Why is the Truth needed at all? || Acharya Prashant, with BITS Pilani (2022)
Questioner (Q): You have repeatedly said that instead of going directly to the Truth, one should eliminate everything that is false. How is it practically possible to eliminate everything that is false? Is that even possible within a single lifetime? Do we even need to reach the purity of the core, the core of Truth?
Acharya Prashant (AP): It is not an external obligation; it is an internal thirst. It is not as if I liberate you from the obligation to reach purity, and you can go out there and celebrate, saying, “Wow, the teacher has waived the homework today!” It is not homework that a teacher is foisting on your face; it is real homework. It is the very purpose of your own life, irrespective of whether or not I say that.
Tomorrow I may lose my brains and start saying that one need not have any purpose, there is nothing called purity, one need not reach any kind of liberation. Anything is possible, I may start saying all those things. Will those things really relieve you of the obligation to be internally liberated? No.
So, it is not a thing about what I say or what the books say or what the religions say. It is your own inner matter. You have fallen in love with… I don’t know. It is your own inner thing. So, it is not as if, “Must I do this? Must I not do this?” Who will tell you? There is nobody to tell you. You have that burning thing within, and that thing is asking for relief. That thing is asking to be quenched.
It is not an external law. There is nothing called a spiritual constitution or something. And you won’t be penalized by any law of the world if you do not purify your mind; life itself will penalize you. No country, no prosecutor, no police is going to come and arrest you because you did not live spiritually enough; that won’t happen. But still, you will be in shambles.
Q: Are suggesting that the process of eliminating the false should be at the core of our living and we should enjoy the process throughout our lives?
AP: No shoulds. Son, no shoulds. If I say you should not enjoy it, will you stop enjoying it?
Q: No.
AP: No shoulds. It is enjoyable. Not that you should or must enjoy it; it is enjoyable. And the other thing you asked is, is it practically possible to eliminate all the darkness? You enter a room that you live in and you switch on the light. Have you switched on the lights of the entire city?
Q: No.
AP: You eliminate the darkness around yourself, and that will suffice. Outside this room it is pitch dark. It doesn’t matter to you or me, does it?
Q: No.
AP: So, as limited human beings, it is sufficient that we keep eliminating darkness to the extent we can and wherever we perceive it. Irrespective of how great you are and how liberated you are—you might be the Buddha verily—the next child will be born with darkness. How much can you do? Even the Buddha has his physical limits, right? Krishna narrates the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna—has all the darkness on the Earth disappeared?
You do the best you can. Darkness will still remain, but you still do the best you can. In that is Krishna’s joy; in that is the Buddha’s joy; in that is Arjuna’s redemption. Duryodhana was still not redeemed. What can you do? You are a human being, not God Almighty—not that any God Almighty exists, but you are definitely a limited human being.
So, in your limits, do the best possible and sleep peacefully.
