Whatever the mind seeks can never be beyond the

mind

Acharya Prashant (AP): Only a great study of scriptures and

tremendous knowledge can make one do this mistake. Otherwise, it
is such an unnatural mistake that it cannot happen. You know, the
common mind seeks the material, that which is bodied. The
achieving mind, the religious mind, the mind that has studied a lot, it
seeks the transcendental, the beyond; not looking at the facts of the
mind, not looking at the very constitution of the mind, which is that
it can seek only the material. So, whenever it will seek, there would
be an object of seeking. So, even if you are seeking the
transcendental, you will turn the transcendental into an object.
Otherwise, you cannot seek. Otherwise, how will you seek?

What is happening is that because your instrument is limited, so

you are building up a suitable target for yourself. You wanted to aim
at the sky; you wanted to shoot down the sun. But you have a gun
which can shoot only as high as the tree-top. So, what do you do?
You declare the tree-top to be the sun. Can you look at the
cleverness? Can you look at the stupidity? “My instrument will
decide my target.” I am not saying that the target will choose the
instrument. Instead, I am saying that I am so attached to the
instrument, what is the instrument?

AP: I am so attached to the instrument that I will choose a target

which the instrument can hit. “So, the sun is sitting on the tree-top.
Not only is the sun sitting on the tree-top, sometimes I am able to
shoot down the sun. Actually eight times exactly I have shot down
the sun. Those are eight enlightened masters roaming around.”

If you have any love for the target, then you will not reduce the
target, then you will not treat it with contempt, then you will not
accept anything but the genuine target, then you will not be content
with substitutes, proxies, adulterated goods. You will say, “I want the
Real.” You will ask the mind, “Can you get me the Real?” The mind
will beat around the bush, give some roundabout answer. Then,
strictly, in a business-like manner, you will ask again, “Can you get
me the target?” The mind will again try to act like a sales-person who
does not have in his shop what you want. But is instead trying to sell
you what he has in his shop.

Have you met such sales-persons? You have gone to ask for a 3-
D camera. The fellow deals only in two-dimensions. He has only a 2-
D camera. Now, instead of telling you that he does not have that, he
will say, “No, no, no, 2-D is 3-D.” And he will give you all kinds of
spiritual literature to prove his point. That kind of salesman the
mind is.

If you really want that nth dimension, reject such salesmen.

Don’t compromise on what you really want. But this non-
compromising attitude can come only with knowing what you really
want. These two move parallelly. The more you know what you really
want, the more you will not compromise with it, the more obstinate
you will be, the more one-pointed you will be. The less you know
what you really want, the more you will be amenable to adjustment,
to give and take, to all kinds of cutting corners.

Once you start knowing the beauty of your deepest desire, that
beauty itself prevents you from looking here and there. Your eyes
become affixed to the target. It is so beautiful. Now, you cannot look
this side or that side.
The false desires the Truth in desiring the
disappearance of Truth

“What is your strongest desire?”

“That the Sun should vanish, and should remain veiled forever
behind the clouds.”

~ Idris Shah, The way of the Sufi

Acharya Prashant (AP): Impossible is what we want. On one

hand, the mind wants immortality, on the other hand, it wants to
avoid the timeless. On one hand, the mind wants all knowledge, on
the other hand, it wants to avoid Real knowing. The situation of the
mind is like that of the moon, which wants to shine, and shine
brightly, but dislikes the Sun.

“The moon was asked: What is your strongest desire?

It answered: That the Sun should vanish, and should remain

veiled forever behind the clouds.”

There is nothing really that the moon, the mind, dislikes more
than the Sun. The moon is praised by poets and lovers, gentleness of
its light is greatly appreciated. People express gratitude to it for
giving them, at least, some light, in the thick of dark night. The moon
receives these appreciations and thanks.

What the poet forgets and the moon too forgets is that, the light
of the moon is not its own. You would have read and heard
innumerable poets write and sing about the beauty and the romance
of the moon. But few, write of the Sun. It requires a sage to worship
the Sun. But the moon is so commonly revered and loved. Not only
do people forget, but even the moon would like to forget, that it has
no light, no energy, no brightness, and no splendour of its own. All
that it does is reflect. And even, the reflection is enough, to give light
and calmness to people. The poet who is passionately praises the
moon, would mention nowhere in his poem, that he is actually
praising the Sun. He would keep singing of the moon. Not even one
line would be dedicated to the Sun. It becomes easy and lucrative to
forget the Sun. The moon really cannot like the Sun.

The Sun is self-sufficient and at the center. And the moon is just
a satellite. Around the Sun, there are so many moons, but all the
moons are being fed by just one Sun. Would not matter to the Sun, if
the moons vanish. But if the Sun vanishes, the moons would be left
with nothing at all. Obviously, in the eyes of the moon, it is an
unequal situation and the moon cannot like it.

What does the Sun stands for?

The Sun stands for the Self, for the Truth, for Aatman (Self), the
one Source.

Somebody was once asked, “How to live?” Must have been a

realised man, he was asked, “How to live?” And he replied, “Live like
a moon in the daytime.” That was his answer. “Live like a moon in
the daytime.“

So reflect, what little you receive, and you cannot receive the
Total, being what you are. Retaining your limited size and
boundaries, you cannot receive the totality of the Sun. But whatever
little you receive, reflect it as per your mortal situation. Reflect it.
And even as you reflect it, remain immerse and inundated, in Light.
In the daytime, moon simply does not show up. Its individuality, its
boundaries get blurred. Even if the moon is visible in the daytime, it
is nowhere as singularly glorious as the moon of the night. It may be
there in the sky, it may be reflecting light, but then there is light all
around it. Now it has no reason to feel exclusive or special. It has
known, that yes, I do reflect light, but then, so does the entire
universe.
 In the night, it is easy to have misconceptions about yourself. In
the night it is easy to develop notions of exclusivity. In the night, it is
easy to be misled, that you are somebody special. In the day, the
Truth is shining. Not that you are shining any less, not that the moon
reflects any less. It receives no less, and it reflects no less. But it just
becomes apparent, that all receives and all reflects. And that, the
moon, the planets, the stars, the asteroids, they all are bathing
together in the same Sunlight. That all the planets and all the moons,
and everything that fills up the inter-planetary space, is orbiting
around the same Sun. It becomes very apparent.

That was what the wise man advised.

He said live in a way where you are able to see, that firstly, your
light is not ‘your’ light. In the night the moon is tempted to feel that
its light is its own. The wise man said, live in a way where it becomes
clear to you that your light is not ‘your’ light. And secondly, your light
is the same as the light pervading the universe. That you are part of
one harmonious whole, as far as this existence goes.

The mind likes to believe that it has certain powers. It may be

ready to somehow agree, that those powers are limited. But, what it
would never agree to, is that, those powers are not his own. Those
powers are just a gift from somewhere else. The mind feels proud of
the intellect, of the memory, of the knowledge it has. The mind
remains puffed up with its powers to comprehend, to analyse, to
dissect, to conclude, and it thinks, that it can even, tear open into the
mystery of being with its powers.

The Ken Upanishad, repeatedly asks, from where does all this
come, from where does the mind originate, from where do the
faculties come, from where do all the powers come. But it requires
the sagacity of an Upanishadic Sage to ask this question.

It requires a seer to see, that the Truth is that which powers the
eyes to see, but which the eyes themselves cannot see; that the ears
are powered by some other source to hear; that the tongue is
powered by some other source to speak; and that source is so vast,
immense, beyond description, that the tongue cannot mention, or
capture that source in words.

It powered the tongue to speak, but the tongue cannot speak of

it.

It powers the mind to think, but the mind cannot think of it.

It requires the humility and wisdom of a Sage to remember this.

But the ordinary mind, the common mind, is just like the moon
in our story. Its strongest desire is, that the Sun should vanish. It
hates the Sun. The Sun reminds it of its littleness, of its
incompetence. And it hates the Sun, because the Sun makes it look
so ordinary, and it hates the Sun because half the day, the Sun just
makes it disappear. The moon does not like Sun, the man does not
like Truth, mind does not like Aatman (Self) and that is supremely
foolish, because in disliking the Truth, you are disliking your own
roots.

Moon’s desire is a stupid desire. All desires are stupid desires.

That is why I say, that when you are to be punished, your desires will
be granted. The moon says that its strongest desire is that the Sun
should vanish, and should remain veiled forever behind the clouds .
If moon’s desire were to be granted, the moon itself would vanish.
Can there be moon without the Sun? That is how stupid all our
desires are. We do not know, what we really want. Yes, there is a
longing, there is a craving deep within, but we do not know it. We
have never really attended to it. We do not know what we really
want. And instead, like blind man, we keep wanting miscellaneous
things, we keep acting, in directions, opposite to that of fulfilment.

What does the moon want? What does the moon like? The moon
likes Light. The moon is in love with Light. Because it is in love with
Light, it does not like the Sun. Now this is such a contradiction. This
contradiction arises because of ego.

The moon is in love with Light, but its ‘own’ Light, not Light
itself. The moon definitely does love Light, but the moon says, Light
is only good as long as it is emanating from my boundaries. The
moon likes Light, but likes its limitations even more. Not the
infinitude of Light, but the Light, that seems to emerge from within
its being, from within its narrow boundaries. Now, the boundaries,
really are immaterial. The love of Light, is what really matters. No
poet ever praised the boundaries of the moon. The poets have
praised the Light of the moon. Even the moon will not really be
particular about its boundaries, but it is very-very particular about its
Light. That’s what it’s life stuff is.

Wisdom is to realise, what is essential about you, and what is it

that limits you. And stupidity lies in conflating these two, not being
able to distinguish between these two.

Your boundaries do not define you; your boundaries limit

you. You are defined by your Light. So when it comes to
choosing, between your limits and your Light, you must choose
Light.

The moon is choosing limits. The moon is saying, let the Sun
vanish, even if I too implunge into darkness, it doesn’t matter, but at
least, I would retain my individuality. This is the stupidity of all
human desire. It says, let me have my separate existence, let my
walls be protected, even if the one living inside those walls dies. Let
my body be protected, even if the life inside the body has long gone.
Let the material be protected, even if the spirit is no more with the
material. That is materialism, the desire of the moon. The same
desire that the moon have.

Light is not really material, the boundaries are material, the

boundaries are substance. And it becomes very easy, for the ignorant
mind, to give weightage to gross material over subtle Light. If the
moon realises, that it is Light that it is in love with, then its desire
would take a different direction. Right now, the moon is identified
with its boundaries.

If the same moon realises, that it is Light that defines, not its
boundaries; then the moon’s desire would take a totally different
direction. Not only a totally different direction, actually a different
dimension.Then the moon would say that –

The Light is highest of all. Light is my entire self-worth. Light is

what I am. Let me merge and dissolve into that Light. Let me
surrender to that Light, even if it means my own dissolution. I may
remain no more, but Light will remain.

And that is not bad news at all.

Let the moon merge into the Sun. Let the moon be no more. Let
there be only the Sun. And if this is not possible, if I have to retain
my moon-ness, if I have to retain a separate material existence, then
let me live, as the wise man said, like the moon bathing in daylight.

