Cessation of mental suffering

Acharya Prashant
3 min readJun 1, 2020

Cessation of suffering is to know the suffering as false.

Cessation of suffering is cessation of the confidence that you place in your suffering.

Cessation of suffering is not the same as the stopping of something Real.

Cessation of suffering is just like waking up from a dream.

Cessation of suffering is just like getting rid of an imagination.

That is why the word “nirvana” is such a beautiful word. It does not mean that you reach another elevated state. It means your burning has seized. You are burning internally and now the flame is gone.

Suffering does not occur without your active consent.

Can you be happy without being full of acceptance for a situation? And your acceptance comes from your expectations. Can you suffer without being full of resistance for a situation?

You suffer only when you do not want something to happen. Your resistance is the suffering and who is the one that resists? The one who feels himself to be threatened, insecure and small. So he says, “If this happens, then I am in danger. So let me resist.” The moment you resist, suffering starts.

Suffering itself is a concept based on another concept.

The mother concept is “I am small” — a concept, and hence, “I must resist” — a concept. “I resist and I am unable to defeat that which I resist” — another concept. Do you see how the whole chain flows? At the center, of all this, lies a perception that you are limited.

Unless you are limited, you have no reason to feel inflated because of something, and hence you cannot be tied to pleasure.

And unless you are small, you have no reason to be afraid of something and hence you can have no reason to resist.

Then you stand in front of the winds, open chested, and then you say, “Come what may, I am not resisting something because nothing is so powerful that it can influence me or defeat me.”

Now you are not resisting. Now the universe is flowing into you, and then through you. You are a part of everything.

Do you see this?

I am again asking you — Can there be suffering without

Acharya Prashant