Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, January’19

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1.

Love is a vast sky, it has no opposite.

It is so vast that it has space enough for hatred.

In Love, one hates as well, and that doesn’t reduce love.

Do not feel guilty. Provided your love is vast enough.

And you can have love so vast, only for Vastness.

A Vastness called Freedom.

2.

By reasoning out

your situation,

you try to remain

what you are.

All reasons are

hidden justifications.

Realise, don’t rationalize.

3.

Having lived rightly for long, one becomes incapable of living wrongly.

Having lived rightly for long, if one even decides to live or act wrongly for a while, he will face failure in his chosen wrong action.

The reward of living rightly: failure in one’s attempts to live wrongly.

4.

Enlightenment is a series of endless enlightenments, each one being complete and final.

5.

Being so enamoured by the Sun,

You keep watching the moon all night!

That’s Love.

6.

What is the way to Liberation?

Suffering.

An honest acknowledgment of suffering,

Without trying to hide or colour or glorify or rationalise it,

Is the way to Liberation.

7.

The great Intelligence that is never touched, spoiled, created or destroyed is not personal.

The person can decide to follow that impersonal Intelligence. And the person can also withdraw from the service of Intelligence.

That choice is always available and that choice is Maya.

8.

The spiritual pursuit faces humongous obstacles. It sometimes appears the entire world is lined against you.

We all are in a big holy war.

We will definitely lose some battles.

The trick is to not to mind the defeats, and quickly get ready for the next win.

9.

Questioner: What is the definition

of ‘Stupid’?

Acharya Ji: Knowing what is right,

doing what is wrong.

10.

Your interests, your welfare, don’t depend on things.

Witnessing means not seeking interest in anything. Not attaching your self-interest, self-worth, to anything. When you are not interested, you are the knower and the master.

Here, kingship comes only to the reluctant king.

11.

She troubled him for being awake at nights, “Your eyes are full of someone beyond.”

Helpless, he kept mum.

One night a mysterious tune woke her up. Since then, she dances all night to music.

And he laughs. He has had his revenge.

Love is so foolish it knows only one revenge: Love

12.

In the mirror, he saw many faces.

One wanted food, air, water, sleep, sex.

The second one wanted prestige, power, money, happiness.

A third one just looked on sorrowfully, sometimes at the two, sometimes at the distant horizon.

13.

If not religion, who will teach you secularism?

Secularism is a new religion; just that it isn’t yet deeply religious enough.

The development of secularism depends on its ability to learn from religion the value of meditativeness, devotion, and surrender of ego to the Beyond.

14.

The new, the happiness that you are looking for,

will not come through experience.

It will not come to you via time,

It is not contained in the future.

It comes when you are a little less

insistent upon cheating yourself.

15.

You had a dream,

you came to me,

and I have not helped you

reach there.

But tell me,

are you not glad

that now you are not

what you were?

~Acharya Prashant@Prashant_Advait

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Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, February’19 – March’19

1.

We all are bleeding in the fight

We all are fighting tirelessly.

The pity is:

We are all fighting the wrong battle.

The wounds are there.

The blood is there.

The sweat is there.

The tiredness is there.

The battle is wrong.

2.

Conserve your energy,

Train your thoughts,

Discipline your little self.

Time is precious, attention is precious.

To waste time, it is not necessary that you must do something wasteful.

It is enough to just worry.

3.

Humbly go

to the root of the mistake,

without feeling ashamed,

without a great self-image.

Look at yourself laughing,

as one looks at a joker,

laughing

at his own jokes.

Now you see

the mother mistake.

Seriousness is the mother mistake.

Don’t take yourself so seriously!

4.

This is happening, that is happening…

But whatsoever is happening is not big enough to trouble you.

That is Samadhi.

5.

Beware the man who thinks he understands.

6.

There is nothing called

self-purification

and self-improvement.

There is only one I,

and it cannot be improved upon.

And even if the false I gets improved,

only the false benefits.

How do you get better

by decorating your shadow?

Don’t improve the false,

just disown it.

7.

Was the thing the same before you perceived it?

If yes, why does the thing appear different every time you see it?

Was there a thing at all before you perceived it?

8.

Is spontaneity wonderful?

The spontaneous utterance of a sage is musical,

The spontaneous utterance of a fool is abusive.

Like everything else in life, the value of a thing or action depends squarely on where it is coming from.

9.

