is an extension of self-centered activity,” he is talking of the stuff that you usually seek. Krishnamurti is not talking of those who seek Light.
People seek darkness and its various shades. Here are the people, and they are seeking darkness in its various hues and shades. Krishnamurti’s way is to tell them, “Don’t seek”, my way is to tell them, “Seek Light”, because people are usually seeking only darkness.
So, Krishnamurti comes and tells them, “Don’t seek.” What he means is – ‘don’t seek darkness’. I come and say, “Seek Light.” Why do I say, “Seek Light”? Because I know that seeking is a habit with you. If I just say, “Don’t seek, don’t seek”, that would not fulfill you, because in your deepest identity you have taken yourself as incomplete.
If you are incomplete in your own eyes, then you will seek. You cannot be prevented or banished from seeking. No amount of good advice is going to work. In fact, it will be a disaster if you remain inwardly incomplete and yet put on a pretense of not seeking. That is called, ‘*tamsa*‘.
Inwardly you continue to take yourself as ‘incomplete’, and outwardly you follow the commandment of – not seeking. Now, not only are you incomplete, your incompleteness will become cemented. It will become immortal.
Do you see this?
You are incomplete within, and yet it has become a thing of fashion with you to say, “Oh, I don’t seek anything. I don’t want anything.” So you do not change. You do not seek anything, you do not want anything, so you do not change. So, what does not change? The incompleteness within. It becomes permanent.
I say, “You will not stop seeking. Seeking will continue. It is your most fundamental restlessness that seeks. You will seek. I cannot prevent you from seeking. And if you don’t seek, you will become a hypocrite.”
So I just channelize your seeking. I say, “Seek Light.” I don’t say, “Don’t seek” I say, “Seek Light.”
But, obviously, all of that must be done with a lot of caution.
With a great inclination towards darkness, if you start seeking Light, then your so-called light, will just be an extension of darkness.
And Krishnamurti has repeatedly emphasized on this.
He says, “If you seek Light, it would be just another form of darkness.” And he is right on. What he is saying is exact and precise.
But such is the human condition. On one hand, there is great danger that if you seek Light, you will seek the wrong kind of light; you will just seek darkness disguised as light. On the other hand, there is the equally dark option of not seeking at all. Between these two possibilities, I seek the possibility of seeking the Light, with all its associated dangers.
There are a lot of dangers associated with seeking Light because the ego does not like Light. It will seek some false kind of light.
But that is still better than not seeking at all.
Isn’t it better to die fighting in the battle, than not fight at all?
