Direct Truth: Uncompromising, non-prescriptive Truths to the enduring questions of life

by Kapil Gupta

Q: Who am I? A: That which remains when you remove all the things that you are not.

A: Yet when you are called stupid, it makes you angry. Because something within you entertains the possibility that you might, in fact, be. Then something else within you grows irritated by the idea that you might be. This internal conflict manifests itself as anger.

Is there a god? A: This depends. Q: On what? A: On why it is that you wish to know. Q: I’m curious. A: I have no interest in answering questions based upon curiosity.

Dependency will rob you of your freedom.

A: Does the river flow toward the ocean? Q: Yes. A: Do you believe that it flows in order to reach the ocean? Q: I don’t understand. A: Do you believe that the reason that it flows is because it wishes to reach the ocean? Do you believe that the entire reason for its flowing is to make it a point to reach the ocean? Q: No. A: Then why do you believe that life has a meaning or a point?

Truth is that attachment is the greatest bondage in the life of man. The problem that you are experiencing is not that you do not know how to be unattached. The problem is that you do not realize the consequences of attachment.

Attachment gives birth to hope and need. If you are attached to them, you will need them to do certain things, achieve certain things, be a certain way, and behave toward you in a certain way. When they do not, it will cause you pain. When you experience pain, you will behave toward them in a way that pain compels you to behave. And they will behave toward you in a way that their need for freedom compels them to behave. And this will continue for the rest of your lives.

A part of you relishes getting angry. For when you do, you are able to exercise your right to become angry. You enjoy this right. For you feel that you have been wronged, and thus your anger is justified. You do not wish to pass up on exercising this right. But another part of you feels remorse for having been angry. And this remorse is to some degree, disingenuous. The remorse makes you feel better and morally correct. For if you had felt good about getting angry, you would have a difficult time accepting yourself. Q:

A: That anger is not as reactionary as you think it to be. It is a weapon that you enjoy using in order to protect your ego and to bolster it.

A: Understand that you are the architect of this relationship. And, in many ways, the architect of your son’s fate. Become the person he would seek to embrace. Provide a place of peace that he is looking for in the wrong places. As he recognizes that you have transformed from a place of need, into a source of quiet comfort, he will come. And he will listen.

Pleasure is ubiquitous in the lives of humans. As the mind is ubiquitous in the lives of humans. From morning until night, a human seeks nothing other than pleasure. In the smallest thing. And the largest thing. All addictions stem from this one characteristic of mind.

A: It is the search for pleasure that produces pain.

equanimity.

It is just that this lording of wealth is a reaction to an internal feeling of inadequacy.

If one devotes himself to a god so completely that he himself disappears, he is certain to find the Truth. The completeness of devotion matters. The object of devotion matters not.

A: Bastardization, cosmetics, rituals, and cleverness. Q: Would you kindly explain? A: God has become a wishing well. Religion is a social club. It is a place to hope for things and ask for things. It turns human beings into something less human. It turns a man into a beggar. If god was seen as someone who didn’t have the power to give something to man, no one would give him the time of day.

One can make a habit of anything. If one is taught from a young age to pray, he will pray out of habit. Prayer is not done for the well-being of the god one prays to. It is done for the well-being of the one who prays. It is also done out of fear. The fear that if one does not pray, something will be taken away from him, or that he will be punished. Man has turned god into a genie and a warden.

Spirituality is a concoction of prescriptions and half-truths. It is a circus of orange robes, incense, and ineffective jargon such as love and mindfulness. It is a maze of silent retreats and men with pony tails and yoga pants spouting spiritual psychobabble to those who enjoy the psychobabble. It is the unserious leading the unserious in concentric circles that lead only to more circles.

A: Because if you try to force the mind, it retaliates. You can attempt to force your attention upon the present moment, but the mind will fight you every step of the way. Eventually, your willpower will wane. And the mind will win. That which does not happen naturally, is neither effective or sustainable.

Discipline is an attempt to force oneself to do that which he fundamentally does not wish to do.

A: It is far more fruitful to evaluate the desires for achievement, than it is to force discipline. If one’s desire for achievement is pure, he will be sufficiently motivated to do all that needs to be done in order to achieve. If it is not, he will play clever and ineffective games such as discipline.

So humans don’t seek happiness. They seek escape from misery? A: Yes.

Q: It’s a question that has been with me for years. Money is no longer a problem for me. I’ve achieved all that I want to achieve. I find myself tending to this and that. I find myself contributing to various philanthropic causes. But there’s an aimlessness to it. I don’t have a steady direction any more. What can I do about that? A: Understand the source of such feelings. Q: Can you please help me with this? A: There is something within you that is causing an emptiness. It seeks to be satisfied. Until it is satisfied, it will create within you a feeling of aimlessness.

For he becomes life itself. He

So long as it provides man with the intoxication of losing himself.

What happens when one becomes a Master? A: He is in a class by himself. He has no equal. And thus, he is beyond competition.

“doing things in order to perform better.”

What precisely is the mind? A: A creator. Q: What has it created? A: It has created everything. But its ultimate creation is You. Q: The mind created me? A: Yes. Q: Can you please explain? A: The person that you call “yourself” is a manufactured

A: If one seeks to become the master of the mind, one must begin by exploring intensely the details of the mind’s creation. That is, this “you” that it has created. Explore it as an innocent observer. Explore it as the one who is not the “you.”

A: Fear is the natural consequence of man not knowing himself.

The fundamental basis of all fear is fear of oneself.

A: A man who does evil in the world is not operating out of a sense of right and wrong. No human being truly operates out of a sense of right and wrong. They operate out of a sense of who they see themselves as, and the repercussions that their actions might have within themselves.

Where there is a self, there is an attachment to the self. Where there is an attachment to the self, there is an attachment to all people and things related to the self. Where there is an attachment to people and things, there is endless suffering.

A: You live inside your mind. The mind is the world. It is a place of endless torment. It is a place which requires you to put out fires that never end. It is a place of recurring bouts of conflict. It is a place of striving, hoping, expectations, desires, disappointments, and sorrows. This is the natural consequence of living in the mind. And, by extension, living within the world.

The earth rotates in a gravitational orbit around the sun. The moon rotates in a gravitational orbit around the earth. But the sun does not touch the earth. And the earth does not touch the moon. Q: I can feel that there is a lesson in there. Could you please speak more about this? A: The modulation of the people and the events in our lives is done by way of gravitational pull, than by direct manipulation. In fine tuning our gravitational pull, we attract what we want in our lives, and repel what we do not. In delicately titrating this gravitational pull, we keep our children on a correct path, without controlling them. Without direct manipulation through speech or through action.