Tag Archives: Freedom

Gems from Articles, May’19


The only problem is – you want to change, but you want the changed state to be a derivative of current state.

You want the changed state, to be organically linked to your current state, which means that you really don’t want to give up your current state.

So, all ‘becoming’ fails.

All change is defeated.


Change is wonderful.

When you want change, see what you really want.

Don’t change halfheartedly.

Change fully.


Love is the urge to move towards That.

Gratitude is the lightness you keep experiencing, as you move towards That.


Love is what brings Sudama to Krishna.

Gratitude is what Sudama feels, as he keeps coming closer to Krishna, and as he returns, after meeting Krishna.

Out of these, obviously, love will come first.

You love Him, you move close to Him.

He showers his bounties on you, Gratitude arises.

But obviously love cannot be in expectation of bounties.


Gratitude is the realisation, that you have something beyond your capacity, beyond your eligibility.


Often, the time that you save, is utilised to self-destruct. Saving time would be great, if you knew how to use that time.


Time has only one legitimate purpose – to help you move into the timeless.

Invest more and more time, into the service of the timeless.

If you want to save time, then save time from all the miscellaneous non-sense, time gets spent in.

Save time from there.

Do not save time, from the Scriptures and the Teachers.


Truth is – freedom from the false. See what all is false, in the way you currently live.

Currently live.

Two things – ‘currently’, and ‘living’.

Go into your life, right now.

~ Excerpts from Shabd-Yoga Sessions.

Liberation, confusion, cognitive dissonance || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Liberation, confusion, cognitive dissonance

Question: Acharya ji, if liberation is the ultimate destiny, why don’t we get it naturally?

Acharya Prashant: Liberation is freedom, right? Liberation is freedom. So you are free to not to be free. You are already liberated.

It is because you are liberated, that you can choose to remain not liberated.

Good! You will get what you order. Everything is there on the menu. And the system respects your choice. The day you will choose liberation, liberation is yours. Till then , keep feasting on the various delicacies of life, and keep paying the bill. On that menu, everything is very highly chargeable, except for liberation.

We often judge things by the price, don’t we? Suffering comes at a very high price.

Listener: And it’s very valuable also.

Acharya ji: Liberation is there for the taking. So who wants it?

Listener: Acharya ji, how to remove confusion from life?

Acharya ji: Were you totally confused, would you know that you were confused? Who is the one, who knows confusion? Is he too confused? And if he too is confused, then how does he know that he is confused?

For you, to strongly assert that you are confused,

there must surely be some point in you, that is, not confused.

So, why are you unnecessarily cheating us? We know everything, right? And still we just pretend as if, ignorance is so deep, and wide, and overpowering.

Listener: Acharya ji, but there is something called ‘cognitive dissonance’. What role does it play?

Acharya ji: It is not even cognitive in nature. Had it been cognitive, it would have been a thing of the mind. All cognition is of the mind.

That which you really know, is at a point, a little away from the cognizing mind. The dissonance is not between cognition and cognition. It is between cognition, and pre-cognition – something that exists, prior to cognition. Something that is a-priory to cognition. Something that is foundation to all cognition.

Cognition has to be taught, freedom doesn’t have to be taught.

Cognition develops over experience.

There is something that is already fully developed, even before all experience.

And that is the difference between psychology and spirituality. Psychology limits itself to the mind. Spirituality says that even to know the mind, you have to go a little beyond the mind. So spirituality says, that even if you have to just study the psyche, you still have to go a little beyond the psyche.


Watch the session: Liberation, confusion, cognitive dissonance || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Books by the Speaker are available at:




How to deal with pain and hurt?|| Acharya Prashant (2019)

How to deal with pain and hurt.jpg

Question: How to deal with pain and hurt?

Acharya Prashant:

Dedicate your time to something sublime, and then you will not be available to get hurt.

You are hurt because you are available.

Why are you walking around with free mental space, and spare time?

Be fully dedicated to something worthy, then all these little bruises, and wounds, and rubs, will not bother you.

Life hurts, and wounds, only those who are jobless. Why are you jobless?

To be born, is to be born into one great job.

What is that job?

The life-long mission of liberation.

