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Free from the clutches of the world, You remember God || Acharya Prashant, on Khalil Gibran (2015)
Scriptures and Saints
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2 years ago
Freedom
Truth
Memory
Remembrance
Attention
Deep Sleep
Liberation
Guru Nanak Dev
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that forgetfulness is synonymous with freedom because the truth is the natural, fundamental state of being that does not require effortful memory. While truth is everlasting, the mind loses its freedom when it moves away from truth by becoming cluttered with information, knowledge, and identities. He highlights that deep sleep is relaxing precisely because it is a state where one forgets everything—including pleasures, pains, and even concepts of gods. True relaxation is defined as freedom from memory and mental activity. He critiques the common misunderstanding of 'remembrance' and 'attention.' In a spiritual context, remembrance does not mean memorizing a specific object or task; rather, it means objectless and thoughtless awareness. Similarly, attention is not about being burdened with a careful bundle of memories, but about being like an empty container, free of rubbish. A wise man is one whose psyche is not composed of a to-do list or a storehouse of knowledge, but one who lives free of the world's mental objects. Acharya Prashant asserts that the world attempts to enslave individuals by forcing them to remember it through sensory attacks and social conditioning. Liberation lies in not remembering the false; when the mind stops giving importance to the false, the truth is naturally present. He clarifies that when saints like Guru Nanak Dev speak of remembering God, they refer to remembering the vast emptiness that is the essence of everything, rather than a specific form or name. He concludes that one cannot truly 'remember' God as an object; instead, one should focus on not letting the world become so important that it dominates the mind.