Listener: Who discretes ‘what is wrong’ and ‘what is right?’ People have a different perception of what is right and something is better.
Acharya Prashant: Right. Very good. What is your name?
L: Apoorva.
AP: Sit, Apoorva. Apoorva it is very good that you are questioning a deep assumption. The assumption of morality that ‘what is right’ and ‘what is wrong?’ You have gone many steps ahead but still, you stopped, you are not completing the journey. You must not only ask, “Acharya Ji, who decides what is right and what is wrong ? You can go a step ahead, a step further and ask, “Whether there anything right and anything wrong?” You still have belief that there is something ‘right’ and there is something ‘wrong,’ right?
You are believing in that, right? I am asking you, “Why must you believe in that?” You have limited your question. You are saying that there is something ‘right’ and something ‘wrong’ but who will decide that? Your question is limited to this part that who will decide that ‘what is right’ and ‘what is wrong.’ I’m saying broaden your question take one more step. Ask, whether there anything called ‘*right*‘ and ‘ wrong ?’ Can you ask this question? Do you want me to broaden it?
L: Yes, Acharya Ji.
AP: Alright! What is right , what is wrong ? You were born and if these things were not given to you, would there be a problem with the living? Would you not able to breathe? Would the essentials of life be lost to you? How would a man be a lesser being if there is nothing called right and wrong in his vocabulary, tell me?
There is beautiful grass outside. It does not know any right and wrong, and it’s still B eautiful . It is not depressed. It does not have any diabetes or heart attack and it is not sining either the clouds, the animals, the rivers. They have no sense of right and wrong and yet they are very grounded beings. You do not see any animal raping any other animal. You do not see ethnic cleaning in jungles. You do not see that one animal was so violent that it caused any other species to go extinct.
Do you see all this?
You do not see organized wars amongst trees. Now, they don’t have sense of right and wrong and yet they are alright.
And man have such great systems of morality and yet man is a ‘Mass-murderer.’ Man has caused thousands of species to get extinct and they will never come back.
Man is planning the very planets to be destroyed in a couple of decades and man ‘rapes’ and man ‘kills’ and man is full of tension and misery and suffering and man hoards.
Is that not surprising? Except the child of man, nothing is told right and wrong and yet it is the man who seems to be the worst offender of all.
Man is told so much about Love , Love is this, Love is that you must Love this, you must Love that and you have movies on Love literature and so much and yet hardly any creature is as Loveless as Man.
Don’t you see?
Look at the dog, a stray dog at the street. It does not have anything and yet people keep kicking it and hitting him stones. And so many stray dogs keep getting crushed under our vehicles and all you have to do is just call it with a little bit of affection and what will it do? It comes to you. Even if you have nothing to give him, it still comes to you, stay with you and follow you. In fact, you will get fed up after sometime and will ask the dog to go away. But he will be there with you. Is that not so, Apoorva?
The dog knows Love. In spite of never have been taught anything about Love And Man is continuously been taught Love and Man does not know Love.
The dog fully well knows that it is right to be loyal to the hands that feed you. The dog knows and the dog is never being trained in loyalty but man.
Man stabs in the back. No, dogs stabs in the back and man has given ample lessons in Loyalty and Fidelity.
And man has devised so many ways to try to become happy, to somehow get joy but nothing in existence dies of a heart attack as a man does.
You don’t see animals suffering from High BP and High hypertension. You go to a jungle and before clicking a picture of a butterfly , do you ask a butterfly to wash its face?
Nothing in existence makes itself up.
The butterfly is beautiful as it is and it is beautiful only as it is. You change anything about the butterfly and something reduces.
Man wants to do a lot and in doing a lot he only degrades himself. That which is central that which is really important is beyond right and wrong.
You must have heard of Rumi, the poet, the Sufi poet, and there is a beautiful line in which he says something like this to his lover that there is a field beyond right and wrong I will meet you there .
What are this right and wrong? Nothing but mischief of man’s mind. And because it is mischief of man’s mind, it keeps changing. What is ‘right’ today, will not be ‘right’ tomorrow. What is ‘right’ yesterday, is considered so ‘wrong’ today. What is ‘right’ today even in one country or one religion is very ‘wrong’ in another country and another religion. Nothing, artificial, man-made productions like goods coming out of a factory. Their designs keep changing all the time. Something is in fashion today, tomorrow it goes out of fashion. That’s what is right and wrong . How can you take these things seriously?
To live in your essential nature is only right. And this is a secret that entire existence knows.
Live as you are and you are alright. And try to become something else, try to wear a mask try to make yourself up and you have wronged, that is the only wrong .
The only right is to be aware of ‘your’ nature and live in it. *Live* by it and die by it. If the cost is death, pay the price.
Love, Truth, Freedom, Joy, Simplicity, these are the essentials of living.
You understand essential? By Essential is not something that must be there. Essential I mean, that is there that is your very nature. That is your very essence, essential in that sense.
These are already there you need not teach Love to somebody. You need not tell your kid that you must Love Mumma and Papa, what is this? You need not teach the kid that you must speak the Truth . * Truth* is your nature, our very central nature. In fact by teaching Truth , you produce an army of liars. By teaching Love , you only produce indifference, By teaching Freedom , we have created a world of bonded laborers.
You need not tell somebody that it is right to be free.
Even a small child knows that freedom is precious. Try caging a small kid, try. It already knows, freedom is right. You need not teach that this is right and that is wrong . When animals know that freedom is right then how will humans not know? Everything in the world knows that freedom is right . Even plants do not like being caged. So, why do you need to teach ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
That which is really important is already known to us, rest need not be taught.
Will you remember this, that which is really important is already known to us, rest need not be taught. rest will anyway be burden. Those who want to live freely, must first of all have mind free of right and wrong .
Remember that, the only right is to be aware of ‘your’ nature and *Live in it.* The only wrong is to have an ‘artificial personality.’
There is nothing else that is wrong.