It would have been great, could I merge directly into the Sun.
This is the desire of the wise man, he too desires, but he has only one
desire. He realises what his desires are really about. He realises what
his deepest craving is. And he says, why cater to miscellaneous
desires, I will go to the root of all desires. I will go to the one thing
that I really really want. I will chase nothing except that one. And
that one is Light. I am thirsty only for that. Everything else I ask for,
and demand, and chase, is just a poor reflection of mother desire.

Why ask for this and that? I do not really need this and that. I
only need one, and I’ll ask for that one. Can I merge in the Sun?
Please, can I be one with the Sun? That is what my heart has been
beating for so long. Can I be one with the Sun? And if you say, I
cannot be one with the Sun, then can I at least please see, the glory
and splendour of Sun all around me all the time? Can you please give
me a boon that I never forget that there is nothing but Light, but
Sun? Can I remember always that every bit of energy around me
comes from one single source? Can I remember and see that source,
always and everywhere? That is what a wise moon would ask for. It
will not want exclusivity. It will not say, that I should remain, and
Sun should go. It realises the stupidity and impossibility of such a
desire.

But wise moon, most of us are not. We are the common popular
moon. We are so stupid that we hate that, which gives us Truth. The
moon says that my deepest desire is that the Sun should vanish.
Have you ever hated anybody more than the one who brings you to
the Truth? The Upanishads, we have just talked of the Ken
Upanishad, the Upanishads begin with a shantipath – an invocation
of peace. And in many of the Upanishads, the shantipath says, ‘Let
the student and the Teacher not hate each other’. It is very-very
likely, that a relationship of dislike emerges, between the Teacher of
the Truth and the student. There is nobody more dislikeable to the
ego than the one, who brings the ego, who pushes the ego towards
dissolution, surrender, annihilation. The moon hates the Sun. The
mind hates its source – the Truth. Not only the moon’s desire can
ever be granted, it is actually a suicidal desire. The desire would not
be granted, but just having this desire is against life, is against the
moon’s own interest.

Look at all your desires. I am inviting you, please look at all you
desires. You will find the same moon like stupidity there. The test is
– Do you want the one Truth, or are you asking for anything else? To
ask for anything except the One, is to act like the moon. I do not
value the Sun enough. Other things matter to me. The praise of the
poets matters to me. The adulation of the stars matters to me. My
reign over the night sky matters to me. My power and dominance
matters to me. The Sun and Light do not matter to me. I am asking
you to look at your desires. I am asking you to look at your own
values. What matters to you? If anything except the Sun matters to
you, I assure you, you will end up hating the Sun. You are already
hating the Sun. To be in love with the Sun is to forget everything else.

To be in love with the Truth is to forget everything else,

because the Truth is one and all encompassing. If you have
fallen in love with the Truth, how can you remember anything
else? Because there is nothing else to remember. To fall in love
with Truth, is to fall in love with wholeness. There is nothing
else left.

If I circulate a sheet here right now and ask you to write down
what do you want, if I ask you to write down what are your desires
and priorities, you would write innumerable things. But I would be
surprised, if I get to see even one mention of Truth. You would say
what is important to me are my responsibilities, you would say that
your family matters to you, you would say your business matters to
you, you would say your reputation matters to you. And the sheet
would return to me full of so many words. All words indicating your
desires and priorities. But there would be one word missing in that
sheet- TRUTH.

Have you ever met a man who wants the Truth? Yes people
sometimes do say, ‘Tell me the Truth’. But what they mean by Truth
then is facts, not the non-dual one Truth. They do not mean that.
Even when someone say that i want to know the Truth, we reduce the
Truth to the level of facts.

Nobody really wants the Truth. The truth is what we are. The
truth is our foundation and our being. But nobody wants the Truth.
What we want is miscellaneous stuff. It is suicidal, it is stupid.

Ask for that One, ask for nothing else. And if that One is asked
for, really asked for, you get it. It is such a magical thing. You keep
asking for petty stuff, do you ever get it? You have asked since years,
since decades, since centuries for all small and petty things. Have
you ever been able to get it? You have asked for the love of man, you
have asked for reputation, you have asked for satisfaction, have you
ever been able to get it? Love of man have kept you thirsty,
reputation has always proved insufficient, and money has never been
enough. Now for once, try something else. Leave all those little
desires and ask for the Sun itself. Ask for the One. You will say, “Sir,
when our little desires are never granted, how this immense desire
will be granted?” But I am assuring you, this magic happens.

If your desires are little, they are never granted. They are never
granted precisely because they are little, and existence does not value
littleness, it values immensity.

You ask for the petty and you will not get it, and you ask for
infinity, it is yours.

It is yours the moment you ask it.

You keep asking for the petty for ages and you will return empty
handed. And you will complain, that it is a hostile world. You will
complain, that even small wishes cannot be granted. What you do
not understand is your wishes are not being granted precisely
because they are small wishes. Now try, have a little trust and try.

Ask not for the petty, but for infinity, and see, how easily
available it is. You ask it and you get it. In fact, you get it before you
ask for it, otherwise, you cannot ask for it.

How will you ask for infinity without being infinity itself?

How will you ask for infinity without being inspired by infinity
itself? Strange is this asking. You get it, and only then you can ask for
it. Such is the compassion of the giver. He gives first and after that
you ask for it. And such is the worthlessness of all asking. You have
already gotten it when you are asking for it; what is the point in
asking? Such is the stupidity of all desires. What you are asking for is
already yours. And asking for it again and again cannot help you.
What has already been given to you cannot be given again.
 Have you not seen people praying – God give me strength. Now
God wonders – Have I not already given it to you? How can I give it
again? Or have I kept some part of it reserved, hidden with me to be
released only upon prayers? I have given the highest, the ultimate. I
have already given everything that could be given. Now what are you
praying for? I do not wait for your applications to release your funds.
I have already released everything. I am such a giver, that I have
already given myself to you. What more do you want, stupid moon. It
is your incapacity to take. I have given all that could be given, it is
your incapacity to take. And you have that incapacity, because you
have an identification with your boundaries. You take only as much
as your boundaries permits. You do not take anything more than
that. Do not ask that the giver should give you more, ask that you
may be able to receive more. And these are entirely two different
desires. When you say give me more, you want to preserve your
boundary. When you say may I receive more, then you want to
broaden and thereby dissolve your boundary. These are two very
different prayers. Never say, please give me more. He had already
given the maximum that could be given. He is not a miser.
Dropping desire is just another desire; knowing
desire is fulfillment of desire

Questioner (Q): As I listen to you, I understand that – when you

don’t have desire, you don’t have hope, and when you don’t have
hope, you don’t have anxiety, and that leads to a peaceful life.

Acharya Prashant (AP): No. You have constantly being saying

that you want change. What you heard is what the traditions and the
religions have been repeating always. So you have not really heard it
here. You have been carrying it in your mind even before you entered
this hall.

Q: I am coming out of your statement on desire that – desire

leads to hope, and hope leads to anxiety.

AP: No. I have constantly been saying that you are thirsty for
change. Desire is something that you surely want. It is just that what
you want cannot be given by hope, cannot be given by hope, future,
because hope is always in time. Getting it?

This line that – don’t desire, don’t hope, and remain settled with
what life has given you – that is a very beaten line. And the mind has
found enough loopholes in this argument, to trash it long back. That
is why we want to stick to this argument.

You understand, “Santosham Parmam sukham (Contentment is

absolute happiness),” we want to stick to this, why? Because it is so
hollow that we can easily trash it. Everybody wants a weak adversary.
This adversary – do not desire, do not hope – is so weak, that we all
love it.

Let us have this argument come to us. Let us all say that
spirituality is about not desiring and not hoping, why? So that then
we can say that spirituality is rubbish. There is no way I have said
this. This is what one has been carrying in his mind, continuously,
continuously. And whenever it comes to spiritual discourse, one feels
like pre-deciding that, because it is supposed to be spiritual, so he
must be parroting the same old line again.

Unfortunately, I am not saying that.

Surely there is desire. It is evident in your eyes, it is written large

on your face. ‘You’ are desire. How will ‘you’ drop desire? I am
saying: Go to the root of your desire. I am not saying to drop it. I am
saying don’t be so stupid that you don’t even know what are you
desiring. Please look carefully at your desire. Go close to it. Find out
why you desire so much, and in that there is no condemnation of
desire. We are not deciding in advance that desire has to be dropped
and all that, because such a decision is impractical, cannot be
implemented, and also hypocritical.

We are products of desire and we are desiring not to desire. So

there is a lot of hypocrisy in this.

Q: It’s again a desire – to not to desire.

AP: Another desire. We are saying: Life is full of this and that.
Please understand what ‘this’ and ‘that’ are.

“Why do I work in a particular office? Why do I have such and

such relationships?” Not even ‘why’. “What are these relationships?
Why do I speak in a particular way? Why do I avoid something? Why
do I go to particular places? Why do I watch a particular program on
the television? Why do I get nervous and defensive about a few
things? Why must I be aggressive about other few things?” Go to the
root of all this. And everywhere as you proceed towards the root, you
will encounter ‘hope’ in the way.

‘Desire’ is a wonderful messenger. It is telling you, something

ought to give. Something really needs to change. So when desire
arises, do not treat it with kid gloves. Do not send it to the OPD to
some junior doctor, send it right to ICU, because the desire might
appear small but it is arising from your Heart. Go to the root of
desire.

Somebody wants a new dress, somebody wants a baby,

somebody wants a job, somebody wants recognition. Somebody
wants a luxury travel, somebody wants a car, somebody wants food.
What is this whole ‘wanting’ all about? Somebody wants to not to
‘want’. What is this whole ‘wanting’ all about?

When did the mind start ‘wanting’? What is ‘wanting’? What is

its relation with ‘becoming’? What is its relation with time? What is
its relation with our way of living, our social structure, our
celebrations?When exactly it comes to the mind, that it must ‘want’,
that it must ‘become’ something else.

Is it possible that we keep ‘wanting’, because what we are,

simply cannot be contained in the small body? Is it possible that you
‘want’ because you are so big, and your envelope is so small, so you
are always terribly dissatisfied. That’s just a way of putting things.
That’s to me is a nice way.

You have so much money and your wallet is so small. Now your
problem is that you have so much. Now that’s a problem. A problem
of Abundance, a problem of having the Immeasurable, a problem of
Immensity. “I have so much that I have nowhere to keep it. May be
that is the core problem, may be that is why the mind starts ‘wanting’
in the first place. I am so big, and thoughts are so small. Goodies
here and goodies there, don’t know to keep where.”

May be this ‘wanting’ is contained in the very constitution of

man. May be that is what Christianity calls as the original sin – being
a man. You are being a man, when you are not a man, so you remain
dissatisfied. Yes? Why are you being a man? You are not a man.
Don’t you know that? The more you say that you are a man, the more
dissatisfied you will remain, and then you will ‘want’ something.
What will you want? You know, all your ‘wanting’ is about no more
being a man. But you say, “I must remain a man and fulfill my
wants” – that won’t happen. Because ‘wanting’ starts with being a
man.

You are tremendous, infinite bundle, which cannot be bundled.

