Acharya Prashant addresses the question of why knowledge seems to fail in adverse situations. He explains that this is bound to happen because nothing is achieved through knowledge alone; spiritual practice (sadhana) is essential. Knowledge cannot be a substitute for sadhana, but it can be an aid to it. Once you have knowledge, you must engage in sadhana. The reason any situation makes you tremble is that you have attached some self-interest to it. You have linked your self-interest to the periphery (pari-sthiti, or external circumstances). This self-interest is never fulfilled, which is why you get scared when things don't go as expected. For instance, if you expect fruits to fall from the sky and stones rain down instead, you will feel bad. The problem is that you let external situations become your internal state. If you let situations remain just situations, no matter how big the storm is outside, no whirlwind will rise inside. You turn external matters into your internal state. You think something provocative from the outside will fill your inner incompleteness, or something difficult will break you from within. The word 'paristhiti' itself reveals its nature: the state of the outside. Let the state of the outside remain outside. Let the weather change outside, but inside, let there be only the sky. Your condition is such that the echo of every external event is heard within you. A cup cracks in the kitchen, and your heart cracks. The stock market falls, and you fall. You don't let the external thing remain external. The wise have given beautiful words for that which is beyond: unattainable (alabhya), unthinkable (achintya), unimaginable (akalpya), imperceptible (agochar), inaccessible (agam), and unshakable (akamp). There is something within you that never trembles. That which is unshakable cannot move, for movement implies vibration. It is within you, but you have broken your connection with it. It is that which is without attributes (nirvishesh) and without modification (nirvikar). It neither rises nor falls, neither increases nor decreases. You have not valued it. Now you complain that when the wind blows outside, the leaves fall inside. This is bound to happen. Connect with what is heavy, not what is light. India has a beautiful word for heavy: Guru. This is why we have the term gravity (gurutvakarshan). Where there is weight, there is the Guru. The heavy one does not move. Take the support of the heavy, not the light. Take the support of something that remains steadfast and immovable. In physics, you can feed the largest electric current to the earth through earthing, and it absorbs it without being affected. You don't have anything within you that can absorb shocks like that. Buildings that are strong are those deeply embedded in the ground. When earthquakes come, things on the surface fall, but a deeply founded building, supported by the heavy, is not affected. Be deeply embedded, and it won't matter. If you remain on the surface, you will be tossed around. On the surface is death; in the depths is nectar.