If you love, you want to help.

If you want to help, you will have to more clearly know the one who needs to be helped.

When you clearly know the one you want to help, there arises disgust.

That’s the challenge of love: to keep loving the one who provokes revulsion in you.

10.

Isn’t it a spell?

When you are out of it, doesn’t it all look clearly stupid?

Don’t you then curse yourself for being so blindly spellbound?

Obviously stupid it looks, but only after you’re out of it.

Why make basic freedom distant by giving it a fancy name like enlightenment?

11.

When you know

what is going on, then

you are liberated from that which is going on.

12.

It is not given to me to lie still.

The only way to see me still

is to match pace with me.

13.

The Truly spiritual man

is young in action,

and eternally old in realisation.

At the centre,

he is completely still,

like Shiva in mystical stillness.

At the periphery,

he is a lover and a fighter,

like Shiva in existential dance.

14.

What is commitment?

If I am not fit to get what I want,

then it is the ‘I’ that must yield, adjust, disappear.

The want cannot be compromised with. The want must, and will, remain.

It is the want that will shape, discipline and dissolve the I.

Commitment, Devotion, Surrender.

15.

When You are gone,then nothing matters. Body sans Heart.

When You are here, then nothing matters.

We then just casually play.

Will it matter if we win?

Well, not much.

Will it matter if we lose?

Well, not much.

The game is not meant to be won, it is meant to be played. Together.

16.

To touch

without leaving your fingerprints

– That’s the mark of

the shrewd criminal,

or the wisest saint.

17.

When you are one with the object of your consciousness, then there is just one entity, neither you nor the world. Both you and the world disappear.

This disappearance is the end of duality and end of consciousness.

A lightness free of consciousness remains, and this is awareness.

18.

If you find yourself stuck with suffering, ask: Is suffering sticking to me? Or am I sticking to suffering?

One sticks to suffering by sticking to the same breakfast, same friends, same cap, same habits.

When everything in life is being kept the same, how can life itself change?

19.

Just reading the Guru helps little.

You’ve to be near.

Physically as you live, you’ve to be physically near.

Even being within the seeing range of the Guru won’t help.

You’ve to be within smelling range of the Guru.

Actually, you’ve to be within slapping range of the Guru.

20.

We have a tremendous potential to suffer and a tremendous resistance to call our situation as suffering.

We name our situation as ambition, hope, desire, duty, passion, love, but never give it the right name:suffering.

We laugh aloud among others, and suffer quietly in our loneliness

21.

Even when you are totally drenched in melancholy,

You are able to cry only because you are still healthy.

22.

The best gift you can give to others is your own freedom.

~ Acharya Prashant@Prashant_Advait

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Quotes, April’19

Editor’s Note: To receive regular updates on WhatsApp regarding wisdom articles by Acharya Ji and to get an opportunity to connect to him directly, click here

1.

If you want to most definitely reach,

Take the most difficult route.

2.

What is It?

More than everything, in general.

Less than nothing, in particular.

3.

If your lover speaks to you in a language you cannot comprehend,

does your love diminish?

No.

You may not comprehend his words, but still, you do understand.

What do you understand ?

Nothing in particular.

Not everything has to be intellectually comprehended.

Love is enough.

4.

Freedom is the backdrop in which bondage appears as bondage.

Freedom is the Light in which darkness looks like darkness.

If there is only darkness, there is no darkness.

Darkness means anything only in the presence of Light.

To not to feel bondage is to not to be in Freedom.

5.

Grace is available to you unconditionally, but not compulsorily.

She would come to your doorstep,and knock.

She will wait,not break open your door.

Answer the knock quickly,or the knock keeps getting dimmer and infrequent.

She isn’t short of patience,but you’re short of time.

6.

Those who are winning the war, matter.

They need to be saluted.

Those who are losing the war, matter.

They need to be helped.

Those who are absentees from battlefield, do not matter.

They need to be ignored.

7.

What you collect for your security makes you all the more insecure.

8.

Except for Prakriti,

who will tell you

of all the stories of

Parmatma?

And, well,

all his secrets?

9.

What does it mean to say “God is One? Truth is One?”

It simply means: Do not allow the many to lord over your mind. The world is many things. The world is many thoughts, moods, emotions, ideologies, objects, relationships.

Do not let these turn into your gods.

10.

The lover, the mystic, looks at the moon

and knows fullness itself.