Nothing except perfection, Totality, an ocean-ness satisfies you . You
keep ‘wanting’ more and more. But look at your fingers, how small
they are. Everything about you is measurable. Look at your nose.
Such a tiny nose. Have you seen the trunk of an elephant? Oh that
too is very tiny. Look at everything that you have, it is all quite tiny. I
respect the attachment you may have with the size of your biceps or
other body parts. (Referring to one of the listeners) Joydeep here was
intent on proving a point or two quite recently, but the fact remains
it is still quite tiny. Pathetic.

In the laboratory of existence, you will require a Vernier caliper

to measure it. It is so small. In fact, I am honouring you by saying
you will require a Vernier caliper, you will actually require a
microscope. You are so small. But in this little mind, oceans must be
contained, otherwise you will not get peace. That’s the contradiction
that man must overcome.

Being small, he must contain infinities, otherwise he won’t come

to rest. Being man, he must transcend humanness. Otherwise he
won’t relax. That’s the challenge, that’s the invitation. Enter so
deeply into yourself, enter so deeply into your smallness, that you
come to the beyond-ness, that you so desperately crave.

Q: Sir, that incompleteness inclines us to the ‘wanting’. That

gap, that constant gap remains.

AP: You are destined to feel it. And you would not have been
destined to feel that gap, that difference, the distance, had you also
not been destined to close the gap. Close it. The ocean must be
contained in the drop. The drop has to proudly and boldly come out
and declare – “I will contain the ocean. I AM the ocean.” That is what
is called – “Aham Brahmasmi”. Drop is saying, “Aham Brahmasmi.”

You all require the haughtiness of that drop. You all require the
absurd sureness of that drop. You all require the faith and deep
confidence, bordering on arrogance. “The ocean is my birthright. I
am the ocean. Yes the body is small, yes everything about me is petty,
but I am infinite.”

Thank you. And Happy New Year.

Whose desires are you chasing?

Questioner (Q): What is the proof that we are still evolving?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Who says that it is not happening

anymore? That process takes millions of years. There is enough
proof. If you go hundred years back, the human brain has become
larger. The overall size of the body has decreased because we have
moved from an agrarian society to a society that is service-based,
doing far more of intellectual work than mechanical work. Do you
know what is happening? Across the world, babies are being born
with bigger brain and smaller body. Evolution is at work all the time.
Because your life span is only eighty to hundred years, you never see
that. It takes place across centuries. You never see a monkey
changing into man overnight.

Q: But there would be some proof.

AP: I just gave you the proof. Waves, vision, weight. And there
are enough proofs. When Darwin came out with his ‘Origin of
Species’, it was not without the proof. Evolution is not somebody’s
imagination. There is enough scientific proof, lots of proof, don’t
worry. Many evidences are coming day after day. Birds were initially
reptiles and it was wondered that how can reptiles change to birds.
Then the skeleton of a creature that was half bird-like and half-linear
was discovered, and it became clear that this creature is the missing
link between reptiles and birds. That. Studies of DNA are clear
proofs and clear indicators of how evolution progresses.

Q: Sir, what is achievement?

AP: Your desires are coming from an influence outside of you.

Because circumstances are not inside, circumstances are all around,
in which you are there, so desire comes from some place outside of
you. So some place outside of you determines your desire and you
start chasing that desire. And when you get it, you call it ‘my’
achievement. Are they really, really your desires? And if they are not
your desires, how can they be your achievements? Before we dive
headlong into achieving something, our whole time and energy into
achieving XYZ, let us say, a particular CGPA, a particular job, a
particular degree, before we commit ourselves fully to it, is it not
wise to understand whether is it really my desire to get it? Or,
whether there is ever any desire that is ‘mine’? Do you think all
desires come from outside?

Q: I think we are like wet-cement and everybody is putting

knowledge in us.

AP: You are passing through a market and there is this Pizza-
Hut Delivery outlet inside the mall. And there is nice smell, nice
aroma of a freshly-baked pizza. When you pass through the outlet,
the aroma comes to you. The Pizza-Hut owner has ensured that there
is a particular aroma in-front of his outlet, for obvious reasons. You
pass through it and the aroma strikes your nose. What is the result?
You salivate. And the desire of having a pizza comes to you and you
immediately walk into the outlet. And what do you say? It is ‘my’
desire. Now is it your desire or has the pizza owner induced his
desire in you? Is it really your desire? And if that is not your desire,
then how can fulfilling that desire be your achievement? Is it really
your desire? Think of it. You may call it your desire. In the day-to-
day language, you may say, ‘I want to have pizza, I desire for pizza’,
but did the desire arise in you or has it been induced by the pizza
owner? And if he has aroused the desire and you are acting because
of his arousal, then are you a master or a slave? Are you a master or a
slave? If somebody else has the power to make you work according to
his wish, are you a master or a slave?

AP: Can a slave achieve? A slave goes out in the market to buy
something as per his master’s wish and says, ‘It is my achievement
that I have bought it.’ Is it his achievement? Or is it the command of
his master that he is following? Now, do you know who your masters
are? Who is commanding you to achieve, who is inducing desires
within you? Who is inducing desires in you? Where do our desires
come from? Where are they coming from?

AP: Now would an intelligent man want to be a slave of the

society? Would an intelligent, young man want to be a slave of the
society. ‘Society thinks that it is good and respectable to go to an IIT,
hence I wrote the IIT entrance. Society thinks that one must earn a
hefty pay-cheque, hence I will earn a hefty pay-cheque. I do not
know, I really do not know what I will do with that money, but you
know everybody thinks it is good to earn so much of money, so I will
earn that much money. Society’s desire has become my desire,
society has superimposed its desires on me. And I am calling it as my
desire. Am I intelligent? Am I intelligent?’ Are you with me? Are we
together?

AP: Whose desires are you following? Whose desires are we

following and calling it our achievements? When desire is of
somebody else, how can achievement be yours? Yes, whose desires
are we following? Whose mandate are we following?

AP: Friends. Who is influencing us? Who is creating desires in

us? Who is telling us what to desire?

Q: People in the marketing profession.

AP: Wonderful. The entire thing in the media and the

advertisements and all the stuff that you are seeing. You are still not
putting your finger on the biggest culprit. Yes, who is telling you to
achieve?

Q: If society superimposes its desires on me, then why do we

select something special?

AP: Let us say that I am a master and I have five sons. I choose
the fastest runner of them to go the market and fetch things for me.
He would be the fastest one, but he is still my slave. I want to make
my work done quickly so I choose the fastest runner. You are the
fastest among all, you go to the market and get me the things. Right?
Who induces desires in my mind? You are not putting your finger on
the biggest culprit. Yes.

Q: Our desire to be accepted and respected by the society around

us.

AP: But even this thing that ‘you must be accepted by the
society’

Q: We have accepted this as a natural thing.

AP: Is that a natural thing? Is that really natural to be accepted

by others or is that also conditioning?

Q: Nobody wants to be alone, everybody wants to be with

someone.

AP: Is that your natural state or even this has been taught to
you? You think that nobody wants to live alone, but that might be
conditioning superimposed on you, that to live alone is bad, only
losers live alone. Through all the media, the songs and everything
that has been filled in your mind right since early childhood, you
have been made to believe that only losers live alone.

Q: Everything comes from experience.

AP: And experience comes from outside. Right?

Q: Everybody interprets things in his own way.

AP: What you are calling as ‘the own way’, ‘the self’, go into it. Is
it really your ‘own way’, really your own way or is it ‘the taught way’,
the way it should be? You have internalized it and started calling it
‘your’ way, but is it your ‘own way’? Did you have it since childhood
or have you developed it because you were taught this way?
 Q: So, nothing can be ‘our own way’.

AP: That is too far to assume. Don’t go too far, whether to say
that can anything be ours. Right now you need to see if what you
think is yours is really yours. Once you have understood that, then
you can see that whether something can be ‘ours’ or not. Don’t go too
far. First you need to see that what you believe as ‘yours’, is it
somebody else’s or your’s. Once you come to understand what is
happening right now, then the path to future opens by itself.

Yes, who is the biggest culprit? Who is infusing desires in you?

Why can’t you name your education system? I mean look into this.
Does it not infuse desires in you? (Pointing at the notice board which
has the list of toppers of past years written on it) To have your name
up there in immortal letters, I know for sure what kind of desire it
induces.

Look at the logo of your hostel, ‘Sarv-shreshtham, Sarv-

sundaram’. Is not being sundar (beautiful) sufficient? Why do you
want to be sarv-sundar i.e. beautiful among all. Do you understand
what is this? It is the competitive way of life. And who has taught you
competition? The IIT-JEE, the class tenth board, class twelfth board
exams. Being beautiful is not sufficient, one needs to be beautiful
among all. And when you are trying to become ‘sarv-sundar’, you are
continuously looking towards others because you will have to
compare.

Don’t you see that all this is the product of the way your
education has brought you up? Competitive, insecure, absorbing
rather than analytical. Anything written in the book, you read it and
you accept it. Somebody else has set your study course and you
undergo the course. Do you decide the contents of the course? Do
you decide the contents of the book? Do you even decide which book
to read or not? There were prescribed textbooks. Did you decide
what will be taught in class fourth, fifth and sixth. And do all
students deserve to be taught the same thing? Don’t you see that
what you call as ‘your wish’ and ‘your mind’, is a creation of your
education system and the media, the society, the parents and
everybody else?

Education system ranks pretty high in the making of your mind.

What you call as ‘your’ mind has been created through all these
inputs that have been attacking you right since your childhood. And
then you call it as ‘my’ achievement. How intelligent is that? So, I
have a dog, I throw a ball and tell it to fetch it for me. So it fetches the
ball and comes back to me. The dog says, ‘It is my achievement that I
brought this ball.’ My dog, my training, my ball, my order, my desire
and the dog says, ‘my achievement.’ How intelligent is the dog! My
dog, my ball. But your life? (Addressing the listeners) . So you must
speak. You must speak. And this question is not very relevant to
those who have already surrendered their life, who are either too
young or too old or who anyway do not have the grey matter to think
and decide for themselves. Remember you have proven one thing-
that you can analyse. And because you can analyse, you should also
analyse your own life. Should you not? Or do you only want to
analyse differential equation, not your own life? Electrolyte plate is
to be understood but not your life. You don’t even bother to
understand your life. Have you studied Maxwell’s equation?

AP: So, the same mind that understands Maxwell’s equations,

would it not understand it’s own life? Or is Maxwell more important
than your own life? Won’t you like to understand anything, or you
prefer sleepwalking all your life? ‘I don’t understand but I am living.’
How did you join IIT? ‘Had left home, had to reach anywhere so
reached here.’ Now what will you do? ‘The way I reached here, I will
one day leave as well.’ But why would you leave? ‘Because after four
years I would be told to vacate the hostel.’ Is that the way you want to
live life? Then, how do you want to live it?

Remember all of you want to be achievers. You want to be

achievers so you have to see. Have we observed the question of
achievement? As we have opened the question of achievement, do
you see where are all these goals coming from? The thing that you
say, ‘it is coming from my mind’, is it really ‘your’ mind? What you
call as ‘the self’, is it really the ‘self’ or just a product of conditioning?

