Question: These days I feel like running away from Advait. I feel that I am not going to gain anything here. But, at the same time I find myself pulled here yet again. I know what you are saying is true and that you mean well for me, but I am not able to trust you. I have never really been able to trust anyone. Why is this happening to me?
Speaker: Neither do you come here to me, neither are you running away from me. I am inconsequential, I do not matter. It is because you are ‘you’, so you think of me as some person who says a few things, and to whom you come.
Who is it that you come to? Why do you feel the urge to come? And who is it within you that resists when you want to come? Both are you. I have nothing to do with either of them. You are two, you are split. There are two parts of you. You come here to one particular part, and the other part resists. You don’t come to me, you come here to your own self, I don’t matter. It’s not me that you are listening to.
When you are sitting in front of me, you are listening to the same Truth that is your own essence and that is why you are so helpless in coming here. You will have to come. And when I say ‘here’, I do not mean this physical location. I mean the Truth .
Tomorrow you may stop coming to this physical location but how will you stop the urge to know the truth that arises within you? How will you stop it? It is you, it is your essence. Will you be able to get rid of yourself? How will you run away from yourself? How will you deny yourself? How will you violate yourself? Wherever you are, you can leave everything behind. But how can you leave the ‘Self’ behind?
And this I say to everybody who is present here. Kindly do not think that you come here to listen to a person. When you come here, you come home to yourself. It’s not a man you are listening to, it’s your own voice. Had it been a man, you would have easily forsaken that man long back. You very well know that I have not treated you well, you very well know that many times you have felt like running away, you very well know that a part of you has hated me all the way, you could have gone away so easily. And you will probably go away in the physical sense. But wherever you will go, you will always find that call within to know, to realize, to be at peace, to return home.
It’s incidental that right now I represent that call. At best, I am a representative. Whose representative? Your own representative, I represent you to yourself. Beyond that I am nothing. So it’s me ‘Amandeep’ sitting in front of ‘Amandeep’. Don’t come to me. But where else will you go? Where else will you go?
Now we must also come to the question of- who is it that resists? If Amandeep comes home to ‘Amandeep’, then who is it that is resisting? The other one. And he has all the right to resist, it’s his nature to resist. We are not going to calumniate him, we are not going to say bad things about him. He is doing what he ought to do, that is leela , that is the game of this world. The other one is doing, what the other one wants to do.
See, look at your question. Your question is saying that I don’t trust you. And from whom do you expect a response? From the same person whom you don’t trust. Now what is happening? Don’t you see what is happening? This is the most absurd question you can ask anybody, ‘I don’t trust you, can you please explain why?’ You don’t trust me, why would you ask this question?
The fact is- you trust me more than you can ever trust anybody else. You trust me more than you trust yourself. But that is with due regard to the one who is asking this question. He does not trust me. I know I am sounding complicated now but it’s okay. You called it upon yourself so you’ll have to take it.
So there is this part who obviously does not trust, and it is quite possible, though I am laughing, but I know that it’s quite possible that one day this part that does not trust, may dominate, and it may actually pull you away in a physical sense. That one day you may decide that enough is enough, no more of it, I am not going anymore. You may decide that, but still you have not gone anywhere. You will find me present in all places, yes in different forms, yes in a different body, but I will be present. How will you run away?
One day it is possible that you look into the mirror and you find me staring back. Now, that’s very bad. If the posters were not bad enough, now this is happening. ‘The rascal is now hiding behind the mirror.’ Obviously that will not carry ‘my’ face, it will be your own face, but the eyes will be mine, the look will be mine, and that will be not ‘mine’ at all. You understand that. Right? Not Shri Prashant’s eyes.
