Listener 1: In Avadhuta Gita, it looks like for every question, there is only one answer.
Acharya Prashant: Yes! And what is that one answer?
L1: That it is the Self.
AP: No. The answer is that ‘ the question is stupid,’ and hence there is no answer. Silence is the answer.
L1: So, is there any expression of love in this?
AP: This is love. The ego being attracted to the peace of the Self; that attraction is called love. The mind is restless; it wants to get rest, peace, silence. This want is love.
Bhakti yog and Gyan yog are not at all different.
But because we live in differences, so we want to ensure and believe that Gyan and Bhakti are different. That’s why in a text of Advait Vedanta , the bhakti yogis are rarely interested. They say, “No, but it is not talking about love.” But what else do you read here? It is love, love and love, nothing else. We want to divide. We want to categorize this as that and that as something else.
When a Dattatreya speaks, he is beyond categorization. You can’t call him as talking of Advait or Vedanta or gyan or bhakti.
I find only love here.
Love is not about being attracted towards a person. Love is the desire of the mind to settle into a Peace. Silence calls, this calling is called Love. The great emptiness beckons, this beckoning is called Love.
But if you are someone who lives a superficial life, then you will say, ‘where is love written here, I don’t see L-O-V-E’. Learn to read deeper than the words. Let us read the Narada Bhakti sutra, only there does the word love come. Now, has it come to this, that we will have to depend on words for love? Then surely your love is just a word and that is what usually our love is – lot of words, beginning with ‘I love you’—words.
Remove this distinction. It is a fake distinction. Bhakti and Gyan are one, for Truth is one. All the different branch of yoga are one, yoga itself is One.
Have you ever seen a pondering frog? Have you ever seen a heavy rabbit? Have you ever seen a bird closed its eyes trying to meditate? They are all alright, only man is full of important things. One of the most important things is the ‘God thing’.