Q: So, everything is a product of conditioning.

AP: Is there anything that is not a product of conditioning?

Name it. To say that there is even an inch of you that is not a product
of conditioning, would be sufficient.

Q: There can be something let us say, a particular kind of soft

drink, and it is not decided by the society.

AP: Alright. How many of you have no problems with eating

normal dal, roti and sabzi? You were talking about food.

(Most of the students raise their hands.)

How many Europeans would have no problems with eating

normal dal, roti and sabzi?

Q: They would have never even tried it.

AP: And the first time they are given it, they wouldn’t have really
any taste for it. You walk into a hotel and an extensive menu is given
to you which has seven different types of cuisines. Spanish, Mexican,
Japanese, Thai, Indian, Chinese. To which one would you
immediately go?

AP: Indian or Chinese, almost ninety of you would go with these.

Are your food choices really coming from yourself or your
circumstances?

Q: That may be because we have never tried anything other than

that food before.
 AP: How can you try if you have been told that only certain
things are worth trying? Of course, you have not tried. How old are
you? Eighteen years.

AP: Eighteen years is a very-very long time. Imagine what all

could have been tried in these eighteen years. But have you really
tried? And how can you try when you already know that such things
are not worth trying?

Q: I have not been allowed to try but now as I am old enough, I

can try on my own.

AP: You can try on your own provided you think that it is worth
trying. But when this sense of ‘worth’ itself is coming from outside
how will you try? You are seemingly independent right now but even
that independence is decided by your mind. What if the mind is
decided by somebody else? Let me ask you a few more questions. A
few very basic things which you call as ‘my’ choices. A pretty brunette
or a blonde girl walks in, this one is for all the males here. A pretty
American girl walks in and along with her a Negro girl walks in.
Where would your eyes immediately look at? Tell me honestly. Don’t
you see that even your basic instincts like love, sexual attraction, are
conditioned. And you will call it ‘my’ choice. ‘I wanted to see.’ Did
you want to see? It is because you have a particular type of skin and
because you have been ruled by the Englishmen for a fiercely long
period of time, you are been deeply conditioned to look only at the
fair color. Otherwise, there is nothing in the fair color. Any color is as
good as the other. And because of all the media, the songs that you
are hearing since childhood, you have been conditioned.

It is my brother’s wedding and there is a fair-skinned woman

present. A song is being played which says, ‘Gori, gori, gori.’ And you
have been thoroughly conditioned by the song now. You don’t even
know that you have been conditioned. You think it is ‘your’ choice.
No it is not your choice; it is the choice of the song writer who has
composed the lyrics of the song. And those lyrics have penetrated so
deeply into your psyche that you even don’t know that you have
become slave to the song writer now. Otherwise, what is wrong with
the colour black? Think honestly. You know, before the Britishers
came to India, Indians never had any preference for white skin. But
today everybody wants to be white. Right? Fairness creams and all
such things are there in the market. Right or not?

AP: Indians never had any preference for bright colours which is
this white colour before Britishers came to India. But because the
Britishers came here and they subjugated you, you thought that it
has something to do with the colour of their skin. Now the
conditioning is deep, very-very deep. So deep that very few of you
would want to have a dark-skinned girlfriend. Am I right about it or
not? Whatever you call as your desire, is it really your desire? Be it in
the case of food, love or anything. Nothing is yours. This body came
from outside, you have no control over this body. Right. Nobody can
control your shape and size, you cannot change the colour of your
eyes, the colour of your hair. Can you? Your body is completely a
creation of the outside, the first two cells that made your body came
from outside, one from your father, one from your mother, and after
that every single gram of weight that you have gained, has come from
the outside, from the food that you have eaten and the air that you
have inhaled. There is nothing in your body which is really yours. Is
there anything in your body that is really yours?

Things that you call yourself, let us examine them. How many of
you chose your religion? That you had an option between becoming a
Jew, a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu. How many of you actively chose
your religion? But then you would be very vociferous to claim that it
is ‘my’ religion. How many of you chose your country? That I have a
option of living in this or that country How many chose to be
Indians? Is there anything of you, or are you just a slave of
circumstances? Seemingly it looks we have choices, on the surface.
But do you really have choices? You are only achieving what others
are dictating. Are you not? Do you fully agree with this, or are you
too astonished about it, or are you absent?
 Q: I don’t really agree with it. It’s not always that we want to
achieve, to reach some goal. We want to achieve because it gives us
happiness.

AP: Yes, we would come to this animal called ‘happiness’, We

will understand it but right away we will talk about achievement.

Q: But when you achieve a goal, one feels happy.

AP: Right. What do you feel happy about? You can be trained to
feel happy which is alright. Right now if I put a shot of hormones in
you, you will start feeling happy. If I release some nitrous oxide gas
in this room, you can even start laughing. So, that feeling of
happiness doesn’t mean anything. To be happy, you just need two
shots of injection and you will be happy. That happiness is worthless,
it is a physical thing, a hormonal thing, a chemical thing. We had just
talked a little while ago about the smell of Pizza. The pizza’s smell
reaches your nose and you become happy. You become happy but the
master is somebody else.

Q: Sir, you just took an example of going to a restaurant and

making a choice between North Indian, Mexican, Japanese food. But
what if we like all of them?

AP: How can you like? That is the question. Where are your
likings coming from? It is not a hypothetical question. How can you
like everything? You already have your preferences and choices.
Preferences are desires. You can’t speak hypothetically that I’ll go to
a restaurant and I’ll like all the dishes. Do you actually like all the
dishes? No. We are not talking about imaginations here, that what if
I can choose everything.

Q: You took the example of religion. But I have a friend who

comes from a Hindu family but he has chosen to be an atheist. My
whole family likes something in food but I don’t like it.
 AP: Alright. On the surface it may look that we have choices but
go deeply into it, do we really have any choices. Go deeper into it.
How many of you are strict vegetarians?

(Some of the listeners raise their hands up)

AP: Okay, you three. I’m so sure that majority of you would be
coming from a strict vegetarian family. Two out of three.

(The speaker questions the listeners who raised their hands)

So, I said, two out of three and that is the case. This is the way
we are functioning.

Q: Sir, what about those people whose families are vegetarian

and they are non-vegetarian.

AP: That is all right. Then there is another influence, there is

this non-vegetarian restaurant thing. (Referring to an advertisement
of non-vegetarian food chain) The ad showing the hen roosting and
calling that I am tasty. So, first the family decides that you will be
vegetarian and then the non-vegetarian food chain decides that you
will be a non-vegetarian. Where are you in all this? Now that sounds
unpleasant.

‘Am I not there at all? Why am I wasting my life? As a young

man or woman I would like to understand, where am I investing my
whole life, chasing this whole business of achievement.’
Do you know why you desire?

Questioner (Q): Sir, a thought continuously revolves in my mind

that things will work out somehow. Is it a good thing to think about a
‘thought’? Is it good to think that whether I am correct or not?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Of-course, every desire wants its

fulfillment. ‘Hope’ is the substance of mind. Whenever there is a
desire, of-course you want it to be materialized, that it should work
out, something should happen. The question is not whether that
thing will happen or not, because that is anyway the nature of desire;
to ask for its fulfilment, completion. If I have a desire, I want it to be
somehow fulfilled.

The more important question is: whose desire and where is the
desire coming from?

Yes, I want that I get what I desire. But, what do I desire? Whose
desires are these actually? What does a terrorist desire? And
remember, he is a terrorist for ‘you’. For some others, he is a freedom
fighter. What does he desire? To kill. In your parlance, it would be
called as a murder, a cold-blooded killing. In his language, it would
be called as ‘a war waged upon the sinister enemy.’ And he will say,
‘It is my own desire.’ He will not even know that when he was just
five years old, he was taken to a particular camp, where he was
indoctrinated that people of such and such country or such and such
religion are his fierce enemies.

You remember Ajmal Kasaab (terrorist behind 26/11 attacks in

Mumbai)? He was just seventeen when he did what he did. Just
seventeen, younger than you people. Not even having full facial hair.
Still a little bit of a kid; and he did what he did. And when people
were interrogating him he said, ‘I did just the right thing. This was
my deepest desire: To bring havoc upon the enemy.‘
 Now, does he know what is meant by enemy? Does he know why
at all he is killing? Does he know anything? Does he know the source
of his desire? Does he know that it is not at all his desire; it is coming
from somewhere else? Of course, once the desire is there, you want
to complete it. He also completed it somehow. He took a risky
mission, came here, fought, killed, and then was hanged.

Do we know why we desire such and such things? Do we know?

Once you start desiring, then of course you want that. But do we
know why we desire? Did Kasaab know? Do you know? Does the
man on the street know? Do the great presidents and prime
ministers know? Do we know? But there are some people who are
cunning enough to know that nobody knows, and they exploit this
fact.

The Man who sets up all these hoardings at your university gate,
he knows that we are so ignorant about our desire. So he’ll put up
something on the billboards, and he knows that you will be swayed
away. The man who consistently keeps showing you advertisements
on T.V. and other media, he knows that desire can be provoked.

Even the man selling the street food too knows that the desire
can be provoked. So when you pass-by near his cart, he makes a few
sounds on his utensils, and an extra splashing of pure ghee. The
sound hits your ears, the smell hits your nose, and the desire is
provoked. Even he knows how to provoke desire, but you do not
know why you desire something. You will say, ‘It is my desire. I want
to have street food.’ Is it really your desire?

That advertiser shows you an advertisement, day-in and day-

out. Newspaper, media, hoardings, internet, wherever you go, the
same model of new mobile phone is in front of your eyes, and one
day you say, ‘It is MY desire, to buy this mobile phone.’ Is it your
desire? The entire society has told you that you must have such and
such career and so much of money, and today, you are saying, it is
my desire to pursue this career. Is it really your desire?
 Inquire. Like a scientist, inquire. ‘Is it really my desire? Where is
it coming from? I come from a family where everybody is a doctor or
everybody is in some white-collar job or everybody is a bureaucrat,
and now I have a particular decision already made for my career. Is it
really my desire? The entire world is pursuing a particular course;
management, engineering, I too am there. Is it really my desire? If it
is my desire, how come everybody is having the same desire? What is
the meaning of individuality then?’

One particular company comes to your campus, and the entire

campus runs after it. How can five hundred students have the same
desire? Surely, it is not anybody’s desire. It is some master’s desire
who is laughing at you, who has enslaved our mind, and we do not
even know who that master is.

The Hindu passes in front of a temple and he bows down. The

Muslim passes in front of the same temple, and sees only brick and
mortar, there is nothing worth worshipping. The Hindu says, ‘It is
my desire to bow down.’ Is it really his desire? Really his desire or is
it the Hindus’ desire?

Is it the individual’s desire or the Hindus desire?

Who made him a Hindu? Does he know that?

India and Australia have a cricket match and you have a great
desire that India wins. Please, is it your desire? And Australia has a
great desire that Australia wins.

Whom are we fooling? Where are our desires coming from? Do

we even know, before we claim our individuality? And remember,
individuality is not to have all these desires. That is a different thing
all together. It’s an entirely different matter.

