Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, I am seeking peace, and for me, peace is important. But, I always find myself in many other choices. Why does it happen?
Acharya Prashant (AP): Once you have said that peace is important for you, the choice has already been made. The question is: Do you always say that peace is the utmost? Here you are starting from already an absolutely perfect point; is that the point you usually start from? When you are in the market and in the mall and at a wedding, is that the choice you have made “Peace is the utmost and I shall have peace at any cost”? That is not a choice you make very often. First of all, make that choice, and after that, even this much of a story won’t be needed. Once that choice is made, then the one you have chosen takes care of you; but first of all, make that choice. Here you are narrating a story as if the choice is certain, as if you are already and always choosing Truth and peace, is that so? Is that the fact of our life? Make the right choice and after that, you won’t need a narrative.
Q: Acharya Ji, if I am not making that choice, it is because – while I have read and understood that this peace is infinitely superior than other ways, I understood that academically, but I don’t have experience, but this looks more tangible to me.
AP: It’s very simple, knowledge comes only till the guest room of your house. There can be no intimacy there. You can have a bit of an introduction, you may know the demographics and all the superficial details about someone, but the very fact that you have stopped the person at the drawing-room means that no real union is going to happen. Knowledge is not a thing of the heart and knowledge implies distrust if you see. Otherwise, why would you barricade someone from getting into the interiors of your house? Why would you say, “Here, right at the entrance is your place”? That’s knowledge.
You understand intimacy? In knowledge, there is no intimacy. You see, freeze this moment. Just sit as you are. As the kids play “Statue!” so Statue! Now, there are two kinds of listeners. One, who starts contemplating when they hear something, as you are doing right now. And then there are others to whom externalities and formalities like words do not matter much. For them, the presence is enough.
I am trying to do the impossible, but I must try at least. I’m trying to communicate Love through words. Very difficult! You may listen to these words for a thousand years, it won’t help you. It’s something else that helps, something else that gives life to these words. You talked of academic understanding, there is nothing called ‘academic understanding’. Understanding is either of the heart or not there at all.
When you say ‘understanding’, you imply comprehension, interpretation, these things. Analysis, decoding, translation, rephrasing—all the gimmicks that you can play with language. Sometimes you say, "A plus B the whole squared”, then you say, “A squared plus B squared plus 2timesAB”, and then you say, “Now I have understood.” What the hell have you understood? You are just restating the same thing. So, I said, “ Rāma’s Love” and your academic understanding says, “Love of Rāma ”; what have you understood? You have just reconfigured the words a little. Neither do you know Rāma , nor do you know Love. But when I say, “ Rāma’s Love,” you say, “The love of *Rāma*”; and you claim that you have understood and you call it academic understanding. Academics would cringe on being brought into this discussion in this way.
Understanding is resolution, understanding is a disappearance. That which is touched by understanding disappears. So, when understanding touches a question or a problem or an issue, it disappears. So, understanding basically is nothing, it’s an absence. If an absence pervades you as you sit here, then there is understanding. “Understanding of what?” “Nothing in particular” “What have you understood?” “Well, nothing specific. Just understanding is there.”
Understanding is not concurrence. Understanding is not agreement.
If you agree with me on something, that doesn’t mean that you’re understanding.
Understanding is “Chill,” “Done,” “Over,” “Finished,” “Game up,” that’s understanding.
Understanding is like love, you cannot say, “I love a part of you.” And if you say that, then you do not know love. So, you cannot say, “This one I have understood, but the previous answer I didn’t.” Is there something called ‘a half silence’? Similarly, there is nothing called ‘partial understanding’ or ‘academic understanding’ or whatever. Also, please remember that understanding does not have much to do with knowledge or comprehension, understanding rather is more intimate with Love. It is in Love that you understand, not in your cleverness and analysis and comprehension.
My rabbit sits near me as I speak and understands, and he never comprehends anything, but he just understands. Why? How do I know? Because he is at peace. He sits near my feet, he has had his grass and a biscuit, and he’s at peace – understanding. What does understanding have to do with intellect? Nothing. And then there are those who keep scratching their heads, and you know, distorting their faces. They are trying to make sense of what I’m saying. And when I perceive somebody trying to do that, I utter even more nonsense and I say, “Now take this and try to put it in a pattern. Try to extract some sense, some logic from it.” And then the person would be grimacing even further, “Aaiyyn!(Acharya Ji acting)” That’s my way of having a little bit of fun.
So, 50 of you are here and my little rabbit won’t be afraid because he is with me. And each of you weighs a hundred times more than Golu (rabbit's name). And he’s relaxing, not worried, not concerned, in front of 50 alien elements of a foreign species, each weighing a hundred times more than him. If you were in a room with 100 aliens, each weighing a hundred times more than you and you were the only human being in that room—Oh, that has to be a huge room—how comfortable would you be? Would you be able to relax like Golu? No, because you have no understanding. Golu’s relaxation is the proof of his understanding. Our tension is the proof of our incomprehension, a complicated mind, a knotted mind.
