How to drop one’s suffering?

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

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, kindly explain the meaning of your quote, “If there is an effort to drop something, know that it won’t be dropped.”

Acharya Prashant (AP): When you say that there is something that needs to be dropped, first of all, must we not ask how is it still sticking to us? No thing, thought, person, or event comes by itself to cling to you. We are the ones that cling to things. And if we are clinging to things, we must surely be having reasons to cling to things.

We are people of reason, of intellect, of rationale, at least that’s how we describe ourselves, don’t we? So, if we are investing a lot of energy just clutching something, just keeping and maintaining something in life, surely we have given ourselves a good enough reason.

If the reason still appears valid to us why would dropping happen? Then the effort to drop would be a reason against reason. There is a reason to keep grasping something and there is a counter reason to let go of it. And both the reasons are emanating from the same little self. Reason fights against reason, which one wins? Actually, no one wins.

At times one of them might prevail. That would be a particular swing of the mood. At other times, in other situations, other…