Individuality is not about, my will, ‘this is what I want to do.’

 That does not make you, an individual. But again, you are living
in a system where your desires are, greatly respected. There is
democracy, and you vote for the candidate that you desire, and it is
respected. So, you think that your desire is something important.
There is nothing important in your desire, because all desires are
conditioned. But the society keeps asking you, ‘What do you want?’
You go to a restaurant, and he says, ‘What do you want?’ You go to a
polling booth, and there they ask you, ‘Which candidate do you
want?’ You are being fooled. It’s a very limited menu that they are
showing you. Even when they are asking you, ‘What do you want?’,
implicitly what they are telling you is that you can want anything,
provided it is within this menu.

When Henry Ford started making his cars, there was a

particular model of the car called Model ‘T’, which was greatly in
demand, and it was so much in demand that the production capacity
could not keep pace with the demand. His paint shop was inadequate
to meet the growing demand. So he said, ‘I’ll have just one colour for
all my cars; black.’ When his customers came to him and enquired
about the choices in colours, he would say, ‘You can have any colour,
as long as it is black.’ That’s the kind of choice you are living in. And
the customer says, ‘See, my desire is being respected.’

You can have any career, as long as it is socially approved. You

can marry anybody, as long as parents approve. You can write
anything in the exam, provided the teacher approves it. Great choice,
great desire, great respect. And we claim that ‘we think.’

The intelligent mind, before pursuing the desire, first pauses

and looks carefully at that desire. ‘What is the entire process of
desiring? What stimulates desire? Where is desire located?’ That’s
what an intelligent mind does. Are you getting it?

Q: Sir, I want to ask you that is it our desires that makes us an

individual?
 AP: Yes! Very good, wonderful. Let me tell you a story regarding
sheep. It’s an interesting story. Good fun. There was a fellow who
had a lot of sheep, lot of sheep, and he would occasionally slaughter
the sheep so that he could have meat. So the sheep would try to
escape. And since there are a large number of sheep, and were always
trying to run away, so it was difficult to hold them for slaughter. One
or the other sheep would always be missing. The sheep didn’t want to
be killed.

So, what did their master do?

He went to the sheep and he told the sheep that you are not
sheep at all, you are individuals. ‘You are individual. You are not
sheep at all, and only your own desire will be followed. You are not
sheep. You are human beings, and you are having your own desires’,
and the sheep got convinced.

Now the sheep were fully convinced that they were not sheep at
all. So, while one sheep would be slaughtered, the other would laugh.
They would say, ‘Oh, that one was the sheep, so that is the reason,
why she is being killed. I am not a sheep. I will never be killed.’ Now
the sheep are, willingly presenting themselves to be killed, believing
that they are not sheep.

There are two ways in which you are made a sheep. One is, when
somebody explicitly conditions you. You are being explicitly
conditioned and you know that I am being conditioned. That is a less
dangerous form of conditioning, because you know that you are
being conditioned. So sometime, quickly, you would get rid of the
conditioning. That conditioning is not very dangerous. The more
dangerous kind of conditioning is when the conditioning gets so deep
into you, that you start thinking that this is MY own desire, and this
is not conditioning, this is my individuality.

Individuality does not lead to any desire. All desires come out of
conditioning, and it is a highly dangerous situation when you start
thinking of conditioning as individuality. There are two ways to
control somebody. One, you sit there, and I control you with a
remote control here, and you know that you are a slave. Now, you
will be very restless then. You will want to become free. Right?
Because you know that you are a slave. You can see the remote
control in my hand.

There is another way of making you a slave. I insert a chip in

your brain, a chip called ‘conscience’, and I don’t even need to use
remote control. You will keep feeling that ‘I am free’, but the chip will
control all your behavior. That is our condition. We do not even
know that there is a chip fitted here (pointing towards the head), and
that chip is controlling everything. All our desires are arising from
that chip, and somebody else is the master of this chip.

Look into that. And the best way of looking into that is:
whenever a thought arises, whenever motivation arises, whenever a
desire arises, enquire. Look into it, as you look into a problem of
mathematics; deeply, objectively, without bias, honestly and the fact
will become open. The fact will become very, very open.

You need to ask yourself basic questions: ‘Was I always like this?
Did I always have this desire? What is prompting it? Will this desire
always be there? What has been the fate of my other desires all my
life? They have come and they have gone. What has made them to
come, and how have they gone away?’

There was a time when I was six years old, and I wanted to
become a superman. I use to watch that serial on television, and I
would love the way he would fly and do wonderful things, and wear
his briefs upon his pants, and that was so fascinating. And where is
that desire today? Gone. Why has it gone away? Whose desire was
that? If it was really my desire, how can it disappear? As soon as the
TV went away, the desire also went away. ‘I’m walking, and she is in
front of me, and I’m watching her. Till the point, she is in front of
me; there is nothing except her, in my mind. One hour later, she is
gone, and I find myself busy, in other things. Was it really my desire?
Was it really my desire? Gone the moment, gone the desire. I wanted
to be a Barbie doll. Where is that Barbie doll today?’

And believe me, if you look long enough, you will have a
hundred other things to chase. Where are those chases today? And
from where do they come into your life? I am talking of freedom
because I believe that I have young people in front of me, and every
young man and woman lives a free life, must live a free life. That’s
why I am talking of freedom to you, and that is the first freedom:
freedom from conditioning.

Before you declare it to be yours, ask, ‘Is it really mine? Is it

really mine?’

Q: Sir, how do we come to know that it is really our desire or

something else?

AP: There is no great process involved there. You keep looking at

it, and the things become clear. There is nothing special involved in
it. You need not worry about the process, just inquiring is sufficient.
There is nothing more to it. How will we come to know? Nothing.
How are you listening to me? Just by listening. In fact, if you do
something to listen, then you can’t listen. How are you looking at
me? By doing some kind of gymnastics? By pulling your legs over
your forehead? You are simply looking, and that’s sufficient. There is
no ‘How’ involved. There is no method or technique involved. It is
simple and direct. You look at it, and you know the reality. Just be
honest. Just be honest in your ‘looking’.
The power of desire is the power you are using to
suppress it

Questioner (Q): My question is about anger. A few days back I

got angry over the behaviour of another woman on the road and
bashed out on her, without thinking anything. I then got this feeling
that it should not have been done. I don’t know what I was doing.
Inside I was feeling like, “How could I do that?” At the same time
what was happening was intolerable.

Acharya Prashant (AP): If it was really not tolerable, why do you

blame yourself for getting angry?

Q: No, I am not blaming the anger but this doesn’t usually

happen.

AP: Why is the incident still sitting in your mind? Surely there is
guilt. Surely you are blaming yourself. Do you remember everything
that has happened over the last five days? Then why do you
remember this one in particular? Because you do not like that you
got angry. It violates the image that your teachers and parents and all
the nice books provided you. “The nice lady does not get angry”. Why
does the nice lady not get angry?

Everything has its place in existence. Why must you not get
angry? Why?

Q: Maybe it is morality which makes me think that I should be

nice-nice to others.

AP:** When we do not know the essence of something, then the

subtle is crudely modified into the gross. And the gross is taken as
the Truth. So, a Great One comes and he talks of non-violence. We
do not really understand violence. So, what do we do? We take the
apparent characteristics of non-violence and label all of them as the
essential, because it is easy to follow that kind of behaviour.
 Do not ask, “Why did I get angry?” Ask, “Why does guilt arise?
Why this divided mind? Why can’t my anger be complete?” And if
there is completeness, would not the anger be transformed? Does not
resistance to anger give fuel to the anger? In trying to control
yourself, are you not giving yourself energy to act in the same way?

That’s the basic principle of duality. What you try to control you
give energy to that.

“I do not want to get angry. I do not want to get angry. I do not

want to get angry.” And you are constantly, thus thinking of anger.
That’s quite a nice and cunning way of thinking of anger. Anger is
attractive. “But I have been told by my moral values teacher that
anger is bad. But anger is seductive. Anger attracts. So, now I think
of anger through the other route. I think of anger by telling myself
not to be angry.”

So, there is the lustful man. He thinks of women by saying all

the time, “Women are wonderful. Women are nice, attractive, good
to have.” And then there is the moral man who has read a few
scriptures. He thinks of women in the other way. What is the other
way? “Women are bad.” It is a nice way of remaining involved with
women. “Look at her. Look at her. See how bad she looks! Look at
her. See, how she is walking! Look at her hips. No, no, please, look at
her hips. She has no dignity at all. See, look closely. Pay attention.
See, how shameless she is!” And you can even go close to her and say,
“Madam, do you see how you are dressed? I condemn this
shamelessness. These kinds of clothes are not appropriate at all. So, I
command that you get rid of them right now.”

“And here are my five scriptures. They are clearly saying that
lust is bad. That is why I don’t want you to wear these clothes. Please
get rid of them. And if you do not want to get rid of them, you can
have my coat. When can I come to your home to take my coat back?
Or, would you come over to my place to deliver it?” That’s a basic
premise of morality. When somebody gives you something, you
ought to return it.
What is your ultimate desire?

I once had a thousand desires. But in my one desire to know

you, all else melted away.

Acharya Prashant (AP): “I once had a thousand desires.” We all

have thousand desires. You all have thousand desires. What does
each desire say? Each desire says, “Fulfil me, and you will get
satisfaction. Fulfil me and you will get satisfaction.” Now, what is this
satisfaction? When you are satisfied, do you still have desire? Does
the desire say, “Fulfil me and still I will remain”? No, what does the
desire say? “Fulfil me and I will go.”

So what does each desire want? To be fulfiled. And to be fulfiled

means- the desire gets vanished. So each desire wishes for its own
disappearance. So the desire only desires the disappearance of itself.
This is what every desire wants. That is the nature of desire.

So there are thousand desires, and what is each desire desiring?

Q: Its own disappearance.

AP: Rumi is saying, “I once had a thousand desires, but in my

one desire to know you, all else melted away.” So a thousand desires
are there. But what is the common desire that each desire has? The
disappearance of itself.

So now you know what is the one desire we have, behind our
thousands of desires?

Q: The disappearance of itself.

AP: Can this desire please disappear? Because we do not know

any other method of disappearance of desire, so we apply the only
method we know. And what is the only method? To fulfil it. Had you
known any other method to dissolve the desire, you would not have
fulfiled the desire. Understand this.

You fulfil the desire because you don’t know anything else. You
do not know any other method. If you could be assured that even
without fulfiling the desire, the desire can vanish, won’t you take this
option very quickly?

Let us say, you are craving for a pizza. If you were told that even
without eating the pizza, even without paying the bill, even without
consuming these calories, the desire to eat pizza will go away, and
you will feel exactly as desireless, as satisfied, would you still pay the
money, travel to the shop and consume the calories? Would you still
want to do that? You won’t. You eat the pizza because you don’t have
any other option. You crave for pizza, and then the desire asks for its
completion. You know only one way – eat. So you eat. Right?

Desire actually does not ask for its fulfilment. It actually asks for
its disappearance. And there is difference between dissolution of
desire, and fulfilment of desire. The worldly man tries to beat the
desire by fulfiling it. The spiritual man actually beats the desire, by
dissolving it. This is the difference between the worldly man and the
spiritual man. Do you understand this?

