Excerpt: You must realize that it is not the past actions that are putting you in prison, you must realize that actions are not necessarily good or bad. You have been given a criterion to look at those actions and that criterion is not yours. Different cultures, different people, different time, have different criteria.
Questioner: Are a few things not definitely sinful? For example- killing. How can killing ever be an act of Truth? Similarly, under all circumstances, is it not right to remain loving?
Acharya Prashant: Do you think you are born with this notion that ‘killing is a sin’? What do you think love expresses itself only as procreation and not as death, killing? The most sacred scripture of India (referring to Bhagavad Gita) is the scripture in which Lord Krishna is telling Arjun to kill his own brothers. Where is the question of guilt? God himself has descended and he is ordering to kill and kill not somebody else but your own brothers and family members.
Q: But the past actions imprison you.
AP: You must realize that it is not the past actions that are putting you in prison, you must realize that actions are not necessarily good or bad. You have been given a criterion to look at those actions and that criterion is not yours. Different cultures, different people, different times have different criteria.
Q: So, morality is not absolute, it is just conceptual?
AP: It is not absolute, it is conceptual that is why there is time, age, and place.
Truth is not about doing good things; Truth is not about being nice to others. Morality is all about these. Truth is not about helping others in a particular way, Truth is not a nice smile; morality is all this. Truth can be pretty terrible as well. More often than not, Truth is terrible. Morality is sweet and that is why where there is morality there is no question of Truth.
Q: So, as human beings should we destroy our morality?
AP: You will not be able to destroy it just by asking. You have to see the terrible effect it has upon your life, then it goes away on its own. Just by saying ‘I want to destroy morality’, it will not go away; it has a grip on you. You have to realize what morality is doing to you then morality drops.
When the dropping is happening, then that which is enabling the dropping and that which remains after dropping, is the Truth.
Left to oneself one will never be able to drop morality or free will. The power, the energy, the motivation, the faith to drop all that, drop all that in spite of the consequences that there will be, comes from the Truth. Why do you think men often do such crazy things, why do you think a Jesus is crucified?
Q2: For doing good to the people who treated him badly.
AP: And that ‘good’ is not moral good. That good is something that a Jesus knows. Morality is something that the masses know. You know the word 'mores'? Common codes. Did that city in which Jesus was crucified know what is good? No. Only that one being knew. So, it is not moral; had it been moral then everybody would have known.
You use morality because morality is safe. It is a cheap substitute for Truth. Sometimes chains make you feel so safe. Do you know that prison is a very safe place?
That which makes you reject the prison is the Truth, in spite of all the safety and comfort that the prison may seem to offer.
It is an unreasonable urge — it is a well-decorated prison with all comforts, well hypothetically, free food and the rest of it. Yet, I don’t want to be here, that is the Truth.
It is not safe, it is not comfortable, it is not pleasant.
