Go mad, go really mad, don’t just pretend

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them

~Rumi

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

Acharya Prashant: Insomnia is a restlessness. Insomnia is a breaking down of the regular pattern of consciousness. Consciousness exists as the waking state, as the sleeping state, as the dreaming state. Insomnia here refers to a breaking down of the regular patterns of mind, which is a kind of madness. To a mind which thrives on patterns, a breaking down of patterns appears so much like madness.

We have been accustomed to thinking that the Liberated One, that the one who has attained Moksha or Nirvana, behaves in a cool, composed, poised, elegant way. We have a certain image of the Buddha — walking nicely, smilingly gently, speaking softly, not being rude or harsh, offering a gentle touch, not hurting or killing, acting very very wisely, acting very intelligently (Intelligently in our own sense, whatever we call as intelligence). We have that particular image of the Liberated One.

The poet is trashing that image. The liberated one is a mad one, He cannot sleep at nights.

The Liberated One has no obligation to conform to your image of the liberated one.

A Meera was in no way subscribing to the image of the Buddha. Krishna was so well decorated with the Morpankh (the feather of the peacock), and Mahavir was totally naked. There have been Liberated ones who have been crying all their life. There have been Masters who would be very angry, and often so.

Nobody lives as per a particular code of conduct applicable to liberation. If there is one thing common between all of them, it is that the world considered them insane, surely at some point or the other — that is common. Patterns are not common among them. Their insanity is the only thing that puts them together in one bracket, in one set. Otherwise, they are all very unique and very different flowerings.

The Liberated One would be known only by his madness, by His…