Suffering invokes freedom, Suffering brings Truth || Acharya Prashant, on Guru Kabir (2019)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Pranam Acharya ji, in one of his love songs, Kabir Saheb says, do listen to your slaves

00:08prayer and release me of my agony, says Kabir, I shall doubtless get my lord and sing the

00:17auspicious song of love in chorus with him.

00:23Now Muttasim's question is, on one hand, Kabir yearns for unison with God.

00:32On the other hand, he also says he is doubtless.

00:36How can these two co-exist?

00:39How can Kabir Saheb be doubtless?

00:42This doubtlessness is the hallmark of love, Muttasim.

00:50What is love?

00:51These two things together, knowing fully well that there is separation and knowing fully

01:02well that separation is false and therefore separation has to go.

01:13That is the state of the lover, that is the state of the singer, of the seeker.

01:26How is there doubtlessness?

01:29Because of suffering, because of the fact of suffering.

01:33So the two facts that you talked of are not in opposition to each other.

01:39In fact, they complement each other.

01:43First thing you talked of was the acknowledgement of suffering, the yearning, the agony.

01:53And the second thing you talked of was the utter assurance that union is inevitable.

02:05It is because of the first that the second is there.

02:11You will ask how?

02:14When suffering is so very heavy, pronounced, then your honesty,

02:35makes it very important, mandatory upon you to get rid of that suffering.

02:59You see, if you have small irritants in life, probably you can live with them.

03:18If you have a little bit of back pain and you go to the doctor, he will suggest you

03:26certain medicines maybe, certain exercises maybe, and he'll tell you that after these

03:39medicines and these exercises, the pain will subside.

03:44A little bit of pain may still remain and he'll ask you to live with the pain.

03:52He won't tell you to get a spinal cord surgery, to get rid of the remnant pain.

04:13Things that trouble you just a little bit can be lived with.

04:23We all live with a little bit of discomfort here and there, don't we?

04:30There would be nobody, for example, who would not have some relationship issue, some physical

04:38problem, even some psychological problem, but we don't jump into drastic measures to

04:56get rid of temples, do we?

05:04Small things, who wants to invest too much energy in them?

05:11So the small can be allowed to co-exist with you.

05:26If your car gets a little scratch on the door, do you immediately take it to the workshop

05:37to get the dent removed, and the dent is so very minor, and to get the scratch removed

05:48and the area painted?

05:49You don't.

05:50But if your car gets a nice enough accident, then you no longer continue to tolerate the

06:20broken condition of the car, then you necessarily take it to the workshop.

06:36Small problems can be allowed to remain because they are small.

06:50Separation from God is not a small problem, it's a huge issue, and because it is a huge

06:58issue, so it is definitely not going to continue forever.

07:09A pimple on the skin can continue for long, some pimple here, some pimple there, can continue

07:22for long, but skin cancer cannot continue for long, either you finish it or it finishes

07:30you, and therefore there is no doubt that something will yield, that something will

07:42go, that is from where Kabir Sahab gets his doubtlessness.

07:58Separation from God is such a searing pain, it aches 24 hours, it doesn't allow you to

08:10live, eat, breathe, sleep, move, walk, think, that the very intensity of the pain convinces

08:21you that the pain cannot continue for long, it is so bad that it cannot remain so bad

08:32for too long, the problem has come to its peak, its climax, obviously something's got

08:53to go, obviously something is going to change.

09:01And that is one great way through which the saints attain union.

09:15For them the situation turns so bad that it has to now turn for the good.

09:34They are the ones who experience the agony, they are the ones who weep, who cry, and therefore

09:45they are the ones who rectify.

09:51For the commoner, for the worldly householder, the situation never gets so bad, it's always

10:04bad but always under control, isn't that the description of the condition of the common

10:17man, ask him how is it, he will say bad, but not bad enough to collapse, and because things

10:31are never bad enough for him to collapse, so his false structures stay put, there is

10:44always a simmering discontent within, but never a rebellion, why is there never a rebellion?

11:02Because even when things are very bad for him, still the badness is tempered, reduced

11:18by the occasional pleasures that the common man so very values.

11:28So one has had a terrible fight with the wife and it has become clear that the situation

11:41is pathetic, it has become clear that the marriage is rotting, it is actually coming

11:51to the point of explosion, it is a very important moment, the moment of the fight, entire day,

12:05entire evening, the two of them fought and it is clear to both the man and the wife that

12:18life is full of suffering, but then comes the night and the acknowledgement that life

12:38is full of suffering just disappears, a little bit of sexual engagement is enough to make

12:56both of them forget that the situation is terrible, next morning the two will wake up largely

13:10forgetful of the hell that they experienced the entire day before, a little bit of pleasure

13:24is enough to make man tolerate

13:36huge indignities.

13:55The saint is not sold out to pleasure, so when suffering hits him, suffering stays with

14:20him, he does not quickly get out of it, the common man has coping mechanisms, the saint

14:36has no coping mechanism, had a bad day, have some beer and then you cope up, had a bad

14:55week, drenched the weekend in shopping, this option is not available to the saint, if he

15:05has had a bad week, he has had a bad week and he will acknowledge that the week was

15:09honestly bad, so things come pretty soon to the boiling point for the saint, his honesty

15:27does not allow him to obfuscate the reality, he cannot lie to himself, he cannot sell himself

15:45out to mundane pleasures and so he is convinced, so he is doubtless, his very suffering tells

16:12him of freedom from suffering, he knows that suffering of this magnitude, suffering of

16:19this intensity just cannot continue, his longing convinces him of union, he knows very well

16:34that if the longing is so intense, then it is impossible that the union is too far away,

16:49as they say it is the darkest just before dawn, the world is the world, life is life,

17:06the difference between the saint and others is that the saint does not compromise very easily,

17:21he has a knack for reality, he has a taste for honesty.

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