Advait in Everyday Life

by Acharya Prashant

Till what point does the mental movement continue? The mental movement will continue only till the point I have not understood. When I have understood, the mental work stops, it is settled, closed.

The crux of the matter is, live in understanding. When you understand something, hard work happens on its own.

In fact, more physical hard work happens than you can otherwise do. Then you don’t have to ‘do’ hard work.

Thought always says, “I will lead to success.” In thought, success is always in the future, “I will lead to success.” In understanding success is right now, in that very moment, instantaneous, immediate. “I have understood and I have started acting”, and that is success. “I have understood and because I have understood, action is simply happening.

mind, if there could be man who finds Joy in the action itself, then ‘success’ and ‘failure’ will have no value.

When success is to be attained in the future then the present does not have any value, then the action in the present does not have any value.

Playing hard is purposeless. You do not want anything from it, except enjoyment. Working hard always has a target.

Playing hard means that I am always happy, that I am dancing around. Working hard means that I am so sad that I must get something.

Fundamentally there is nothing small about you, there is nothing missing in you.

All the diseases of life, all your unease, all your gossip, all your restlessness arise from this deep-rooted conditioning that there is something wrong and missing in you.

those who do not know their own diamond nature, they make everybody feel small. In fact, there are only two kinds of people in the world - One who feel small, the other who feel complete and dance.

The one who feels small, ends up making everybody feel small.

They might be very close to you, yet be extremely cautious of them. Listener 3: And the one who is complete? Speaker: The one who is complete will obviously radiate completeness. Listener 3: How would we know if someone is complete? Completeness is impossible. Speaker: How do you feel when you are with a person? Do you start feeling more and more inadequate, or do you gain a certain relaxation? That ‘presence’ will tell you. Do not be so certain. Do not be so certain that completeness is impossible. Completeness is not impossible. It is your very nature. How can it be impossible? It is there, covered, yet there. ~

One chief characteristic of conditioning, of influences, is that an influenced mind wants to influence.

Just as a virus wants to spread, similarly an influenced mind wants to influence. Power is the need to influence.

It wants to influence others because it sees that something is missing, something is wrong.

characteristic of this dis-ease, or conditioning is that you do not look for a treatment within yourself.

this is the second and real kind of power; power not over the world, but over my own mind because the world is anyway what I make it out to be.

You, who is already a slave of a thousand forces. Now when you are already a slave of a thousand forces even if you win a battle outside, will it be your victory?

if you must have power, you must have power over your own mind. You must have power over all the influences that are trying to capture your mind.

who would be a Real Leader? The one who tries to capture power here and there? Or the one who says that my being, my thought, my mind must be untouched. It must be pure.

just as conditioning wants to influence and spread, freedom from conditioning also spreads.

The fake leader spreads fakeness through influence. The Real leader spreads freedom through his presence. His very presence is enough. He does not need to influence.

Conditioning spreads through influence. Freedom from conditioning spr...

Real leader’s presence is enough. His presence is his power.

quality of life is just not about how much money it gives you. It’s about love with which you can come to it.

It’s about the energy you can give to it.

you prefer to stay in it even if it does not give you any money then you can know that you are in the right profession.

In the lives of those people who are very fond of correctness, first of all the ends are fixed, where you want to reach, the target, the goal. The ends are fixed and also the paths, the means, they are also fixed. These are the people who worry a lot about correctness, who are afraid of being incorrect. Where does their correctness come from? Listeners (everyone): Others.

Who wants to avoid all dangers? A bit of threat here and there is alright, that adds to life, makes it spicy. Doesn’t it? These are the explorers. They are not really obsessed with the ways of life. They dare to go this side and that side.

In the eyes of the achiever, in the eyes of this person who does all the correct things, the explorer is the big fool.

let’s just junk that word ‘motivation’ because all motivation is just an influence upon the mind, tempting you towards something external.

That internal engine is of understanding; that is your own innate powerful engine.

You do not need motivation, you just need to understand.

Remember wherever there is motivation, there would always be the accompanying threat of de-motivation.

Only a de-motivated man asks for motivation.

Only the internal engine can give you five hundred horse power, only the internal engine. Those of you who are dependent upon external sources of motivation, all that you will ever get is five kilometre per hour, languishing like a man strolling randomly on the road, sometimes this side, sometimes that side, and real cars are whizzing past

The key is there. And you must realize that there is a great difference between ‘losing something’ and ‘forgetting’ it. You have not lost the key. You have just forgotten that the key is with you, within you.

The difficult part for you, I am repeating, the difficult part for you would be to gather the courage to not to look outside, because you have now cultivated an artificial kind of helplessness, an artificial dependency.

Have faith in yourself, and you will find the key there. That is the key.

Jealousy cannot be there without ‘the other’.

When the mind does not know the infinite, it lives in tiny-tiny, plural finites.

All of these are measurable. The mind continuously keeps taking measure of all these.

because it is living in its own limited sense of self, so it is afr...

The only one who does not compare is the one who live...

Till the time there is any bit of identification with this, till the time you have taken yourself as a quantity that can be measured, estimated, a number that can be attached to yourself,

Jealousy is nothing but the feeling to have a higher number.

Whenever you will think of the infinite, you will make it finite because you will attach some kind of qualification to it. The infinite is not to be thought of. You cannot consider yourself as infinite.

You don’t consider yourself as infinite. You have to know yourself as infinite.

“I will not take anything seriously that can be expressed in numbers.” Next statement, “And I will give great importance to that which can never be expressed in numbers.”