So I have no advice to give you. I can only tell you that the other one also has a right to exist. Let him do what he wants to do, and you decide who is hearing this, who is understanding all this. Because there are the two of you. You need to decide which one. Obviously the best that can happen is that the two become friends with each other. A1 and A2- Amandeep 1 and Amandeep 2, if the two can become friends, nothing like it. Now the Ego is submerged in the Self. What else is the ultimate? This is the ultimate that can happen. The two become one, the Ego becomes friends with the Self, the ego surrenders to the Self, Amandeep(A1) surrenders to Amandeep(A2). This is not the surrender of the violent kind, you know. It’s the surrender which happens in Love.
You are saying that you have never been able to trust anybody. Faith is your nature, and trust is such a small thing. How can you violate your nature? It’s impossible. Yes, there is the other one whose very nature is suspicion, doubt, distrust, but then the other one depends on the first one. The other one is the ‘other’ one, not the ‘first one’, not the ‘central one’, not the ‘real one’.
I repeat, I am not denying the existence of the other, the other has every right to exist, the other is what is our world. If we say that the other must not be there, then we are saying that nothing needs to happen, no light, no darkness, no duality, no happiness, no sadness, no movement, just submergence of all into nothing. Sitting here in a bodily way, I have no right to wish the disappearance of this world. That would be hypocritical.
So the other Amandeep is good, nice, wonderful but just a small advice, ask him to friends with the ‘first one’. Ask him to be friends with the ‘first one’. When the two will move together, it will be the most glorious sight. Don’t kill the second one, the other one is alright, don’t kill it. In fact, you identify more with the other one, how will you kill the other one? It will be cruel and impossible.
The first one is Faith, the other one is suspicion. Can you ask the other one to go to the first one and get educated in Faith? Can you? Even if you don’t do that, the nature of the first one is not going to change, it will keep on being faithful, and you will be torn, you will suffer, because you identify with the second one, and the second one suffers. The first one never suffers.
See, understand this. What happens is that we repeatedly say that we don’t understand the world. Pay attention to this. We say that all this is like a dream, we say that whatever the senses bring to us is not real. Then we also say that the teacher has the power to show you the real. I don’t know whether you have ever paid any attention to the contradiction contained in this.
If you are dreaming Amandeep, then what is all this? A dream. Who am I? A character in the dream. Now, how can a character in the dream, help you wake up from the dream? So I cannot be your teacher, obviously. If Amandeep is dreaming, then who am I? Sitting in front of Amandeep, who am I? A character of his dream. Now how can I be a teacher? How can I be your teacher? How can I help you wake up from the dream? So disregard me, forget me. I am nobody, you don’t know me. I am not helping you, somebody else is helping you wake up from the dream.
Just as you do not know anything else, you also do not know who is helping you. And do not fight me, do not think that I am important, I am not important. Just as you do not know what this wall is, just as you do not know what the sky is, just as you do not know what relationships are, just as you do not know what good and bad, happiness and sorrow are, just as you do not know anything, how can you know me? Or is it so that you know who I am? Would you like to claim that? About everything else I am deluded, but I know who the teacher is. Is it possible? So do not speculate.
What is happening to you is not happening due to this physical person, it is happening due to someone within you. Amandeep is not coming to this physical person, Amandeep is coming due to some reason within ‘Amandeep’. There is something of Amandeep that he finds in me, that’s why he comes. Can you please stop making me important? I am not important. By making me important, you lay all the blame upon me. But I have done nothing. I am very innocent, like a child. I have not done anything. Did I go to invite you today? You came on your own. Why don’t you fight with That who pulls you? I don’t pull you. I was in the shower when you came, how can I pull you? What else can the person do? He will take shower, he will eat, and he will sleep.
There is something within you, sitting right in the middle of your heart. Talk to him, talk to him and befriend him, surrender to him, he is the real teacher. He is the real teacher. And you cannot avoid him, he will keep teaching. Sometimes he will appear in the form of ‘Shri Prashant’, sometimes he will appear in other forms, he will keep teaching. I am just one of the forms he has taken right no.
Surrender to HIM!
– Excerpts from a Clarity Session held at Advait Sthal. Edited for clarity.
