Questioner(Q): They will also teach the same thing, first of all, they wash the mind and they say do not apply the mind, and after that what happens? Conditioning. The same has happened to us till now. We have been taught, “This is a stone and God is inside the stone.” We have said, okay. If we say, why? They say, “Here you don’t have to use your brain.” This has been told by you also. I have listened in the discourse that, “you have a mind and use it.” Now where it has to be used, how it has to be used, up to which extent it should be used, or it should be dropped?
Acharya Prashant (AP): It had to be absolutely used. Your assertion is totally inverted. My teaching is, use the mind fully. You want to be adamant that the mind will be used only partially. Do you know what is partial usage of mind? The partial usage of mind is, “I will question everything on the outside, but I will never let the mind question the mind itself.” You want to ask, "Does that statue have God?” Have you ever asked does this statue have me (referring to the questioner)? Why do you stop there? I am challenging you. You find a statue outside and you want to ask, "Does this statue contain God?" You too are a statue. Have you ever asked, "Does this statue contain me?" I am asking you to apply your mind fully. Don’t apply it to just the outside, apply it to yourself also.
When the mind starts turning inwards, the mind gets annihilated. And that is why you want to live this deception. You want to say, “I want to use the mind.” Common I dare you, use the mind upon yourself, why don’t you? Why don’t you look at the mind to look at the limitations of the mind, why don’t you?
The scriptures very clearly say they say, “Use the mind to illuminate the mind.” They say, “Use the mind to look at the mind.” But you use the mind to look at everything else except the mind. why this discrimination, why this partial usage, why? Use the mind fully. What else can you use anyway? You are totally identified with the mind. So, what else can you use? Go ahead use it.
Now, why is the mind so silent? Why is it not talking? Why is it not talking?
And if it is something that is so obvious that it could understand my answer in three minutes. What happened in the last thirty years? Why could it not understand this simple thing in thirty years? It was so loud three minutes back, why is it so silent, so voiceless now?
Surely, I am not saying anything that this mind already knows of. But this mind is too clever for itself. It borders on cunningness. It wants to question God, but it does not want to question itself. when will you question yourself? Use the mind fully. That is why I often use the word ‘Intelligence’ for the Self. Intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. If the mind can not look at itself, it is dumb.
Q: Whatever is being given to me, how can I judge it is right or it is wrong?
AP: To accept anything, first of all, you have to be sure that the one receiving is indeed you. You want to judge ‘that’ which is being given to you. Don’t you want to judge the receiver, first of all? What if he is giving him (referring to the audience). And you are assuming that you are the receiver. You are saying, you want to judge whether the material being given to you is pure? Why don’t you first judge whether you are indeed being given any material? Why don’t you first judge whether anything is actually reaching you?
If I am being given a gift, and I want to evaluate the worth of the gift. First of all, I must receive the gift. Have you received it?
Q: This conditioning, yes.
AP: I am talking of the gift. Have you received it? You don’t even know the gift. How will you evaluate it?
And if you haven’t received the gift, how will you know ‘conditioning’ as conditioning. You are only talking of conditioning. To know conditioning, first of all, you must receive the gift of ‘eyes.’ Only then you can look at conditioning, see conditioning, identify conditioning as ‘conditioning.’
He is coming to give you something, he is bringing you something, there is a gift, there is this, there is that. Who is seeing and saying all this? Probably you. Are you sure you have checked yourself that you are in your senses, that there is a particular sanity? You want to determine the intentions of the others. Do they have the right intention, or are they conditioning me? Have you looked at your own intentions? The others are a little far away. Their capacity to harm you too is, far away. She is sitting here and he is sitting next to you. Which of these two is in a better position to harm you?
Q: He.
AP: The closer you are to someone the easier it is for him to harm you.
Now, who can harm you more? The one who is bringing you the conditioning or you yourself? Who is closer to you? The man who is affecting you from outside, or the stuff that is sitting within you.
Q: Stuff sitting in.
AP: Have you ever looked at that, have the eyes ever turned inward? You are suspicious that others might be trying to harm you. But what if the real harm to you is being done by nobody else but yourself. Who will check that, who will check that?
And if my eyes are not yet clean. What right do I have to talk about the other? I do not even know the fact of the other.
Look at yourself, figure out whether the eyes are cleaned. The looking will clean the eyes.
It is very easy, you know, it is every college goer’s fetish to act a rebel. Every youngster, every teenager has a fantasy about this thing, “I am a rebel.” Every drug addict in his own eyes a revolutionary. “I am questioning God.” Even when you say, “I am questioning God,” do you know what the first two letters of your statement are?
Q: I am.
AP: 'I am.' Are you sure of that? Questioning God comes later. What comes first?
Q: 'I am.'
AP: But you see the impudent ease with which you questioned God, without even looking at 'I am.' "I am questioning God, does this statue have God?" Who are you first of all, and from where is the question arising? Who exactly is questioning God?
So, watch your life, watch your daily actions. See from where they arise.