“I once had a thousand desires. But in my one desire to know

you, all else melted away.”

Knowing you, is knowing your own state of desirelessness. That

desirelessness is not just an empty state. When you say,
“Desirelessness”, the word indicates the absence of something, desire
– lessness. But actually you cannot be desireless without having
something very big, very bountiful, very worthy of desire. Do you get
it?

When we just say, “Desirelessness”, the image that the mind gets
is, just of an absence. “I don’t have desires.” What you have, that
cannot be captured in image, because that is too large to be
contained in an image. What do you get? That which you do not
have. And what do you not have? Desire.

It is like the richest man saying, “I am not poor.” He is not lying,

but he is making a terrible understatement. He is not lying, he is
right. He is not poor. But he is making a terrible understatement. So
when you say that the highest state is of desirelessness, then you are
right. But you are very humble. You are, in fact, too humble. You are
making a great understatement.

Remember: To be desireless means to be with something which

is so large that no more desires are needed. “I have something so big
now that all these small tit-bits have become irrelevant.” That is
desirelessness. Right?

The world is afraid of desirelessness. If you tell somebody, “I

don’t have any desires,” he will taunt you. He will say, “Have you
become a sadhu-sanyasi? Oh! You don’t have any desires.” He will
think that you have lost something, and the word itself is in negativa.
You have lost something.

I am repeating again: What remains obvious is what you have

lost. What have you lost? Trivia, desire. But what remains hidden is
the greatness that you are now situated in. It is so great that it does
not have a limit. And because it does not have a limit, so you cannot
name it, or indicate it.

To be desireless means to have fulfiled the climax of the

desire.

The worldly man has been trying to fulfil it, and you have fulfiled
it. Remember, in trying to fulfil, there is only trying and trying. But
in dissolution of desire, there is the actual fulfilment. So those who
keep trying to fulfil their desires, all that they get is trying. Those
who dissolve the desire, get fulfilment.
 But remember again: Dissolving the desire is not the first thing.
You will not be able to give up the desire without first having
something that is much more worthy, precious, important and
immense than all that you can desire. And then the desire drops on
its own.

Even then it does not mean that you will not be desiring
anything. It does not mean that you will be thirsty, and you will not
ask for water. It only means that you will not be taking your trivial
desires seriously. You will be happy with desires, and you will be
equally contented without the fulfilment of desires. You will say,
“Fine, small matters. I am so rich. I do not worry about small losses
and gains.”

“In my one desire to know you, all else melted away.”

That you is that immensity which is the climax of desires, that

you is that which all your desires are chasing. When you ask for a
pizza, you are not really asking for a pizza. You are asking for That.
But because you have no way to come to That, so you take an ugly
substitute, an ugly shortcut. So what do you order? A pizza. But what
do you want? Parmaatma.

So you want God, but that is not being sold in any of these huts.
So instead you go and say, “Pizza with extra cheese, seasoning and
this and that.” That waiter is an idiot. Had he been a realized man, he
would have said, “We don’t sell God. And that is what you need.” You
want That, but you are running after some woman or some man. You
want That, but you are running after money, and prestige, and
recognition. All your desires are desires of That only, who is being
referred to as ‘you’ by Rumi.

You have never wanted anything else. Anybody who has ever
wanted, has wanted only That. Nothing else can be wanted. But we
are ignorant, and we also don’t have a way to reach there. So instead
of asking for That directly, we keep asking for this and that.
 So, you keep asking for more marks. Who wants marks? What
will you do with these marks? You actually want that great
contentment which marks unfortunately are never able to give. Such
is our tragedy. We want something, and we keep asking for
something else. And imagine your disappointment. Even when you
get that something else, you are still defeated.

You need to shoot inwards, and you are shooting here and there.
You need to shoot upwards, and you are shooting left and right. Now
even if you hit the jackpot, what do you get? Just disappointment.
You don’t hit the target, what do you get? Disappointment. You hit
the target, you get more disappointment.

“In my one desire to know you, all else melted away.”

Hit the real jackpot, shoot upwards. And if you are really
courageous, really, really courageous then shoot inwards. Stop
shooting here and there. Just shoot yourself right in the mind. “Goli
maro beje mein” (“Shoot your mind”, an excerpt from a Bollywood
song), and you are done. You have hit the real jackpot. Will you
remember this? Stop shooting left and right. Stop targeting this and
that. The real target is there (pointing upwards) and if you want to
target this distance really quickly, then shoot here (pointing
inwards).

Q: Sir can you name that greatest thing, that immense thing,
after having which all other desires become so small. Can you name
that?

AP: Yes, you can name it. It is like drinking tea.

AP: Everything. Everything is coloured in that. It is not a

separate desire. It is the essence of every desire. So why do you need
to give it a separate name? You can’t even give it a separate name.
It’s like your lover asking you, “Can you tell me when do you love
me?” When do you love him or her? When exactly? If you are in love,
when do you love? Every time. Or is there a specific time slot marked
by alarm bells?

Similarly, that One in your own words, is immense. And what is

immense, is boundary-less. You can’t say, “It begins here and ends
here.” So, you are feeling like eating papaya. And even while you are
eating papaya, you are with him. On the surface it appears that the
desire is of eating papaya and you are taking a piece of papaya and
having it, but it’s like eating papaya while sitting with your beloved.
Don’t you take breakfast with your beloved? And when you have
breakfast with your beloved, what is important, the breakfast or the
beloved? On the surface if somebody sees you, he will say that you
are having breakfast. But you know what you are doing? What are
you doing?

AP: Yes! It is like that. You will keep doing everything else and
you cannot even say that, “Now I have met the beloved. Now I have
been with him. Now I am remembering him. Now I have attained
him.” When you put some salt in the sea, where do you find the salt?
Nowhere and everywhere. The sea is always salty, you pick the water
from anywhere.

The spiritual mind is always with him whatever it is doing, or

not doing: eating, running. And it will never say, “This is the time
that I have reserved for the beloved.” You will be surprised. You will
actually accuse him. You will say, “This man never finds time for the
beloved.”

“We have a separate time for chanting, we have reserved some

time for reading, we have reserved some time for discussions. This
man, he never goes to the temple, he never reads, he never indulge in
rituals. Why does he never appear doing anything for the beloved?”
Because he is always with the beloved.

You asked a name for That. (Pointing at one of the listeners) So,
right now I am talking to Ayush, what is the name of the beloved?
 AP: Ayush. Right now I am reading these questions. What is the
name of the beloved?

AP: Questions. (Pointing at another listener) I look at Ved, what

name has the beloved taken now?

AP: Ved. You want to be possessive? You want to have only one
name for the beloved?

Q: Sir, it is like thinking about something, I have never seen

before. I don’t even imagine about the thing which we are dealing
with.

Q: It is not simple. It is so much complicated that I can’t even

think.

AP: You are Ayush. It is as simple as that.

Q: I need more time to think.

There are these lines in the song, “Yahan dum-dum men hoti
hae puja, sar jukane ki fursat nahi hai” (My every move is prayerful, I
don’t wait to bow before someone).

Sir, also we have seen that Muslims usually keep their name
starting with Mohammad like Mohammed Azaz. Is this to signify the
same, that always be with the beloved? Is this the logic behind this
ritual?

AP: Yes, it wants to convey the same thing. That the beloved
should always remain connected, always. In the same way in the
Sanatan Dharm, the trees, the mountains, the rivers, the rocks are
worshiped. They too signify the same – that whatsoever it is, it is
That. Haven’t you seen in India that one sees a stone and starts
praying, one sees a tree and he would keep an idol of any deity, lit a
lamp, and start praying. It is to signify that – whatsoever it is, it is
That.
 Whatsoever you find, start praying it. One sees a cow walking,
bow to it. But the problem is, one should not then only bow to a cow
but to a pig too. There is no problem in bowing to a cow, problem is
in excluding a pig from being bowed. One should bow to a pig too.
And it has happened that in India there have been religious groups
who have bowed to animals which you consider as untouchables.
They have prayed even to the dead. This only signifies “Jit dekhu tit
tu” (Wherever I see, I see you).

“Jo mehndi ke pat me lali lakhi n jaye” (In the cauldron of henna
(which is green in color) vermilion color cannot be seen).

Have you seen henna, it is green in color. Are you able to see the
red color in it? It is because the red color is everywhere, hence we are
not able to see it. The beloved is like the red color in henna, because
it is everywhere, hence it is not visible.

“Sahib teri sahibi har ghat rahi samaye” (God your Godliness is
expressed in everything).

Godliness is expressed in all the things but it is not visible.

Q: This song means the same, “Prabhu ayen haen kukur ke libas
men” (God has come in the form of dog).

AP: This is the mark of a spiritual mind. He is able to see God in

anything, anywhere. You will be surprised how he could see this. And
he would see, and get immersed in it. As it happened with Guru
Nanak that he was counting and counting, and he remembered That.
Ramakrishna was going somewhere one day, he sees an animal being
followed by its off-springs, and Ramakrishna right in the middle of
the street starts singing, “Ma'(Mother, lovingly addressed to God).

Wherever one see, one sees That.

When your eyes start deceiving, then you should believe that you
have really seen. What is being seen, is really not seen. Something
else is being seen. Then realize that you are seeing It.
Let’s look at desires

Questioner (Q): Something happens and then suddenly a desire

related to that arises in me, what should I do?’

Acharya Prashant (AP): Just know that your desire is actually

just external stimulus; external stimulus that activates your
conditional patterns, which means that you have very little right to
call your desire as really your own.

Desire can be provoked in you, and every advertiser knows that.

The world is a great advertisement. This entire world is a

hoarding: come and buy!

Its only purpose is to provoke desire in you. And once you have
known this, you do not take your desires too seriously. If it arises,
then you know that something has happened in the environment to
arouse its desire in you. You say, “Without an environmental factor
desire couldn’t have come up, and if it is the environment that is
inducing desire in me, then how is it my obligation to fulfil that
desire.”

You clearly see that you are being taken for a ride, that you are
being exploited.

Q: Sir, can it be so that we are destined to desire?

AP: Of course you are destined to desire, but that does not
complete the story of destiny. Never forget that there is nothing evil
in desire. Since desire is the name of the space-time game, continue
to desire, but even when you are desiring, remember the higher
destiny – which is Silence, which is Truth.

Even in the middle of desire, remain Silent.

 I am not talking about dropping desire or renunciation or such
holy stuff. As a body, you will have desires. Just remain silent in the
very middle of them. Some of them will be fulfilled, some will not be
fulfilled; even when some are fulfilled, yet there would be a new set
of desires, and this is an old usual game. You just remain silent amid
this game.You must understand that I am not talking of criticizing or
negating desires.

Q: So are you talking about just observing them and not reacting
to them?

AP: Yes, of course. What else can be done!

On Jesus Christ and Saint Kabir: At the root of
desire, you find the Ultimate desire

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you,

for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction,

and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life,

and those who find it are few.”

