Acharya Prashant: ‘Just knowing’ – both the words are important. When I say, “Just know”, the emphasis is equally on *‘ just ’* .
Just know means: ‘You know’.
It is so simple!
Just know… And what will you know? You will not know any hidden mystical Truth. As far as you are concerned, you will only know what comes in the domain of knowledge. And you must be contended with that; you must know what is going on. You must know these daily things – the ups and downs, the little matters, the gives and takes, the victories and defeats, the highs and lows, hopes and despairs – these are the things that you must know.
And you must know with the ‘just’ attached to it. What does just mean? Just means – simply know . Simply know – without conceptualization, without thinking, without creating a distance, without feeling the need to be right, without feeling the need to prove yourself, without feeling the need to do something to correct it or to be appropriate on some benchmark.
Just knowing it… Knowing is important, and ‘just’ is equally important because if you know using the agency of thought, then knowing has been corrupted, then suddenly knowing becomes ignorance.
The difference between knowing and ignorance is that ignorance is knowing using thought.
It requires you to have a certain trust on yourself. People talk of having faith in god, that is quiet irrelevant. You do not know god, rather you know god only as a concept. So, what kind of a dubious faith you are talking of?
Instead of having faith in god and such things, trust yourself first. Your trust in yourself — when deep enough — becomes the proof of the divine.
Your trust in yourself — when deep enough — becomes the proof of the Divine.
Trust has some conditions attached to it – trust has a person, an object, a center attached to it. When it goes so deep that conditions keep on dropping, then it is Faith. But, do not talk of Faith too much. It is like talking of the formless; it is like thinking of the thoughtless. Trust yourself, back yourself and backing yourself doesn’t mean not having doubts. It means: Knowing that doubts are there, having the courage to say, “I don’t know anything.” Do you know that this can only be the statement of a very strong mind, a very trusting mind, a mind full of love!
Trust yourself, back yourself and backing yourself doesn’t mean not having doubts. It means: Knowing that doubts are there, having the courage to say: “I don’t know anything”. Do you know that this can only be the statement of a very strong mind, a very trusting mind, a mind full of love!
We do not acknowledge ourselves completely; we do not just go forward and say, “Oh! This is so rotten.” And saying ‘this is so rotten’, not with hate, but as a direct fact.
Love is no special behaviour; love is just the absence of repugnance. When you are not repulsed by yourself, that is love!
Love is no special condition. It is a natural condition, which means it cannot be special; it has to be very ordinary. Hate is special; disapproval is special. So just don’t disapprove; in not disapproving, you are loving. Even if you see those faces of yourself that are not pretty – and we all have those faces. We all have those faces that are not pretty at all. Kindly don’t shy away; kindly don’t start looking the other way. Whatever you see of yourself, just see, that is love; that is also witnessing. You can use all the heavy words, it doesn’t matter. Just see .
Listener 1: Sir, when the mind is used to noise, then mostly we talk to ourselves pretending to be someone. But, new occasions occur that some beautiful moments are in front of us, we see it. But immediately the noise overcomes everything. So, it’s like, you know, ‘I know, I can’t be like this.’
AP: Forget the noise; just don’t be afraid of Love.
Noise is so lame, so powerless.
We talk of the enemy outside as if he is so powerful, what we don’t want to say is that we disregard the lover inside. When you are not prepared to be with the friend inside, only then the enemy outside appears so powerful. Otherwise, he has no power.
You really want to be with your lover and the place is noisy, do you complain about the noise? What do you do? You hold his hands and you run away. Or if you are still at that place, you disregard the noise. But if you are with your lover and you are still talking about noise, it only means that the lover means very little to you, the noise means so much to you.
Why talk about noise?
L2: Sir, every time you talk of Love, you just say, “It is very simple”. Then there is a poster: “ Love is that which makes you go crazy!”
AP: That craziness is simple; what you call as simple is so crazy. It depends upon where you are looking from. Do you think that you are not crazy right now? If we could take a picture of your mind then you will see, ‘A man gone bonkers’. It is just that what we see is, this face. If we could see all the other faces that you have, oh, you know them, right? You know them! Are you not crazy?
Are you not crazy?
If we could just record one day in your life — twenty-four hours – won’t it show that you are crazy? Crazy beyond imagination. And even if you are told in advance that these twenty-four hours you would be recorded, still you would be so helpless that you won’t be able to correct anything. Your craziness will ooze out and show up in a thousand ways.
That is why when to that kind of a mind, one talks of simplicity, then it says that simplicity is crazy. When black is white then white has to be referred to as black. What do you thought? You thought that being crazy is a matter of jumping around like monkeys. So, the image that you got was, ‘Sir said that “In love you go crazy”, so love is the province of Apes and Chimpanzees .
L2: I got the image of pleasure.
AP: Pleasure and somebody… He is still trying hard to understand what is meant by crazy, and after he understands, he will start acting crazy. That is exactly how we operate, is that not? First of all, we must know what it means; having known what it means, we will? Act accordingly!
L3: Sir, we would like to check.
AP: ‘Am I acting crazy enough?’ Like, you know, the change room of ladies – all busy with their vanities. And outside they act so normal, usual – ‘We don’t even bother’. Every forty minutes they have to return and… (acting like as the ladies check their facial make-up)
Such rehearsed carelessness!
A ladies change room is a very spiritual place, it tells you all about yourself, you must visit it. Now don’t ask me how, because you already know.
