Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
~Matthew 7:6
Acharya Prashant (AP): Your path, cannot be somebody else’s path. No general method, nothing general at all, can ever be suitable to you. You are what you are because you are evolved, programmed, brought up, and conditioned in the way that you are. Each of us is located at a different point in existence. This point is a point, away, from our home, the center. And because the points are different, so our actions will also be different.
The right action, must necessarily, be different for different persons.
What is right for one, cannot be right for the other. The method that suits one, cannot suit the other.
To a dog, only that which is suitable to a dog is right and to a swine, only that which is suitable to a swine is right. Hence, the right action cannot be a set of principles. Hence, the whole premise of morality is hollow. Morality deals with prescriptions, with commandments, do this, do that.
What Jesus is saying is – what is right for you, depends on, what you take yourself to be. Your way towards home depends on how badly you have lost yourself. Depends on where you think you are.
There can be no, one general way or one general right action. But we have a tendency out of morality to label, a few things as right, a few things as wrong. A few paths as profound, a few other ways, as profane. Now if you suggest your so-called profound paths, to a dog, you would only be doing injustice to the dog. To a dog, only a dog’s way is appropriate. To you, only that is appropriate, which is for you and that can arise only from the depths of your awareness. Hence, the right teacher can never prescribe or command.
He can never tell you, what to do. He will never be a provider or instructor of action. Instead, he will be an illuminator. He will help remove, the obstacles in front of a light so that you can see better.
And when you see better, then you know on your own, the step to take, the direction to move.
He will not tell you, move towards the left. You are in a dark room, he will just switch on the light. He has faith, he knows that you and he are one. He knows that intelligence is greatly available to you and if it's available to you, you must be the one who must live, his or her life, as per divine intelligence.
Q: Second part says that if we violate this principle, then you cause suffering to them.
AP: If you do this, then you cause suffering to them and if you spread suffering, then remember, that you and the universe are one.
The moment you cause suffering, it is to yourself that the suffering has been caused.
If you give something to someone that is not appropriate for him, you will face the effects. You will not know how, but you will have to face. Remember, that in suggesting something inappropriate to yourself or the other, you have shown that you do not know what the appropriate, what the right one is. And if you do not know the right one, for the other, will you know what is right for yourself?
You have prescribed a path to him that is so unsuitable to him. But you believe in prescriptions. It helps your Ego. "I am the prescriber!" You have prescribed something to him. You do not know that it is not right for him.
If you do not know what is not right for him, surely, firstly you do not know what is right for you. His suffering will be your suffering.
