Forget God; attend to the cat

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: Sir, you said that facts lead to Truth. Can we say that only facts can lead to Truth?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Facts take us to the door of Truth. After that, one never knows what will happen.

If you want a more definitive statement, a more definitive statement is: facts give you freedom from illusion.

That is a more definitive statement.

Listener 1 (L1): And isn’t that the Truth?

AP: Freedom from illusion? Not yet, not yet.

L1: What is left then?

AP: You are still at the gate. Just said, that all observation is subjective. The subject is still left. So facts will give you freedom from a lot but the one who kept gathering the facts, a bit of him is still left. It’s like you are asking everybody to leave the room, and after everybody has left, you are still left. Just a little bit.

L1: Won’t that be the last step towards Truth because there is nobody to observe, and I’ll observe my Self, and then I’ll see the falseness of my Self?

AP: When? After everybody else has gone?

L1: Yes.

AP: What will you observe then? You can observe only you talking to Anshu (a fellow listener). If Anshu is gone, what will you observe?

L1: Sir, if Anshu is not there, then will I survive? For my survival, somebody else is also needed.

AP: Physical survival — yes, not mental survival. To survive physically, you need others. Mentally if you need others, then ego is created. That’s what we have been talking about so far, the mental division. If mentally you are in need of others, then there is division.

You know the relationships between human beings. It would sound very unsettling to some, but the relationships between human beings must be almost like the relationships between animals — purely material, purely physical. When there is a mental component to the relationship then there is the dependency, then you are looking towards the other to provide you company and you know completion and all that. So you must have a totally material relationship like…