You have to be fully employed there. It’s a full-time job, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three sixty five days a year. But you do not do justice to real occupation. You steal time, and then your punishment is, that the world will hurt you. Your theft costs you very dearly.

Be fully consumed in the one, great, divine mission.

Otherwise, life will beat you down, very badly.

You have been entrusted with time, not so that you while it away. You have been entrusted with your fifty, or eighty years, so that you make the best use of every second. Your time is not your personal property. It has been entrusted to you. You better use it for the designated, and assigned purpose.

Somebody asked the Satan, “How do you corrupt a being?” He says, “It’s easy. I just whisper into his ears, ‘Your time is your time’.” And that’s the assumption we all have bought into – ‘I have the personal time.’ Not a second of your time is your’s.

Caught in petty politics. Caught in this and that. Whenever you will come to me citing these things, I will have just one quick question to ask, “From where did you get time to be caught in pettiness? You thief.”

It’s like entrusting a kid with his books, and you have told him to be with his books, the mathematics lessons, to be finished-off. And after a while he comes and says, “You know daddy, I got bruised in the football field. Look at my knee, it’s bleeding.” Before I offer him any first aid, I will probably offer him a question, “Why did you steal time in the first place?” You were supposed to be with the book. Why did you violate my trust and run away with your brat friends? Why?” So the band-aid will come later on.

If you are suffering, there is nobody, but you, who is responsible.

Unless you fully accept this responsibility, there is no freedom.

If your suffering is just incidental, then how can there be freedom from it, because incidents can happen any way, any day?

You have to first of all clearly realise that suffering cannot come to you, without your consent. Not only your consent, but your active participation is needed in your process of suffering. Not only your participation, but your active doership is needed, for you to suffer. Otherwise, you cannot suffer.

Any bit of suffering, is a clear indicator that you have been messing up with somebody’s trust.

You know whose trust I am talking of? The one who gave you time.

He gave you time, trusting that you will use time piously. He didn’t give you time to smoke it away.

Listener: Acharya ji, while feeling pain, if we start to look at it from a distance, so who is the who is looking at the pain? Is it the ego? What should we do in such situations? Should we watch it from the distance?

Acharya ji: If you are watching pain, then you are interested in pain. If you are not watching pain, then you are even more interested in pain.

You go to a dispensary, where kids are being vaccinated. When the needle goes in, some of them very keenly watch it. Oh! The needle is going in. Why? Because they are interested in the process. They feel they have a stake in the process. So, they keep watching the process. “Oh! The needle is going in.” Aghast!

And then, there are some, who are so interested in the process, that they get terrified. And when the needle goes in, they start looking elsewhere. “It is such a deadly sight, we do not even want to look at it.”

Whether you are watching the needle go in, or whether you are avoiding the needle go in, you are interested in the needle, in both cases. How come you have so much time to watch pain? Why aren’t you occupied with something else? I assure you, right now, some part of my body is paining. Am I watching it? Not at all. Am I not watching it? Even that is not true.

I am just elsewhere. The body is where it just must be. I am where, I must be. Why are you with pain? What is the body? A storehouse of pain, what else? But if you start associating with the pain, it becomes your personal suffering. Let the pain be. For how long will you avoid pain? After all, you are a product of pain. Ask your mother.

Listener: Is it some kind of escaping from body?

Acharya ji:

You don’t have to do anything, to escape from body.

You do a lot to stick to the body. 

I still ask you: If you are occupied in something really worthwhile, would you really care for something like pain? Even an ordinary sportsperson would tell you that when you are pursuing something even as normal as, victory in a match, pain ceases to be a big botheration, unless it is crippling. Then you have to be carried on a stretcher.

(Pointing at a group of listeners in the audience) It’s noon Sun that is falling directly on them, are they bothered? I don’t think they are even taking cognizance of it. It is not even reporting, because they are where they must be.

The Sun is where it must be, the body is where it must be, why are you not where you must be? Why are you wandering here and there? Why are you so homeless?

There would never be a day when the body would not pain, believe be. And I am not talking of old-age and infirmity. Ask these young people. (Looking at a bunch of youngsters sitting in the audience) Is there never a day when no part of your body pains for a while? There is never a day.

How much do you want to concern yourself with stuff like pain? This body is anyway going to pain a lot one day, and be reduced to ashes.

