What is luck? How to get lucky? || Acharya Prashant, on Nitnem Sahib (2019)

आयहू हर रस कर्मी पाइआ सतगुर मिलाई जिस आय

~तिलांग, पहला महला, शब्द हज़ारे ( नितनेम)

The Essence: Name of the Lord, His love, is obtained by good luck, good deeds,

when the True Guru: the True Master, meets and tells you to recite the Name of God.

~ Tilang,1st Mehla, Shabad Hazzare (Nitnem)

Questioner (Q): Pranaam Acharya Ji. Can you please help me understand what does ‘luck’ mean, and what role it has in our life?

Acharya Prashant (AP):

The use of the word ‘luck’, merely means – something that is beyond cause-effect chain.

When you do something, and you get something as a result of your doing, then you do not call it ‘luck’, do you? Then you claim ownership, and therefore is ‘Ego‘. The ego loves the cause and effect paradigm. The ego says, “The effort is preceded by a cause. So, if I can cause something to happen, I will get the desired result.”

“I can cause the effect”, says the ego.

‘Luck’ or ‘Grace’, or as some people may call it, ‘randomness’, lies outside the cause-effect framework.

Therefore the word ‘Grace’ has been used here.

The Ego will not get it, using its doership. That which a thing brings, cannot be of a quality dimensionally superior to the thing itself.

Please understand this.

The effect cannot be dimensionally beyond the cause.

Which is to say, “The fruit of the action, cannot be dimensionally superior to the action.”

Which is to say, “The fruit of the action, is actually just the quality of the actor.”

The result is dimensionally the same as the action, and the action is dimensionally the same as the actor. Therefore, the result is in the same dimension as the actor.

But the ego does not want to believe that.

The ego wants to believe that all the possible dimensions are contained in its one little dimension. So it keeps hoping its entire little life, that it will be able to obtain something of the beyond, while just remaining itself.

It feels that it can remain, continue to remain, in its own lowly dimension, and yet through its actions and cleverness, and manipulations, obtain something of the beyond.

That’s the false hope of the ego.

But the ego does not see it as ‘false’.

The ego says, “I can remain earthly, but through my clever tricks, I can attain the Sky.” The ego does not want to leave the Earth. It is scared and attached. But, it also has the longing for the Sky. It is stuck. The ego says, “I would remain on Earth, but I will devise a trick through which I can also have the Sky.”

That is not going to happen.

Now you see, why the word ‘luck’ is used?

Your actions, your plans, your cleverness, your manipulations, all will fail in getting the desired result, because That which you truly desire, is beyond you. Whereas, your actions, and your plans, and your thoughts, would always be just like you.

Are you getting it?

You want to get Him through your actions, but your actions are just like you. And what is it that you want? A beyondness from your self. You want to go beyond yourself, being yourself. That won’t happen.

“How does it happen then?”

“Who knows. Let’s call it – ‘luck’.” It’s very difficult for the ego to submit to this statement.

“How does it really happen?”

“Neither do I know, nor can I ever know. It is not merely unknown, it is unknowable.”

The ego does not want to accept that. So it continues with its blind efforts, gets tired, and expires. And expiry does not mean liberation. For the ego, expiry means – re-birth. Re-birth not in the sense of assuming another body, re-birth in the sense of just coming back, as another type of ego. Ego in another name.

Old wine in new bottle, that’s what re-birth is all about. Re-birth is not about the Atman in a new bottle. People often say that this (the body), is the ghat , the bottle. And the Atman moves from bottle to bottle. No!

The Atman does not move from anywhere to anywhere. It is achal, it is unmovable.

Re-birth is – the rotten old wine, in an apparently new bottle. And then, another cycle of effortfulness starts. The ego again says, “I will cause the effect.” What is the effect that it wants? Liberation. What is the effect that it wants? God. But how does it want to have that effect?

Q: By doing something.

AP: It does not want to surrender to that effect. It wants to cause that effect. In other words, the ego wants to cause God. Whereas God is the one, who is utterly un-caused, unborn.

The ego, in wanting to attain Liberation, is wanting to give birth to God. If you can cause something, you are its father, aren’t you? If the ego can cause Liberation, then ego becomes the father of liberation. Such is the ego of ‘Ego’.

(laughter)

Such is, so deep, the egoistic darkness. It wants to cause Liberation. It wants to cause Godliness.

Can it be caused? No. It just happens. And therefore, it is referred to as – luck.

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