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Love yourself, Punish yourself || Acharya Prashant, at Goa University (2022)
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3 years ago
Justice
Love
Ego
Spirituality
Existential Injustice
Self-Love
Victimhood
Dissolution
Description

Acharya Prashant addresses the question of seeking knowledge from a desire for justice rather than love. He explains that one should then seek total and complete justice. Justice is not very different from love; you want justice for yourself because you love yourself. Why else would you want anything good to happen to you? The problem is not that the pursuit started from a point of justice instead of love, as love and justice are, in some way, the same pursuit. The issue, he clarifies, is that if the pursuit of justice is not reaching completion, the problem lies with the zeal for justice. One might be satisfied with a little compensation instead of seeking absolute justice. The only justice that can be done to the ego is to raise it to its highest potential, which is its ultimate dissolution. This is both justice and love. The biggest injustice in the spiritual sense is to be born and remain alive in an ignorant state, because your potential is to be somebody else, somewhere else. The way we currently live is unjust, and we are all victims of existential injustice. Spirituality is about correcting this existential injustice; it is a court that delivers it. We are all hard done by and must reach where we must, to get our birthright, and not lead a life of inner deprivation. Just as robbing someone of their external rights is an injustice, robbing ourselves of our inner rights is an even deeper injustice that needs to be taken care of. This is love and spirituality. While you can blame others, it does not empower or help you. You must choose between the satisfaction of blaming others and a real improvement in your life. The ego loves to play the victim because it is itself the culprit, and playing the victim is the best way to avoid punishment. Acharya Prashant states that we all deserve punishment, and that punishment is love. He advises, "Punish yourself, love yourself." When the questioner mentions getting tired of this, he asks if we ever get tired of breathing, implying that one cannot get tired of love.