Listener: Does it mean we should never think of worst moments of our life?

Acharya ji: You have to be busy, absolutely busy, with the Absolute.

Listener: And how to do that?

Acharya ji: He will teach you.

Listener: And what about life’s plans? How do we go about them?

Acharya ji: Junk them.

Your plans are anyway of no avail. Ask Him: what to plan and how to plan. Yes, in asking him, you can plan for little things, little things like reaching on time, so that you may ask Him.


Watch the session:How to deal with pain and hurt? || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Books by the Speaker are available at:




Simplicity and Truth || Acharya Prashant (2018)

Simplicity and Truth


Question: How to test whether one has simplicity and freedom from desires?

Acharya Prashant: Whether simplicity and freedom from desires is there, is tested only when, that which you want, and you have, and you are therefore calm and patient, is taken away from you.

It is possible that one is a moral man, and has been taught in a moral way, to want only ‘a little’. And that ‘little’ that one wants, is already available. So, one does not seem to be wanting more.

Whether one is truly free from wants, and whether one is truly simple, is tested only in adversity. It is tested only when there is a challenge to the existing pattern of life. So, so-called simplicity and innocence can be superficial as well, and therefore deceptive.

As long as situations are favourable, a lot of people appear peaceful, don’t they? Whether or not you are truly peaceful, is determined, only when the situation turns inclement, unfavourable. And then it is tested, how deep your patience and peace are.

Listener: It appears, what you are saying is that, he is peaceful, but he has no devotion towards God.

Acharya Prashant: No, that is not needed. That is not needed. That is not needed.

Does he have compassion towards the world?

Listener: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: If that is there, it’s okay. You don’t need to have devotion towards a conceptual god. If you have compassion towards sentient beings, that is far better.

Listener: Will he get the Truth?

Acharya Prashant:  If compassion is there, then Truth is already there, provided the compassion itself is not superficial.

Listener: Is taking care of the needs of anybody, those you see around you, compassion?

Acharya Prashant: Taking care of the genuine needs. Selflessly, taking care of genuine needs.

In a hotel, if I ask for whisky, the waiter will come and serve it to me. So, he is taking care of my needs. Now there are two factors involved here. First of all – the need that I am expressing; bringing me a whisky, is not a genuine need. Secondly, he is not selflessly meeting my need. He is fulfilling my need, because he will get something. So, it is not merely about meeting the needs of the other person.

First of all, you should know, what kind of needs are you serving. Secondly, you should check your own mind. Is it serving the other in order to get something? Then it is not service. Then, it is merely transaction.

Listener:  If I get good feelings in helping others, then is this also transaction?

Acharya Prashant:  Yes, yes. Well caught. Lot of times, that’s what lot of compassion and social service are about. In helping the other, you start feeling good about yourself. That is nothing but, reinforcement of the ego. You rise in your own eyes. Your self-esteem gets a boost. That’s not compassion.

Listener: If I help others silently, without others knowing about it, is this also compassion?

Acharya Prashant: You may silently help others. Sometimes, you may have to be loudly helping others. All possibilities are open. The help has to be genuine.

The help should be of a nature that should reduce the other person’s need to be helped.

You should help in a way that the other person demands less and less help. And the act of helping should not lead to your own aggrandization. Not in the world’s eyes, and more so, not in your own eyes.

Listener: Acharya ji, you had once said, “A courageous mind solves itself rather than its problems.” How can I get a courageous mind?

Acharya Prashant: By having a sincere, to solve the problem. It is the problem that troubles you, right? That’s what you think and feel. Your statement remains – I am being troubled by the problem. So, fine. Have a sincere desire to solve the problem.

Go deep into the problem, and see what would really solve it.

And then you will find, that to solve the problem, you have to solve yourself first.

When it is said, “The courageous mind solves itself rather than the problem,” that does not mean that the courageous mind ignores the problem, and is busy solving something else, that is itself. It just means – being sincere about solving the problem.

The courageous mind sees, that the problem is not distant from the mind of the problem-ed one. And therefore, if the mind can be solved, the problem disappears on its own.

Listener: Acharya ji, once you had said, “Today, violence lies more in giving birth than killing.” Please explain this.

