With your thousand other priorities, the Truth will continue to elude you || Acharya Prashant (2014)

Speaker: Wanting something is a question of values, right? But where do your values come from? Who has taught you what to want? And don’t we have that basic intelligence through which we can enquire whether there is any substance in that which we are wanting?

You will say something. You will say, “We have been taught since childhood that there are one thousand things more valuable than Truth, so we are wanting those things. We do not want the Truth. I have time, but I have my priorities. I will invest my time somewhere else. I cannot come to you, I cannot read, I will not write emails, I cannot write commentaries, or reports.”

“Yes, time is the same for everybody. Everybody has the same amount of time, but my priority is to invest that time somewhere else because that is what I value.” Right? It’s the direct question of values. “What do I value more? What are my priorities? What are my priorities?”

Don’t we have the basic intelligence to see that where do these priorities lead me? Where have these priorities come from? And those who follow the path of these priorities, where do they land? We all are educated – this degree, that degree – still you have other priorities? Still, you have other and more important work that you would rather want to do?

The only logic, the only excuse you have is – “I have my other priorities.” Right? Is that not so? Correct me if I am wrong. “I had other and more important work. I had other and more important obligations to keep. Something else is more valuable.”