Don’t be a tourist to the land of God || On Vivekachudamani (2018)

Questioner: Sometimes when I listen to you, or when I read verses from the scriptures, there is a certain centeredness within me. What is that, and how can I remain centered? Please explain how to remain in peace and in the Loved One.

Acharya Prashant: You say that you get glimpses of centeredness in the sessions when I speak, or when you read the scriptures. My words are not very important; the verses, too, are not very important. What is important is your condition when you are listening to me or reading the verses. See how you are when you listen to me. See how you are when you are with the great books. Remain that way.

I repeat, there are two things happening when you are with me: one, I am sitting in front of you; second, you are respectful, disciplined, loving, meditative, silent, and admissive of something beyond you. When I am sitting in front of you, do you bother about the miscellaneous, little, petty things of your life? You don’t. That’s the condition of your mind. My presence in front of you does not matter so much; that condition of your mind matters. You can even call it a coincidence that that condition comes to you in my presence. Or you can call it my technique, that I sit in front of you and induce that condition in your brain. But irrespective of what you call it, your mind and its state is more important than me or the holy scriptures.

You tell yourself when you are in front of me, “Stay quiet,” don’t you? When you are in front of me, you tell yourself, “Stay still.” Do you allow yourself to fidget and dither and vacillate and run about when you are listening to me? And the body might be telling you to do a bit of that. The body is a monkey. You are listening to me and the body might say, “Let’s go out for a little walk”; or the body might say, “Why not take a quick nap?”; or the body might say, “Let’s eat something or drink a little.” Do you allow yourself all that? No, because you have told yourself that there does exist something of the beyond, and when you are in company of the beyond, then you better live in a certain reverence; the head must bow down.