Acharya Prashant: The thing is realization, enlightenment or sahajta, this is nothing objective, you doesn’t have to look at others, one cannot even know whether the other is realized or enlightened or not; that is not at all the way to go about it; because looking at the other you are still looking out at the world and trying to find enlightenment.
There you are saying a person in the world is enlightened, thereby, you are saying that enlightenment can be found in the world. Now, you are still doing the same thing which is the cause of misery, ‘always looking out’.
Looking out! ‘Ah! Is that fellow enlightened? Can a method lead to enlightenment? What will be the expression of enlightenment?’
Now, all these things, are they not mental activities? Will any of that remain if mental activity ceases?
So, when we are talking of liberation or freedom one must always be inward into his own mind and see what is going on there, not out somewhere; because out somewhere you will only project what is in here, but with the disadvantage that you will think that it is out there.
That out there, is any way in here, but appears deceptively outside so better rather just go in.
The appropriate question to ask would be ‘Why am I looking for Enlightenment?’
And the moment you ask that question, you will have to answer, what is it that disturbs you, now, the inward process has begun. One has to go into his own disturbances, his own disease, you know, it is his own restlessness, what one does not really know without the other.
And, when one does not know about the mind what does one would about the other?
* Listener: First, sorry to interrupt you, I am not looking for any enlightenment and then I don’t want to judge anybody or look at anybody out of my ordinary…*
AP: If you are talking here, we are not talking here so that the misery around us, within us, gets furthered, we are talking for the sake of peace. And that itself is Enlightenment.
You, me, anybody, and everybody is chasing Enlightenment. So, we have to be clear on that, there is nothing that anybody chases. This gathering here, is for the sake of Enlightenment. They are sipping tea for Enlightenment. Somebody is purchasing a shoe for Enlightenment, so you are chasing Enlightenment. There is nothing else that the mind can ever chase, that is the basis, root or summit of all action, you too want Enlightenment.
Listener: So can we stop?
AP: When you see that you are wanting something, and in wanting that you are only going away from that, then the very want will make you stop. Desire that normally takes you away from the center, that very same desire will stop to bring you to the center. Desire will become your friend.
Listener: So, again my thing is how it is possible to arrive to my self through the mind?
AP: Now, is it necessary to answer this question or it is better to stop at this point?
Because, if you answer this question that would be an extension of the mind.
But if you stop at this, ‘That how it is possible to trust the mind’
The mind stops now.
You are saying the mind cannot be trusted, so what is the point in carrying on with the mind? Now the mind stops, so this question is the full stop.
The moment you say that this is not reliable, the moment you see that you have already gone beyond it. But then we slip back, we start believing in the objective world, and then we are again saying that my friend you are so reliable!
This question does not deserve an answer.
It deserves a photo frame ‘Stop’.