Is the material just material?

A thing is the Source behind itself.

It appears as a thing only because you watch as something.

Watch as nothing,

and the thing reveals itself as it’s own genesis.

 

~ Acharya Prashant@Prashant_Advait

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Quotes, May’19

Editor’s Note: To receive regular updates on WhatsApp regarding wisdom articles by Acharya Ji and to get an opportunity to connect to him directly, click here

1.

Life is sacred,

the living are sacred,

the conscious are sacred,

the unconscious are sacred,

the subject is sacred,

the object is sacred.

All sacred

just because they are false.

Falseness is false.

They are not what they appear.

They are where they come from.

The Truth. The One.

2.

The storm kept raging.

The Sky didn’t utter a word.

3.

You’ve one life

and you must

spend it rightly.

4.

Restless are those who do not have answers.

Dead are those who do not have even questions.

Better to be restless than dead.

Most people appear lifeless.

Not because they do not have answers, but because they do not have questions.

Doubt, Wonder, Ask, Question, Find.

Come alive!

5.

Gratitude is not about uttering thanks when you receive a pleasant gift.

Gratitude is about remaining thankful when you are being destroyed.

6.

Live on with the patterns of your life.

Know the patterns as patterns. Don’t attempt to change them.

The pattern is tied to you by your own resistance and attachment.

Resistance is attachment.

Leave it, it will go to where it came from.

So what to do with patterns?

Nothing.

7.

When you feel incomplete,

Kindly don’t fill yourself with rubbish.

8.

Fear is useful.

One must have the right fear.

Right fear

is when one is afraid

of losing the one thing

that cannot be lost,

and yet man loses it

again and again.

Afraid of this one thing,

now one can be fearless

about all else.

This is the key to

fearlessness.

9.

Here is the method:Every small action will tell you of your centre.

You fondly said: Come.

Whom did you call?

You dryly said: Busy.

What are you busy with?

You sorely missed something.

What is it?

You dreamily thought of someone.

Who is he?

The real one has just One in mind.

10.

Acharya ji, who is a friend?

Whose friend?

Mine.

Who are you?

(Mute)

A squirming consciousness are you, desperate for its Destination.

Who is a friend?

Who rids you of all else, and points you to the Destination alone.

Who is a foe?

Who stands between you and the Destination.

~Acharya Prashant@Prashant_Advait

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Man’s world is one of stories

Man’s world is one of stories:

myths, morals, codes, institutions, money…

Man is an animal that weaves stories.

Animals live in objects, man in stories.

Why does man weave stories?

Because man is a story.

To defend his inner story, man is compelled to dream external stories.

What is mysticism?

The story that ends the inner story.

~ Acharya Prashant

Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, August’16

1. Consciousness is just dead duality. One really alive is crazy beyond consciousness.

2. “‘He’ wants a cure”, therein lies the whole contradiction. ‘He’ wants the cure. Who is this ‘he’? The disease itself. The cure is his elimination. Will he take the cure? So, that’s human tragedy! What we want is our own elimination. The highest is available to us but at the cost of our being – this limited self. That’s human predicament. There is an invaluable good there. You can take it. The good is invaluable and the price is infinite. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, July’16

1. The false is truer than the Truth.

2. In the material itself, you will find it. So, don’t disregard the material. Don’t be contemptuous towards it. You must be very open, very living, and offer no resistance to what you see. You offer resistance to it because you think that something more important is elsewhere. No, there is nothing more important and there is no other world. This is all that there is. This world is the only reality for you. So, you must know this world, and that is not difficult at all because you are already knowing; which means that everything is already at its proper place. Go home and relax! Or have fun—which again is not a matter of doing because you are already having fun. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, June’16

1. Spirituality is the intimacy of the immediate, not the blaze of the beyond.

2. When the material is directly a manifestation of the spiritual, only then the material is a symbol of the Divine, only then the material points at non-material.

3. A temple is wonderful when it arises as an expression of a devoted Heart. The Heart comes first. The temple rises as an expression of the Heart. But if the Heart is shrouded by a thick mind, then of what use would it be to just go and touch stones? Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, May’16

  • The Total is neither masculine nor feminine, hence the search and summit of both.

 

  • There is the dual and there is the non-dual.
    Where there is a duality, there is an infinitude of words, and words mean small things.
    Where there is a non-duality, there is just infinitude.
    Both are infinite.
    The dualistic world is also infinite, but it is infinite in its smallness; it is infinite in its littleness, in its fragmentation.
    And the non-dual world is just infinite.

Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, April’16

1. A person deserves to be your lover only if the person is saying I am not going to become your goal. I am not going to become your objective. I will only become a fellow traveller, a means, a bridge. If you come to me then I will take you beyond me. I will not make you stay with me. I will not possess you. I will not make you stop at me. Instead, I will guide you beyond me. That is how the wise man decides on his lover, if it all it can be called a decision. Because in such matters, what happens is so spontaneous that it cannot really be called a decision. But what Kabir is enunciating to us is the basis of spontaneity. That basis is ‘The Beyond’.

Please understand this carefully once again. If you come across something or somebody that attracts you to itself, then that thing is in fact dangerous for you, because it will completely envelope you, encircle you, and in that way enslave you. It will say you can move no further , your journey ends here, there at me. You are my husband now and go no further. You are my son, look no further. The real lover will say: because I love you, I’ll help you go Beyond. Maybe we will travel together to the Beyond. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, March’16

1. Who is the Buddha?
The Buddha is a great dissolution.

2. Buddha’s message is one – Come and dissolve.

3. It is not about this or that.
Life is about having this and that.
It’s total.
You need not pick a fragment. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, February’16

  1. In the existential sense, the whole is not the sum of the parts. The whole is from where all the parts emerge and yet the whole remains whole.

  2. Even in absence of all the parts, the whole is still there; even in the presence of all the parts, the whole is still there. Actually, the parts are not present, only the whole is present. What appears as the part is the inability of the part to see the whole. Otherwise, there are actually no parts, there is only the whole.

  3. Part is a fragmented way of looking; otherwise, there is no part, there is only the whole. Read more
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Quotes, January’16

  1. Attend to the facts and your imaginations will fall in place.
  2. Real action does not demand too many thoughts, because if you are still thinking a lot, then that thinking will impede the action.

3. If you are really acting, then thoughts will keep going down and down and down. As action becomes vigorous, thoughts get subdued. It is only with a calm mind that one can enter into right and energetic action. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, December’15

1. The new, the happiness that you are looking for, will not come through experience, will not come through time; it comes when you are a little less insistent upon cheating yourself.

2.  Rejection of the false and living in the True are inseparable and concurrent.

3. When one loses all hope in the little, that is the point when he has been totally possessed by the Grand. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, November’15

  • Life will make a mockery of all your preparations. I am not saying don’t prepare. What I am saying is let your confidence not be linked to preparation. Prepare but don’t feel confident because of preparation. Just feel confident for no reason. When you feel confident for no reason, that is called Faith. That is called Faith. But it requires guts. When you’re afraid then you want to cover up your fear with preparation.
  • In watching all change, you find the unchangeable.

Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Quotes, September’15

  • Silence is not a cessation of sound,

  nor any other kind of negation.

  Silence is an unrestrained exposition,

  an immense revelation.

 

  • Religion is the way that brings the lost mind back to its center; its Home. That is religion.

Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत) · 2 Comments

Quotes, August’15

  • Know a man not by the loudness of his voice, but by the depth of his silence.
  • Compassion is not an expression of affection.
    Compassion is a treatment of disease.
  • Know the disease with detachment, and treat it with care.

Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Discourses in Europe

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Some excerpts from the ‘Interactive Evening Discourse’ – 21st June 2016 

Based on a couple of Hafiz poems:

# When Hafiz says, “Wonderful future”, he means That which time leads to, and That is timelessness. Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत)

Gems from the ongoing ‘Myth Demolition Tour, Dharamshala’, April-May, 2016

Some excerpts from the ‘Interactive Evening Discourse’ – 26th April 2016

“Faith is to trust most deeply without a reason”

“If you are talking of Faith, then you are prolonging the fear.”

“Reasonless courage is Faith.” Read more

Posted on by Acharya Prashant (आचार्य प्रशांत) · 1 Comment

Quotes-4, July,’15

Quotes-4, July,’15

• For science that cannot be detected, does not exist. If something can just not be detected, absolutely undetectable it is, then science will say, “It does not exist”. Spirituality says, “My instruments for detection are very limited. I detect using my senses and my intellect which are quite limited. Something that cannot be thus detected may also exist; in fact it may be more real than what the senses announce as real.” Spirituality thus lacks the arrogance of science. Read more