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Want a life free of suffering? || Acharya Prashant (2021)
Acharya Prashant
16.7K views
2 years ago
Suffering
Utopia
Frustration
Perfection
Excellence
Comparison
Expectation
Reality
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that the primary cause of frustration during suffering is the internalized belief in a utopian, suffering-free life. He asserts that humans often hold onto a false confidence that life can eventually become a heavenly state of perfection, similar to fictional portrayals of living happily ever after. This comparison between one's current state of suffering and an imaginary ideal creates deep dissatisfaction. He emphasizes that suffering is an inevitable and inescapable fact of life, from birth to death, and that imagining a life without it only serves to aggravate one's pain. Acharya Prashant advises dropping the self-defeating hope of reaching a fabled land of perfection. Instead, he suggests that excellence lies in doing one's best to improve life without expecting to reach an ultimate end point of perfection. By doing the utmost possible, a person becomes indifferent to measuring success or results, as they have already exhausted their capacity for action, leading to a state where comparison and anxiety naturally fade away.