You have to give away everything to get That which is free
By: Acharya Prashant
Tags: Freedom, Compassion, Sacrifice, Mindset, Wisdom

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Kindly do not ask for very easy solutions, for the simple reason that if there are easy solutions and they come to you, you won’t take them. This comfort is there because you can accept something only when it comes to you with an acceptable level of discomfort.

Let’s say the whole discomfort is removed, and the thing becomes ridiculously easy, would you take it? Honestly?

Would you take it if it is ridiculously easy? Served like this.

You won’t take it. Tomorrow morning when I’ll come to you, to wake you up, I’ll wake you by — take this pill.

What is this?

This is the enlightenment pill.

You’ll say aaargh (a sound depicting irritation when someone wakes you up for no cause) and will go back to sleep. You will know I am joking. I might not be joking.

Kabir has said that whosoever got it, got it after a lot of tears.

Has has kant na paiyaa, jin paiyaa tin roye. Haansat khelat Hari milein, to kaun duhagan hoye. ~ Saint Kabirdas

It is not that the Truth says that you must pass through suffering before I can come to you. It is just that you will not take anything without suffering.

If you go to the market, a small example, and you visit a shop, and you ask: ‘Hello! This one! (pointing towards an object)‘ and he says, ‘Take it for free’. Look at your first reaction. Would you feel happy?

Listener (L): No.

AP: Would you? Immediately a suspicion will come to you — there is something fishy. And then you’ll say ‘Alright! let me see.’ And then you point to another good and you say ‘This one!’ ‘Ahh.. That too, take it for free.’

Now you are sure!

(Listeners laugh)

AP: You are being trapped. Something is fishy. And then you say, ‘That one!’ and he says ‘Don’t bother me again and again, this whole shop, take it for free.’ Now, you will run away with your dare life, without looking back you’ll run away. And maybe you’ll inform the police. Right?

If it is free, you won’t take it. That is why you must suffer and pay the price of the ego so that you can take it. So the discomfort is auspicious. You will keep feeling discomfort as long as you are not prepared to take things for free. When you are prepared to take it easily, freely, then the discomfort won’t be there.

Goods are expensive only because you want to pay. When you don’t want to pay, have you seen what happens to the price of goods?

L: Falls.

AP: Comes down. You want to pay or you want to uphold your ego? Say, I can’t pay any price because I am a beggar. You’ll have to confess that you are a beggar. And when you confess that you are a beggar, he gives it for free. Till the time you keep saying, I have a lot, he says ‘Alright! give it’.

You are the one who is claiming that you are so rich, you have so much — knowledge, resources, wealth, relationships. You keep telling Him, ‘I have so much. I have so much.’ He’ll say ‘Alright! If you have so much then kindly give.’

Go to Him and say I have nothing.

He says ‘Alright! The whole shop is yours. Take it away. And if you can’t take it away, I’ll deliver it to your home for free.’

You say ‘I don’t even have a home’. (cries out)

Okay, I’ll deliver a home as well.

(Laughter)

L: It’s a story that how in Sufism or in Zen when someone ask the Master ‘Who are you?’ and he answers ‘I am a dead cat’. Because he is priceless. If you take a dead cat… A good metaphor. (Laughs)

AP: You know that which comes for free that demands everything. You have to give everything away to get that which is free. One must learn to enjoy paradoxy.