~ The Sermon on the Mount

Acharya Prashant (AP): The first part says so whatever you wish
that others would do to you. This part itself necessitates that we
know what we desire. Christ is saying, ‘Figure out what is it that you
want from others. Figure out firstly what is it that you want.’ So he is
saying go to the root of your wanting, go to your basic desire.

When beneath the clutter of all the superficial desires, you go to

the root of desire, you will find that your ultimate desire is peace.

So from everything, from the entire world, from this and that,
from others, from yourself, all you want is peace. Here is a way to
peace.

Jesus is saying, ‘If you want peace then ensure that you bring
peace. Do to others what you want done unto you. If you want peace
then bring peace to others.’ You want truth then bring truth to
others. You want love then bring love to others.

But remember it can be very easily misinterpreted!

 To rightly interpret it, first of all, you must know what you really
want. Know what you really want and bring it to others as well.

The trick here is- let’s say you want peace then you cannot give
peace to others unless you yourself is peaceful. Because peace is not a
commodity that you pull out from pocket and give it to somebody.

Peace is an overflowing from your heart.

Only when you have it, can you give to others.

Jesus is saying if you want peace, give peace to others but to give
it to others, first of all, you have to have it.

So it’s a circular thing.

You want peace then give it to others. But to give it to others

have an abundance of it. In a sense he is saying, ‘Have what you
want.’

Then enter by the narrow gate. There are many who enter by the
wide gate but for them there is only destruction and there are only a
few who enter by the narrow gate.

The keyword here is—the broad gate and the many; the narrow
gate and the few. Any gate through which a crowd enters is bound to
be a gate opening into a destruction. Crowd means influence of
others on the mind, that’s where the crowd exists. What he means is
that a mind that is crowded can never enter the truth, a mind that is
dominated by many can never enter the truth. Only the mind that is
devoted to one can enter the truth.

Kabir says- “Prem gali itni saankri, taame do na samaye” (The

road of love is so narrow that not even two can walk on it, only one
can walk.)

Jesus is saying exactly the same thing here.

 If you think that you can bring all your friends, family, relatives
and their influence on your mind, if you think that you can carry all
that and still be liberated and still belong to god, then it is not
possible. You will have to make God your primary relationship. You’ll
have to set truth as your first priority. That is called the narrow road,
narrow because it has space only for the truth.

Incidentally, when you are devoted only to truth, when truth is

your first priority, then the truth itself takes care of all your other
priorities and sets them right. Those priorities that must remain,
remain and those that must fall, fall.
Do you know the Heart’s deepest desire?

Questioner (Q): Sir, what are dreams?

Acharya Prashant (AP): All dreams are about something that is

not there, or at least does not appear to be there, but the mind has an
urge for it to be there.

“It is not there and I want it.”

Or, “I do not see it. I do not know whether it is there or not, but
at least I do not see it, and I want it.” That is what I call as a ‘dream’.

We all have that urge, we all miss something. And what we miss,
we want to get. So this much is common to every human being –
there is something that one misses, there is a hollow, there is a gap,
there is a need, a kind of vacancy waiting to be filled. But after this
point, the commonality amongst all human beings stops.

After this point there are two possibilities.

The first one is: we take the dream, the missing, the need, the
incompleteness at its face value, and we chase just the face of the
dream.

For example, one chases a job, a large house, settling at a

particular place, or fame, or a person. These are all objects of chase.
So there is that internal demand to get something. And the
something that we want gets objectified, or personified, in the shape
of a house, or a car, or a man, or a woman, or a degree, or reputation,
and we start chasing it. This is one possibility. And most of us take
dreams at their face value. We say, “We are missing something. Life
does not appear complete. There is surely an absence of something,
and it demands fulfillment.”
 We say, “I am missing something. And when a special person
will come to my life, what I am missing from my life will be taken
care of.”

“My dream is to become something. My dream is to achieve that

designation. My dream is to raise a family with you. My dream is to
become a billionaire. My dream is that at least a million people
should know me.” There is an assumption here. The assumption is –
this is my deepest need. Yes you did feel a need, but you are
assuming something here, without enquiring properly. You are
assuming that the objective face that the need has taken is in itself
the need.

Let me ask you a question. Have you seen sometimes, and often,
that when you are in a bad mood, it doesn’t matter who you are with,
whosoever you are with, you get irritated? Sometimes you rub
somebody the wrong way, for no reason at all. You are in a bad mood
and somebody calls you up, you don’t pick up the call. Now are you
angry over that person specifically? No. But what has happened is
that your general sense of disquiet and frustration has found an
object. It is just incidental that the fellow called up at that time,
right? It’s good that you didn’t pick up the call. Had you picked up
the call, you might have fought with him. Now does that mean it is
that person that you dislike?

Similarly, when you are in a very good mood and you get a
random call, you might answer it very sweetly, more nicely, more
politely than usual, does it happen? Are you specifically happy with
that person? You are not. It just happened that your general sense of
euphoria got an object.

Same is the case with dreams. I am feeling restless. There is an

internal hollow, a feeling of inadequacy, and I do not know what to
do about it. Then I find that everybody is saying that getting that
prestigious job. It is a good thing. So my general and deep sense of
frustration latches on to that object. What is the object? The job.
 I declare that my frustration will be taken care of, if I get that
job. Now this is laziness. I have not gone deeply into my own mind. I
have quickly announced a superficial solution.

Dreams, if not understood, only aggravate the restlessness they

come from. First of all appreciate this: dreams arise from an internal
restlessness. Dreams arise from a deep subconscious desire.

You want something, and there is nothing wrong with that. But
if that want is not understood properly, then you end up chasing the
wrong objects, assuming that those objects are all that you want.
That was the first possibility that I mentioned.

The second possibility is: I look at my disquiet. I see how I want

a few things, and then I go into them. I say, “No. The face of the
dream is not sufficient. I want to understand the heart of the dream.
What is it that I really want? Yes I want something. But what is it
that I really want? Will that job suffice? Will that woman suffice?
Will that amount of money suffice? Will settling abroad suffice? Even
if I get all of these things, will I stop dreaming? I have a call from
within, is that call about money? I am being driven towards
something, am I being driven towards a man, or a woman, or
reputation, or security, or gadgets, or a big house? Is that what my
internal call is all about? I understand that the call is there, but
should I just say that the call is just about achieving dreams?”

Dreams are a wonderful indicator. They tell you that something

needs to be done. They tell you that not everything is alright. They
tell you that certain movement needs to happen. But you need to
exactly find out what is it that the dream really wants. Otherwise, the
same dream that could have helped you move to quietness, and
peace, and relaxation, would mislead you, as it misleads most people.
Dreams are an important signal sent from the depth of your mind to
the conscious mind. You need to interpret that signal properly.
 Most people fail to decode that signal. I am talking about both
kinds of dreams: the dreams that you have with closed eyes in the
night, and the dreams that you have with the open eyes when you are
awake. You need to properly interpret, decode your dreams.

When you dream of a car, please do not think that it is a car that
you want. Yes you want something, that much is certain, because you
are repeatedly dreaming of objects. You are dreaming of faraway
lands, you are dreaming of happiness, you are dreaming of a utopia.
So you want something, but what is it that you want? A huge
bungalow, will that take care of restlessness? But that’s the way it
appears, because all that you see while dreaming is that bungalow.

It is easy to be misled. It is easy to not to interpret properly. It is

easy to think that it is just a woman that I want or a man that I want.
It’s women that I see in my dreams, so let me chase the women. Your
internal unrest is just taking the form of a person. It is not the person
that you want. It is not the person that you dream of. Nobody has
really ever dreamt of a person. A ‘person’ is not worthy of being
dreamt of.

So, do chase your dreams. Kindly chase your dreams, but first
realize that what is it that you really want. Otherwise it would be
quite a bad deal. You chase something, you spend your life and
energy after it, and at the end of the game you say, “Oh no! This is
not what I wanted.” But now it is too late. You have spent all your
time in chasing this thing. At the age of seventy, you are realizing
that you didn’t want this. That would be horrible, won’t it be?

A hint: it appears that the objects of our dreams are different,

but in some way all of us dream of the same One. Nobody has ever
dreamt of anybody else. There is only One point that we all seek.
That one point appears to our mind as different names, forms and
shapes. Whenever you have desired, you have desired only One.
Whenever you have dreamt, you have wanted only One. And it is
easy to be misled, because that One appears in many forms.
 Break the code. Don’t take your dreams at face value. Go deeply
into them. See what your heart longs for. See what you are really
wanting. See what would really get you fulfillment. Somebody is
dropping hints. Somebody is sending you dreams. They are not
without purpose. They are meant to guide you, but they can guide
you only if you read them properly.

Q: How can we dream without thinking of objects?

AP: Whenever you would dream, there always will be an object,

because dreaming is a mental procedure, and mind can deal only
with objects. So an object is bound to be there. But the intelligent
woman goes beyond the object. She says, “Alright. It is the object
that is appearing on the surface. The dream has the face of an object,
but what is the essence of the dream? Let me figure that out.”

“I feel lonely, so I dream of a companion. Now surely I don’t

want a companion who would exacerbate my loneliness. Or do I want
such a companion? I don’t want a companion who would make me
even more dependent. If the companion is another ‘person’ in flesh
and blood, then he would have the same mortal weaknesses that I
have. He too would have his dreams.”

Do you ever dream of anything less than perfection? Tell me. We

are not talking of reasonable, calculated demands. We are talking of
dreams. We are talking of what your Heart wants, really. Anybody
here whose heart wants anything less than perfection, anything less
than the ultimate? Anybody here who wants to settle for anything
less than the maximum? You may have to make compromises, but
that is another thing. A compromise is a compromise. Your mind
may settle for a compromise, but what does your Heart want? Does it
want a compromise? Does it want a negotiated settlement, an in
between kind of place? Is that what you want, or you want the fullest
that is possible, the fullest? Now if it is a person, can that person
offer you the fullest?
 For example, if you repeatedly dream of a person because you
are lonely, then you must realize that the person is not really the
solution. The dream is there to remind that you feel lonely. You
already have some kind of a problem, which is loneliness. By running
after that person, you will only add to the problem. The so-called
solution is not a solution at all. It is an addition to the problem. The
solution comes when the problem is understood.

“If I am getting this dream repeatedly, if I am thinking of a

person repeatedly, with closed eyes or open eyes, then I need to
understand that I need to take care of my loneliness.” That is the
signal that the dream is dropping. Don’t misread that signal. Don’t
start chasing a person. Start taking care of your loneliness.

A dream can send you away from yourself, or a dream, if

understood rightly can help you comeback to yourself. With most
people, dreams only mislead. We all have objects as our dreams. Ask
yourself, “What is it behind the object that I want?” That which is
behind that object, the object can never really provide that, because
the object is limited and dreams never pertain to the limited.

“What is it behind the object? I dream of big cars all the time, it
should not mean that I start purchasing cars, that I start making
money so that one day I may have a garage full of exotic cars. The car
is just a face of the dream. Why do I dream of cars? Let me decode
it.”

