Acharya Prashant explains that all spirituality is about connecting with the source. The source is where everything truly comes from. He uses an analogy to illustrate this point: if a postman brings a love letter from your beloved, you should not get attached to the postman but to the one who actually wrote the letter. We are foolish because we do not know the source and instead get attached to the messengers. This is our condition: we don't know the source, but we have a great affection for the messengers. He narrates an incident from the life of Guru Nanak. Once, at night, Nanak reached a village and saw a man discussing his teachings from a small book. Nanak, who was hungry, asked the man for some food, but the man scolded him and sent him away. Nanak then told his disciple Mardana, "Here, my book is valued, but I am not." This is the folly of not knowing the source. You hold on to the book, but the source is standing right in front of you, and you don't see it. This is the fundamental difference between pleasure and joy. Pleasure is the attraction to the postman, while joy is being with the beloved. Whenever something feels very pleasurable, you should ask whether it is the source or just a messenger. If it is the messenger, take the letter, thank him, but don't make him lie on the bed meant for the beloved. If you are intelligent, you will not stop midway; you will go to the ultimate, to the source. The path towards the source is the path towards purity. The more you move towards the source, the purer the stream becomes. The further down you go, the more filth gets mixed in. The path towards purity is also fraught with danger and loneliness, while the path downwards is crowded. You have to choose where you want to go: towards the crowd or towards solitude. The beloved is found in solitude. He doesn't set up his stage in public. Everything is received for free, as a gift of grace, and it should be distributed freely. This is our business: to receive for free and distribute for free. The ego, however, feels that it has earned what it has received, which is a mistake.