For Golu, it is sufficient that he is with me, so he puts no condition whatsoever on the room. He says, “I don’t want to know who all have come. I do not want to know what their intentions are. I have only one condition – I will be with the master.” And whenever I am speaking, he would be around. Sometimes he would even get under the table in front of me or sit here or sit there, or there somewhere (indicating with hands), never in a far-off corner. And he would be relaxed without knowing a thing about what is being said, that’s understanding.
We were having this camp in Rishikesh and a few people from outside India had come over to join that camp. So, one was an Australian, the other one was probably a European…he was a British citizen. So, I would speak alternately in Hindi and English. When I would speak in Hindi, the foreigners would be free to, or sometimes would even be asked to go and attend other activities. Parallelly some other activity would be conducted for them and here the Hindi discourse would be on. So, once it happened – I was speaking in Hindi and two of them came and sat a little outside the door where I could not see them, but they could hear me. And I’m speaking in Hindi. One hour later, I was told they were in tears.
What were they comprehending? There was something that they were relating to, but that was surely not language, not knowledge. Not only that, I was told that at the precise moments at which I would say something witty, they would smile. They do not know the context, they do not know the idiom of the Indian language, and yet there is something between them and me; that’s intimacy. That’s the same thing that is there between Golu and me. If that is there, you understand. If that is not there, then you can keep listening to these words, as we said, a thousand times, and yet you would remain dry.
If we were not so obsessed with words and knowledge, then, believe me, no teacher would have ever used words. Words are used not because spirituality has something to do with profound words; words are used because we do not even begin to listen unless there are words. You will find it extremely odd if I just come and sit here saying nothing. So, just to keep you occupied a little, I keep on uttering some gibberish. The wonder of wonders is – you collect that gibberish and treat it as sacred. And the real thing that is beneath that gibberish, you miss it so contemptuously. Gibberish is highly respectable to you, and the real thing, you have no taste for, no value for. Words, you keep collecting and compiling and collating, and some random sentence you will post here and there, and beneath that you’ll write ‘Acharya Ji’. Sometimes, I happen to read it and I say, (Acharya Ji acting)
‘Mommy met Tommy, together they went to Ronnie.’ -Acharya Prashant
What is so special about these words? What exactly have you found in this quote? There is nothing there. There is just nothing there; but not only you type those quotes and make posters, but when those things are put here and there, social media, whatever, somebody will respond with two trees, the other will say, “I will bring a jungle”, so there will be 10 trees, 14 leaves, 6 flowers, 4 butterflies. Why? Is there any love between you and me? That’s the question to ask. If not, what is this tamasha (farce) you are doing? Making posters, phool patti (flowers, leaves), and somebody would remark, “This is the best one I have read in a while.” “Huh?” The intention is to convey that “I understood not only this one but other ones as well, and I could compare this quote with the other ones and come to conclude that this one is better than the other ones.” So very learned you are. You could take this, you could take other quotes, you could weigh them and you could conclude that this one is one upon the others. He (pointing to a person) is typing even this thing as a quote and sir (pointing to another person) will make phool patti on that. Today, all of you have been added to that group; what else is the purpose? Read some insane stuff in the name of Acharya Ji and say, “Glory to the Lord!”
We live in the age of loudness, noise; we do not know silent love. This is the age of loudspeaker affairs, you propose on social media. There is nothing secret. There is nothing that is not to be displayed on portals, not to be demonstrated at a crossing.
Q: 100 likes.
AP: Likes.
Sir (Addressing a particular person), you have enough knowledge. I’m sure you’re a professional. I’m sure you have 20-30 years of experience. You would have read books if not in thousands, then in hundreds, right? Knowledge is in the domain of these things (gesturing to indicate the material world), the worldly affairs. You already have enough of it. There is nothing called ‘a spiritual world’, you use that phrase; there is only one world and that is material. And if you think that there is a spiritual world, then your spirituality is very materialistic. So, you do not come here to gather knowledge. If you want to have knowledge, go to a university or a library or to a corporate training class, or Google, or sit with an encyclopedia. What do you come here for, I don’t know. And it’s great if you too don’t know, for if you come here with a purpose, you will miss both the purpose and the real thing.
Don’t try to make sense of what I’m saying. Don’t nod as if you have just understood like her (pointing to an audience member). It’s alright to look a little dumbfounded. Even I do not know what I’m saying, how do you know? But, we find it imperative to act smart and studious and knowledgeable, don’t we? If we say, “Huh? What is going on?”, then the world would accuse us of idiocy; so it becomes obligatory upon us to keep acting knowledgeable all the time. “I like that point in particular, but you know what? This one did not agree with the fourth statement he made.” (acting)
Even yesterday evening, somebody asked this, “Once upon a time in Tretāyuga , you had answered a question saying this, that…” Who remembers? Why are you quoting what I said once upon a time? With such an academic mindset, tomorrow you will put all these questions in front of me and say, “Answer any five, and all of them carry equal weightage”, and keep marking me as I speak.