Even a monkey knows that if a banana is in its hands, then the

peel has to be removed, and the fruit has to be eaten. Or would you
keep licking the peel? The face of the dream is not to be obsessed.
Remove the peel. Go to the fruit. Go to the essence. “I dreamt that I
was flying in the sky. Now what should that mean? Does it mean that
I should enroll in a Para-jumping course?” Flying in the sky is an
internal metaphor, it’s a hint. You have to understand that what is
really meant by flying in the sky. It doesn’t mean that you take a
flight to the States, and when you are over the Atlantic you say, “Yes,
I have fulfilled my dream. I am flying.”

What is really meant by flying? Somebody is sending you signal.

Somebody is telling you to fly. But what does ‘flying’ really mean?
You have to figure that out. Are you getting it? Or somebody dreams
of dancing, somebody dreams of a lot of money and influence. You
don’t really want influence, you want something else. What do you
want, that needs to be understood. Otherwise you will end up
chasing just influence. I am assuring you; you never really want that
which appears as the object in the dream. You never really want that
which you desire in your waking state. For example, in your waking
state if you desire to shop a lot, it is not shopping that you crave for.
Your internal craving is for something else. Shopping will never
fulfill that. You can keep shopping till you are bankrupt, and yet you
will not come to rest.

“My dream is to build a business empire.” Dreams that you see

with open eyes. Have you heard people say like this? “My dream is to
build a grand empire.” Yes you desire to have a large business
establishment, but that is not what you actually want. Had you
actually wanted that, you would have had come to a full stop at some
point. You can keep raising organization after organization, company
after company, yet you will find that you are thirsty for more, equally
thirsty, may be thirstier than you were at the beginning of your
journey. You are mistaken, you don’t want this. You simply
squandered your life.

For example, there is a restaurant that appears in your dreams,

and in your dream you smell of wonderful dishes and flavors
unheard of, and untasted. You enter that restaurant hungry, and
wanting, and you come out of that restaurant after a while as hungry
as before, as unfulfilled as before, but having paid the bills for eating,
is that a good deal? That is the case with dreams and desires. They
are like a restaurant that sends you back as hungry as you came in,
but after extracting the bill amount.
 What is the story of this world? Going to that restaurant again
and again. It enters hungry, comes out hungry, and because it comes
out hungry, it says, “Alright, enter again, and pay the bill again.” This
happens again and again with those who don’t understand their
dreams and desires, and just chase them, paying the price again and
again, suffering the penalty again and again, and never getting
satisfied, never reaching a point of contentment.

Dreams are wonderful. Do dream, but first understand that

what is it that you want. Otherwise, it would be just a blind chase.
Not good at all.

Q: Sir, you said that chasing dreams at face value leaves us

unfulfilled. Does it not mean that we should chase the ultimate?

AP: When it comes to the Ultimate, it can’t be an object of your

chase. Only objects can be chased, only things can be chased. The
more you get it, the more you become able to get more. As your
ability to get more increases, you realize that what you have right
now is not the end at all.

Another fundamental difference is that, when you chase a

dream, you chase in suffering. You say, “Till I don’t have it, I need to
keep working. Till I don’t have it, I can’t celebrate.” Have you not
seen people celebrate after reaching milestones? What is funny is
that often in that same party, in that celebration, they announce their
next milestone. “So the turnover of my organization has hit 1000
crores. Cheers! We aim to hit 5000 crores in the next three years.”
Here celebration is reserved for milestones.

Whereas, when you really want what you want, that which is
missing, then the realization itself is the celebration. You don’t wait
for something to occur, for something to come to you, because there
is no point at which that thing comes to you. The realization itself is
the celebration. There are no milestones there.

Q: How can we know what we really want, and how to get it?
 AP: First of all one has to be cautious; one has to be alert against
the quick acceptance of the face of the dream. That is the first thing
to do. A dream of a bank account or a dream of a woman, the first
thing is to not to be quickly swayed away. Not to just feel, “O my god!
She is the center of my universe. She is the highest that I ask for.”
One has to guard against that. “No! Not this. But yes something is
missing. Otherwise I couldn’t have desired, otherwise I couldn’t have
dreamt, but not this. Something is missing, but not this. This is just a
face, this is just the envelope.”

Something is missing when you receive a letter, do you stop at

the envelope? You want to read the letter, right? So first of all, tear
open the envelope. Don’t get attached to the envelope. The envelope
has to be destroyed. One has to go beyond the face. When you keep
rejecting the objects of your desire, and dreams, then slowly the
tendency of the object to show themselves, to present themselves,
reduces. Now you have come to a point where you know that things,
or persons, or ideas, or thoughts, is not what you want. So what
happens, that the chase after things, or persons, or ideas, or
reputation, loses its energy.

“If I constantly believe that I want money, or reputation, or

money, or a car, or a person, then my chase after these things
remains powerful. But if I reject them and say, ‘No, this is not what I
want,’ then my chase after these things starts losing energy. I start
becoming calmer and calmer. The calmer I become, the less dreams I
have. The calmer I become, the less is the need to reject those faces.
The calmer I become, the less is the need to chase anything. May be
my dream is getting realized just by rejecting the objects of the
dream. May be this is all that the dream wanted. I don’t know may
be.

Q: Sir, what if I become more restless by rejecting the dreams of

my desires?
 AP: What is guaranteed is- restlessness is not taken care of by
chasing the objects, that much is guaranteed. No one has ever come
to a point where he can say that he has come to the maximum, by
chasing the objects. So when that is guaranteed, there is no harm in
at least trying an alternate way, at least as an experiment. Why not
try it out. Maybe something new, something very novel, something
unthinkable would result. Maybe, who knows?

Q: Is it possible for a person to have no desires?

Q: Desire leads to suffering.

AP: Desire leads to suffering, if the desire is not understood

properly. I said to somebody once, “When illusion is understood,
then illusion itself shines as reality.” An illusion is an illusion as long
as you don’t understand it. Desire leads to suffering, and you are
forgetting that desire arises from suffering as well. If you are alright,
then the force of your dreams and desires would not be great. Yes,
you would want to drink water. Yes, you would want to take a walk.
Yes, you would want to buy some clothes to wear. But you won’t say
that, “I have to become the richest woman in the world. If I don’t do
that, I would rather commit suicide.” Ordering a Masala Dosa at a
restaurant because you are hungry is not the same as changing a job
every six months because you want more and more money.

Have desires. Because you are already suffering, desires are

bound to be there. Because you are already displaced from your
center, dreams and desires are bound to be there. But don’t feel bad
or guilty about them. It is good that you have desires; it is good that
you know that you are dreaming. It is good that you know that you
are desire driven. Now understand the desires. Don’t get swayed by
them, don’t look at them superficially.

Being what we are, desires are inevitable. I won’t even say that it
is alright to desire. It is not possible to not to desire. You will desire,
and you will have dreams. Just read your desires properly. Just
interpret your dreams correctly.
It is desires that are born as a child

Questioner (Q): When we are born, the first thing that we absorb
into us is it the Truth or the desires?

Acharya Prashant (AP): It is not as if desires come to you after

you are born; only desires are born!

It is not as if desires come to you after you are born; only desires
are born!

The thing that you call as just born is nothing but a bundle of
desires. Only desires are born—the desire of the father, the desire of
the mother, the resultant of those desires is the desire of the whole
evolutionary process.

In the father, is the history of all evolution; in the mother, is the

history of all evolution, all evolution that is crying for fulfillment.
Two unfulfilled beings – a man, and a woman meet each other in
hope of fulfillment; two beggars embrace each other in hope of
becoming millionaires.

And then, from that, a little mass is born. What do you think
that mass is? You may call it a product of love or whatever but it is
arising out of unfulfillment. The man wants to go back to the womb,
the woman wants to fill up her internal hollow. And from that, that
little crying thing, wailing and weeping is born. It’s already a bundle
of desires that is born.

Only the ego is born, nothing else is born.

Giving birth is not such a profound act. Two unfulfilled beings, I

repeat, are giving birth to more unfulfillment. What is great about
this?
 Please be very cautious before bringing another body of flesh to
this world.

Q: When you give birth to bring up a child, the rapture is infinite

so you feel complete. I do not see it just a product of unfulfilled
desires.

AP: Don’t you see that you won’t be saying this had you not been
carrying a body of a woman? Don’t you see that men very rarely
make this statement? Don’t you see that if some hormones are just
withdrawn from your body you would no longer be making this
statement? Don’t you see that if the same hormones are injected even
more into your body you will feel even more like becoming a mother?

Don’t you see it’s all so very chemical?

Take away the reproductive juices from your body and where
will be the desire to procreate?

Q: When you see your child in front of you, that love is there..

AP: It is not love, it is hormones.

The proof is—withdraw those hormones and the love is gone.

I will give you another example, just a few years back there was
this case: The lady gave birth to a child, a child was brought to her,
and she lived with the child for a year. A year later it was disclosed to
her that her child got swapped with another child. For one year she
was in absolute love with this child. The moment it was made known
to her that her own biological offspring is somewhere else, she gave
up this one and got that one, where is the love now?

Or, is it just an attachment to what has emerged from your

body? Is this love? Just as you say my mobile phone, my house, my
salary, you also say my kid. ‘My’ is important, the kid is not
important. It took that lady no time to give up the kid because it was
proven that it was not her kid, and her kid was somewhere else.

There is no rapture in giving birth, there is only biological

fulfillment. The same kind of biological fulfillment, to put it very
crudely, that one gets on itching. Let’s say you have eczema, you
know what a relief it is to itch. Have you experienced it? It is bliss, it
is deep spiritual attainment, ‘Ah!’ That is that rapture of biological
this or that. You give birth, you nurse the child. Don’t you see that it
is very physical, in fact sexual?

That is that rapture of biological this or that. You give birth, you
nurse the child. Don’t you see that it is very physical, in fact sexual?

Q: Sir, we have grown up believing that the mother-child love is

the most selfless form of love?

AP: The mother-child love is not Love at all.

This is not what I have to say, this is what every single wise man
has always said; our trouble is that we have never gone close to the
scriptures. All that we know is the pop media, all that we know is
television serials.

The Bhagwad Geeta continuously says that you must get rid of
mamta (mine-ness), and, in your culture, Mamta is a virtuous word.
You use the word mamta to indicate the relationship between the
mother and the child, and Bhagwat Geeta continuously says mamta
alone is your enemy.

Mamta means a feeling of mine. Mamatva! Mam! (mine)

Q: Does true Love in any form exist?

But that will become possible to you only if you first stop
believing that relationships of the body have anything to do with
love.
 In love, you can have a relationship of the body, but a
relationship of the body doesn’t have anything to do with love as
such.

A body is born; a relationship of love has to be brought up.

The child is born as a genome, a biology.

The child has to be enabled to love.

Instead of enabling the child to get rid of his physical

conditioning, his biology, we impose upon him another layer of
social conditioning.

The child is already born with physical desires—he eats, he

sleeps, he wants comfort, food, milk, nourishment. He is already
physically conditioned and the mother makes the child socially
conditioned as well by giving him a name, a religion, a belief,
education, relationships, name of a father, and the rest of it.

What would be a truly loving relationship between a mother and

a child? You need to figure that out, especially, if you are a mother or
would be a mother.

You really need to take this very very sincerely. What it is that
would constitute a truly loving relationship between a mother and
her child?