Peace is the desire behind all desires || Acharya Prashant (2016)

Listener : Advice to be little bit lesser identified to my body or ….

AP : You will always be identified. To be identified, is to seek completion. The ego sense says, “I exist…” and it wants to say that, “I exists as something X Y Z.”

So, it will always be identified and attached with something. It will say, “I am A, I am B, I am C but it would always need something to call its own.” Now, what is it that you want to call your own? What is it that you want to be closely associated with?

Find the ‘right one’.

When you have found the ‘right one’ then you will not feel the need to be associated with the inferior ones, the false ones. Find the ‘right one’ to call your own; find the One who will never betray you; find the One that never passes away; find the One you can completely rely upon; find the One that is not an in-between but the Ultimate.

What is it?

Ultimately, what is it that you want? Ultimately, what is the desire behind all desires? Call that your own; be identified with that. What is it that you really desire? What is that which if obtained would make unnecessary all further attainment? What is it?

Listener : Completeness, Fulfilment, Peace.

AP : Identify with that.

Instead of asking for dis-identification, rather identify yourselves fully; be dedicated fully, be owned fully, be committed and attached fully. In other words, be totally surrender to peace to completeness, which means not for a moment would you entertain thoughts that talk of incompleteness. Not for a moment, would you promote, that within yourself which calls yourself as limited, petty, afraid, insecure.

The ego needs right partner, it needs right bed to sleep on. Give it the right partner; give it a nice resting place. When you have given the ego a nice resting place, it sleeps there like a kid and relaxes.

Love the peace so much that you would not bear being separated from it even for a moment. Love peace more than your life. Say that I am prepared to lay down my life but I am not prepared to live in lack of peace. Be prepared to die, any moment. Pay the highest price possible. Be totally identified with peace.

Listener : It is very attractive, it’s a way to run way!

AP : No, it’s not a way to run away. It’s to demand intense action at times. In fact, it is impossible to escape away in peace. The world is such that, it would challenge you, attack you, invite you. You cannot escape away. The world is everywhere. You have to stand your ground and really fight. You have to fight for peace. And you think that if you quit a place, it is some sort of cowardice, most people are unable to break away from their situations, their workplaces, their home, or from their relationships not because they are responsible or committed but because they are afraid. So, quitting or going away, is an act of great courage.

In fact, most people who stay put are the ones who lack courage. They keep dying daily but are unable to break away. It requires a Buddha to break away from his kingdom, his wife, his so-called responsibilities, his sons. It requires a Buddha to really go away.

Would you call the Buddha, an escapist? Would you call him a coward? No, he was committed to peace and he said that if the royal palace, the beautiful wife, the kingdom, the respectability, if none of that is giving peace he won’t take the kingdom. He paid the highest price that is why he is the Buddha.

Don’t you see the people around you? How they are stuck and how they still return to their personal hells every night and they go back to same places every morning. It requires one real courageous man to refuse that cycle.

Listener : If I may say, is it not even so much the fear of not having to sleep or to eat because every one of us know deep inside I will have to eat I will have to sleep somewhere. No, it’s the fear of the society. What the society will say. Oh! He quit his job.

AP : Psychological dependence

Listener : Yeah

AP : It is not so much physical. It is not as if you would starve. Our friend is putting it quite right. We all know that we would not starve we all know that we would get a shelter. It is just psychological dependence because of which we are identified with men, we are identified with institutions and relationships; be identified rather with peace, be identified rather with Truth and then you don’t have to be dependant with anybody else. Then you can continue with everybody in peace or break away in peace. Breaking away is not a big deal anymore then.

Listener : There is a paradox there, because this anger or anything else we see from the peaceful stage. So the anger is seen from the peaceful stage. So there is a paradox there.

AP : A peaceful state is always there.

Listener : Yeah

AP : Had that peaceful state not been there, anger will not appear as anger.

Listener : It appears as anger for the others. So, they may interpret it as anger but may be it is not really anger.

AP : Others will know anger only as a behavioural pattern. They will see getting red in the face or shouting. They will call it anger. Let’s keep others aside for a while. Let’s look at our own perception of anger:

How do you know that you are angry? How do you know that it is a special state? How do you know that it is not routine? Why do you pick up the topic of anger to discuss here? It is because you very well know that anger is not natural and peace is natural. Otherwise why would you discuss anger as a problem?

There is something within you which very well know that anger is alien and artificial and that something is peace. Even in the moment of deepest anger you are never really satisfied with being angry, you are never comfortable with anger. Don’t you see when your body rebels against anger? If you are angry for too long your body will crumble, you may get a heart attack. If you are angry for too long your mind will crumble. So, even the body-mind know that anger is not your natural state which means that even the body-mind know that peace is the natural state. So you already are peace even in anger it is peace that calls anger an anger.

Listener : Exactly.

AP : Yes.

Listener : Because sometime the anger is only on the surface like a wave but then it is seen from deep inside and it is not seems as anger.

AP : Seen by?

Listener : By myself.

AP : Yes it is alright. Wonderful!

Listener : It happened this morning that I showed as anger arising but it was not really an anger. It was just a way which came to express that now there is a limit here. For ex: You see someone caught in his ego trip and is expressing some anger to you. So you get this by, you know, but there is no judgement because there is nobody to take this anger really, to get this impact. But you see that there is anger there but there is not judgement really but at the same time you feel that you have to protect yourself in a certain way because someone can be aggressive and physically violent. So there is something natural which coming here to protect also.

AP: You can even be judgemental. There is nothing wrong with being judgemental. If being judgemental means knowing the false as false then being judgemental is quite important.

Listener : I call it discernment.

AP : Yes, you can call it discernment. Often in the name of not being judgemental even discernment is quelled. Judge but judge with discernment. Judge but judge in peace. Judge but judge rightly.

Existence does not offer any obligations to behave in particular ways.

All that existence says is, “Live in your essential nature.” It does not say behave in particular ways. An elephant behave in a way an elephant does, tiger behaves differently, fish behaves differently. You two can behave differently but that differently is not a particular pattern. The mind has its various colours, various swings and moods which can keep varying; so the kind of behaviour you exhibit, is no object to be ratified as right or wrong.

You have all the right to shout at someone. You have all the right to even hit someone. You have as much right to hit someone as you have the right to embrace someone. But whatever you do, do honestly. Do rightly. Do not do from a point of ambition of fear or greed.

Listener : To be authentic.

AP : Be authentic. Even in your anger be authentic.

Listener : So, I said I am angry because of your comportment not because of fear. Not angry out of you but your comportment. It is make me feeling angry because it is not acceptable. You have to respect. And I want to show you this is the limit that you don’t have to cross. I have to protect myself.

AP : And having done that there is no need of guilt at all. Not at all!

Listener : Yeah. I don’t feel any guilt.

AP : Be accountable to the ‘real one’ not to social morality. Be accountable to God. Be accountable to Truth. There if you commit mistakes then seek forgiveness. Only in the eyes of Truth, must you uphold yourself. You have no obligation to be proven right in the eyes of society.

Listener : The point is to express the limit that the people don’t have to cross iniquity. That’s the point

AP : Yes, of course. That you have to decide. That is the matter of your individual living. That you can decide. But decide from the right point and after that whatever you do, whatever happens through you is alright. Support yourself, back yourself. No need to feel doubtful of yourself.

Listener : It’s strange because the feeling is either we don’t need the respect of this person but my feeling is he needs to be more respectful for himself. This is my feeling.

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