Question: Acharya Ji, why do good people always suffer the most in their lives and evil people enjoy the most in their lives?
Acharya Prashant: What’s your name?
Questioner: Rachit
AP: Rachit is saying, “Why do good people suffer and why do bad people enjoy?”
Rachit, if you are suffering, that itself is proof enough that you are quite bad!
It has been clearly realised, that suffering is sin. The only sin is to suffer.
Let’s understand why:
What is it that gets hurt and suffers?
Listener: Mind
AP: What in the mind gets hurt and suffers?
You see, there is a beautiful Zen saying, it says, ‘You cannot drive a nail into empty space.’
To drive a nail, what do you need?
A wall.
When you drive a nail into the wall, the wall will get hurt. It is impossible to drive a nail into it, without hurting it. Similarly, if you are empty of conditioning, nobody can drive a nail into you. You get hurt, you suffer, because you have a rigid wall of beliefs. When those beliefs are shaken, then you suffer. That wall, is a wall of beliefs. That’s why, the really good man — because you talked in the language of good and bad, so I am borrowing it from you — never suffers. He does not have the capacity to suffer. He can have pain.
You know, once a man like that, met an accident; he was asked,
‘How are you?’
He said, *‘Wounded, but not hurt.* Wounds are alright; situations can give me wounds but nothing can hurt me; because to be hurt, you require a particular wall, I don’t have that wall, so nothing can hurt me; I never suffer. Even in the deepest pain, I don’t suffer. I experience the pain, there is no doubt about it. If you cut my leg-off, then I will experience pain, but even that pain will not touch my innermost point, I will not suffer.’
So, please get rid of this notion that good people suffer, only bad people suffer, because suffering goes only to bad people.
The second part of your question was, *‘Why do bad people seem to enjoy?’ *
If he is enjoying, he can’t be bad. The thing is, he is not even enjoying, what you call as enjoyment is some kind of entertainment or titillation, that he can have, but that itself is the punishment!
If you are getting entertainment, and if you require a lot of fun, that itself is a punishment.
Why does one require fun?
Why are all the shopping malls, crowded on the weekends?
Because people have a pathetic week!
When you have a pathetic week, then you require entertainment on a weekend; that entertainment is your punishment. Why do you require fun, if life itself is a party? If you require a lot of partying, a lot of going-around, then it proves you are very sad.
Only sad people want entertainment.
L: Are they not just our hormones that are working?
AP: Do we realise that it is just hormones?
In the moment of excitement, of titillation, do we realise that these are just hormones?
Or instead we say, ‘I have fallen in love!’ Have you ever seen somebody come up and say, ‘You know what, my hormones get activated on looking at you.’
The fellow doesn’t say that! Because he doesn’t realise that, instead he says, ‘Darling I have fallen for you, it’s love! And my love is proportional to my hormonal density! One shot of testosterone, and I become hyper-loving’
The example of that bull, always comes to my mind, you know that bull, that is chasing all the cows in the marketplace? Have you seen that bull?
That’s a super lover! Driven completely by hormones. You must put his idol somewhere and say, ‘The God of love!’
Why do you call it a hormone?
Call it the juice of love!
‘My husband is not as loving as he used to be’.
Why do you need to give him any different treatment, when he is sleeping, give him two big shots! He will wake up like cupid, chasing you with his arrow!
That’s what cupid has, right?
Bow and arrow.
Hormones are hormones; chemicals; why can’t you just treat them as chemicals? Why do you need to give it a name of love?
It is not love!
Have you ever seen anybody falling in love at the age of six?
Why does love always happen at sixteen?
Don’t you see, it is not love? It is just chemistry. One chemical trying to meet with another chemical.
Male chemical, female chemical and explosion!
It is as funny as this, but you don’t let it remain funny, you make it serious, don’t you make it serious? And then you sing so serious songs, tears, heartbreaks and everything. It is just as funny as your laughters right now, next time, somebody comes and proposes to you, laugh like this, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! Mr. Hormones!’
That’s why this course is needed, so that you may differentiate between that, which is conditioned, and that which is not.
Love is not a conditioned activity. Love is not the work of the excited body, love is something else. That’s why this course is needed, so that we don’t remain loveless.
L: Acharya Ji, how do we then define love?
AP: But you already know so much about it!
It becomes very difficult to define something when it is predefined in a thousand ways.
Are you first prepared to drop all your pre-existing definitions of love? Yeah?
The violin, the falling leaves, the rainbow, the prince charming on the back of a white horse, sugar candies and sweet nothings.
And sunsets and Venice. And things falling from the sky and balloons rising from the Earth. First of all, are you prepared to drop that?
Till the time, you are attached to ‘that’ image, you will never know love, Never.
Till the time you find it pleasing to hear those mushy mushy songs, you will never know love.
Till the time you like romance, you will never know love.
Till the time you pride on yourself saying, ‘I am quite romantic’ , you will never know love. Never.
You will spend a loveless life. And you will remain frustrated without knowing why.
That will be your punishment.
Frustrated, without knowing that he is frustrated.
First we need to cleanse the mind of all these notions about love and possessiveness – ‘You are mine’ . And sweet words, and charming eyes, and full bodies, till the time, that is your concept of love, how do I talk about what love really is?
And gifts and Valentine’s day, you have made it impossible for real love to come to you. Impossible.
And guitar!
How to get rid of all that, that’s so nice! So sweet. I live upon that. That’s the stuff of my dreams!
Love is not for the chicken-hearted! Love is not for the idiot. Only the man or woman who really understands, will know love. Love is only for the most intelligent; not for the dumb one.
The fellow knows nothing in life, but knows love. How is it possible? You have never understood life, how will you know love? You do not know who you are, how will you know who your lover is?
To come to love, you will first need to come closer to yourself. You will need to first know life. Our problem is, we know nothing! The mind is totally corrupt, full of lies, and disorders and yet we want love.
How can you get love?
Love is the privilege of clean heart, not a corrupt mind. But you don’t want to cleanse your heart, your heart remains as ugly and stinking as ever, yet you want to lay dirty hands on love.
By ‘you’ I don’t mean ‘you’, obviously it includes me and the entire world. That’s what we all try to do. That’s why the world is such a cruel and violent place. We don’t know love.
