Questioner: Acharya Ji, I have a question on ‘the mind rehearsing stuff’. Basically, my situation is like – Something happened decades back in the past, where I didn’t give the right response to a situation, and my Ego got hurt. My mind starts recreating the scenario, where I am giving the right responses. Such thinking is just wasting my life and time. I don’t want to live in such imaginations, but in the present reality. So, please guide me in achieving this.
Acharya Prashant: Hark back to the past or identify itself with the past, the reason is that the ‘I’ is looking for satisfaction and surely there is a little satisfaction that is to be derived from the past. The ‘I’ is looking for strength and security. If looking back at the past offers it a modicum of strength or security, then the ‘I’ will choose that option, and you cannot blame it.
Somebody is thirsty, really thirsty, and in that condition if he is being offered a little bit of water, just a little bit of water and that too impure water, the fellow might decide to take that option. Remember that he is thirsty. Should we then talk about the fellow’s thirst and blame him? No, even if you blame him, it won’t help because he is indeed thirsty.
Continuously pointing fingers at his thirst, or declaring him evil because he is thirsty, won’t help. Similarly, pointing fingers at the one who is providing that little bit of water, impure water, too, won’t help. The one who is providing that half relief, that false relief, is at least providing something; and if you are very thirsty, then that something is better than nothing.
You have to question – “Why there is no pure water anywhere?” And pure water cannot come from memory or aspirations. Pure water is something that you have to dig for, right now. It’s a fountain that springs only by dint of your determination, your work, your immersion in life.