Acharya Prashant: Mostly birth is not a result of wisdom, clarity or love. Conception and birth happen mostly because of the need to consume the other’s body. In the process of consumption of the other’s body, and sometimes in the process of satiation of one’s own insecurities and desires, conception takes place, the baby comes into being, and all that is violence.

The mother-in-law has heckled the daughter-in-law, and now she is getting pregnant. Or the man decides, that it’s a social norm to become a father, and therefore, he decides to impregnate the wife. Or conception just happens in a moment of mad lust. All these are just instances of violence.

Listener: Violence against whom?

Acharya Prashant: What is violence? Lack of love. Disunity.

Whatsoever happens in an environment of absence of love, is violence. Surely, when you are consuming somebody’s body, you are not thinking of that body as your own. You are greedily looking at an object and pleasing yourself using that object. That’s what lust is, right?

You look at something, a human body that is, as an object that would satisfy your hunger. This disunity, this separation, this distance between you and the object of your consumption, is what is violence.

Listener: Acharya ji, what is meant by ‘Samadhi’, and is it worthwhile to aspire to attain it?

Acharya Prashant: Peaceful mind. Samadhan. What is samadhan? Solution. So, Samadhi is dissolution. Samadhi is nothing exotic, or extra-ordinary. Peaceful mind is samadhistha.

Do not turn samadhi into something of the stars, something glittering and beyond the reach. It is a very simple, ordinary, dissolved state of the mind. The mind has no worries, the mind has no great concerns to be serious about. That is samadhi.

Life is simple, ordinary.

This is happening, that is happening, but whatsoever is happening, is not big enough to trouble you.

That is samadhi.

Listener: Are there many types of Samadhis?

Acharya Prashant: It’s almost like this. I have answered eight types of questions here. And corresponding to each of the answers, you may as well say, in a poetic way, that you have experienced eight kinds of samadhis. When I answered him, then it was one kind of samadhi. When I answered your first question, that was the first samadhi. Then your second question, that was second kind of samadhi.

Ultimately, peace has no distinctions, or flavours or colours. Peace is just peace. You do not have many, different kinds of zeros. Zero is a zero. What kind of division do you want to create?


Watch the session:  Simplicity and Truth || Acharya Prashant (2018)


Books by the Speaker are available at:




Acharya Prashant, with students: Freedom from expectations || (2012)



Acharya Prashant: Are we young? Are we really young? To be young means, to be energetic, means to be open. Oscar Wilde had said, youth is lost on the young. Do you understand its meaning? That we only turn young in the body. Either we remain a child throughout life or enter old age directly, bypassing the real youth.

Do I really have to go too far, to enquire why am I living like this! And ‘Why’ still comes later. First, do I know ‘How am I living?’ Why am I doing engineering? Whenever I sit in a class, why do I get bored? Are we able to clearly look at these ways of our day to day living? Am I just dancing to the tunes of the external world in this life? Is there something really mine. One doesn’t need to go and read books to see ‘How am I living?’ One just needs to look at oneself, one’s actions with clarity. You are in the second year, most of you must be thinking about the jobs, whether you will get a good one or not? Always, buffeted by doubts, queries, insecurities, confusions.

Wherever I am, am actually never there. Strained between the pulls of the past and the pulls of the future. Let us first look at our life. When we honestly do this, only then will I realize that life is precious. I am important. And it cannot be wasted away like this. There must be something more to life. But that wholeness, that completeness, which life deserves, that you can give to it only when you first realize the incomplete, the fragmented, the divided, ways in which we are living.

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Acharya Prashant: What is the best thing you can get for free?


If you can understand the answer to this question, then you already have the best free thing. The best free thing is ‘understanding’ itself. Well, just that understanding is not a thing, and the best things in life are, as they say, not things.

Think of it. Many machines, many computers can read this answer that I am writing here. But only a human being can ‘understand’ this answer. A machine can mechanically analyze, or interpret this answer. A machine can even translate this answer to a hundred different languages. But no machine can ever ‘understand’ what I am saying. For that matter, no machine can ever ‘understand’ a verse from the Gita, or a common statement as ‘I love you’.

We get that gift free, right? Understanding. But since it comes free, many of us don’t value it and don’t live by it.

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Acharya Prashant: Difference between believing and realizing?











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