Acharya Prashant: There is a very pithy statement from the essay ‘Listen, Little Man’. It says, “You put security before Truth.” Addressing the little man it is said, “You put security before Truth.” So the questioner is saying, “Pranam Acharya Ji, this statement is very true in my life and for most people I see every day. We spend our active years running behind security in the form of money, power, position, prestige, respect, etc. And we also spend the rest of our pity lives trying to safeguard fake things. What security to achieve when death is certain? Real and eternal security seems to be at the Lord’s feet. But this knowledge too is second-hand for me. I can see the rubbish all around but I’m unable to see the ever-present Truth. Please help!”
This security, this eternity, this mention of the Lord, and this ever-present Truth that you are talking of, they will not be seen here or there or anywhere. They are not in the world. You are saying that you see the rubbish all around but you do not see the Truth anywhere. Then, where to find eternity or security or the Lord?
You will not find the Truth anywhere, here there. Truth does not lie in the objects you look at. Truth lies in your relationship with them. If you can give depth at any moment to any of your relationships with any of the objects there is Truth, there is eternity. There is eternity in that moment. Eternity is not an expanse in time. Eternity is not a stretch of time. Eternity is another dimension. Eternity is the depth contained in any given moment of time. You could simply say, eternity lies in the quality of time.
Outside, what we see is just quantity. We have quantities, this that; a thousand objects, the entire diversity of the universe, that’s quantity. Where does quality lie? Quality does not lie in the objects themselves. I do not mean to say that a thousand bicycles are quantity and a BMW car is quality. No, that’s not what I am saying. I’m saying quality lies in the depth, the closeness, the independence, the freedom that is there in your relationship with any object. And it could be any object if you want to say that. If you look around and find only rubbish then there can be eternity in your relationship with rubbish. If you can investigate rubbish if you can really know what rubbish is — that is eternity.
The eternal one does not live for thousand years. The eternal one might actually live a shorter duration than most people do, but there is a certain quality in his moments. That is called immortality. It is called immortality because it does not refer to the expanse of time, the expanse of time is death. There is nothing that can continue in time unchallenged, untested, undefeated.
The moment anything starts journeying in time, it is bound to get defeated and dead. The moment anything starts traveling in time, the moment anything starts having a life in time, what is it surely going to meet? Death. If it starts in time it will end in time. Therefore, how is immortality possible at all? Eternity and immortality are the same things. How are they possible at all?
They are possible only when your association with things in time is deep. What is meant by the depth of association? To know the depth of association you have to first see how we usually superficially relate. We just look at things as they appear in the sensory mode to us. We don’t attend to them. We don’t inquire. We don’t try to find out what they really are. There is a reason — if you want to find out what things really are, what the universe really is, what our little world really is, then at some point we’ll also have to figure out who we really are. And that might be inconvenient to our settled prejudices. So we just take things at face value. This superficial living is mortal living.
This superficiality is mortality. This superficiality is the domain of destruction or at least destructibility. If you have heard these words carefully — this is mortality, which means immortality too is not guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed to the Ego because the guarantee is a compulsion and the Ego cannot be forced to give up its fundamental freedom. You have to seek eternity moment after moment and it is possible to withdraw from eternity at any moment. You might be in rapt attention right now but you can decide to withdraw, can’t you? The next moment you could be back to your superficial world. So you have to choose immortality again and again. Every moment, this is the question time poses to you — how do you want to live?
You’ll have very little control over the things that happen to you but, you have all the control over how you relate to those things which means essentially you have all the control over how you want to define yourself. Therein lies the possibility of eternity. Eternity that is Truth. Eternity, that is in religion, is referred to as the Lord. Then there is the question of security. People run after security. They don’t love the Truth so much.
It is a choice you see. Our default agreement is with the superficial because we are creatures of the senses and the senses cannot penetrate deep into anything. The eyes can look only at the surface of the wall. The ears can only hear what has been said, they cannot hear that which has not been said. The skin can only touch another surface, another skin.
Therefore, our default agreement is with the superficial. And once we agree with it, we identify with it. Once we are identified with it, then we become the superficial. Now, I am the superficial. Hence the superficial has to be protected if I want my own life to continue, and Truth is deep. So now, there is a conflict between that which needs to be secured and that which is deep.
I need to be secure and I live on the surface, I want security. And why do I want security? Because security is my nature. Deathlessness is my deep-deep nature. So I want to be secure. I want to be secure but I am on the surface and Truth lies in the depths. Therefore if I want to protect myself, what will I have to protect? The surface.
If I have to protect the surface, what is it that I’ll have to oppose? The depth. And the depth is the Truth. Therefore most people become enemies of Truth. Most people become very averse, very reluctant to Truth. They shy away, they plot against themselves. It is a choice, remember, that we have to make. Do we want to secure the way we are? Which can be done if that’s what we decide. Or do we want an insecurity that is likely to give us something far more fulfilling? There are pros and cons. There are arguments on both sides. Ultimately it’s your call, you decide.
