What stops you from being your true self?

Question: Acharya Ji, I feel there are certain things in me, which I am not able to trace out or figure out. There is some shame, or something else, which does not allow me, to be what I am. How to overcome that?

Acharya Prashant: You see, you are what you are. That can neither be disputed, nor changed, nor challenged. There is no threat ever, to who you are. Never! Your deepest identity is safe, secure, inviolable. But ‘you’ — the ‘person’, the ‘woman’, the ‘lady’, has an unfortunate power. And that power is bestowed on each one of us. What is that power? That power is — to not to take refuge in your real identity. The power is to choose something else except the — Real One.

And that’s the only shame. Call it ‘shame’, call it ‘suffering’. Call it whatever! You can use any of those so-called negative words.

Any concept you believe in, will take you away from what you really are!

The leaf cannot have a concept about the roots. The leaf has to just look at its leafness. The leaf has to look at the life juice flowing in its veins. And that’s the blessing of the roots and also the proof of the roots. The sap in the leaf is both — the blessing of the roots and the proof of the roots.

But instead, the leaf decides to apply memory, and knowledge, and intellect, to have a model framework about the roots. Then the leaf would burden itself, and grow pale very soon.

Getting it?

Drop your concepts. You don’t need any concepts. Your being, your physical being, your psychological being, itself is the proof of the great Truth. Beyond that, you don’t need any concept.

A silent mind, is the final proof of Divinity.

Why do you want to rush the mind here and there, to search for Divinity?

Look at the foolishness, the contradiction. Where lies the proof of Divinity? In the Silent Mind. So, if the mind is silent, Divinity is already proven.

A silent mind itself is the great self, the Atman.

But the mind says, I will wander, and rush, and explore, and figure out, and find, and search, and what not. And in doing all that, it has gone….away from Divinity. And that is such a tragic thing to happen- tragic and amusing, both. Amusing and bemusing. In searching for yourself, you go away from yourself.

The more concepts you have about Holiness, the more you will find yourself starved of Holiness. Holiness is not a concept.

Don’t try to live in paradigms.

If you live in paradigms, you will lose out on paradise.

There was this man. He had a fight with his woman. So, he won’t talk to her. He won’t talk to her. But you look at his mobile phone, and you see two things. One, a lot of disconnected calls. She would call him, and he would not receive the calls. Secondly, the screen saver was the face of the beloved.

That’s how we live.

When he calls, we choose not to receive the call. And to compensate for his real presence, what do we do? We keep his photo on the mobile screen. Those photos are the concepts that we carry about God! The mobile is not there to look at his photo, the mobile is there to receive his calls. Here, I am talking of mind, the mobile.

The mind is troubled when it has to receive the call, but it finds security in keeping his image, his photo. Don’t receive his calls, but keep his…..image. Use your mobile as a spiritual reminder. Receive the call, don’t keep thinking about it.

The image will never be, even a patch on what HE actually is.

Drop the images.