How to move from confusion to clarity?

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

Question: When one is confused, one doesn’t like it. And clarity does not happen. So, this is it.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Can you be confused without being clear? Are there clouds without the sky? Now, what do you want to talk about — the clouds or the sky?

All confusion is about paying too much importance to the clouds, without realizing that if there are clouds, surely they are in the sky, now why must I talk so much about the clouds?

When you know that there is a great envelope of the sky, then clouds are beautiful; then they don’t threaten you.

Listener (L): Sir, we get basically problematic because when some pattern comes to the mind then our mind in an automatic mode starts saying, “What to do? What to do?” Then it gets trembled and says, “I am not getting the answer! What to do! What to do?”

AP: Who will do?

Take the analogy of the burning house forward. You are outside of that house; if you are the owner of the house then what to do has a different answer. And if you are the one who has set the house on fire then what to do has a different answer. So, the answer to what to do depends on who you are.

If you are the one who has set the house to fire then — what to do? Well, run away! If you are the owner of the house, then what to do? Well, call the fire brigade.

L: Sometimes, it is both.

AP: Then do both. Call the fire brigade and run away.

(Laughter)

L: We realize it later but every force is beyond our control and one sees them, one feels them. But, that is what it is.

AP: When you see that the doer is a conditioned machine who has been doing in this way for very long, then this urge to do itself sublimates.

“What to do?” has a doer behind it and the doer is not new. That doer is ancient. You very well know the workings of that doer.

When you see that the doer is about to repeat the same story again then you refuse to give the doer any more power.

Then, the doer simply sublimates, goes away; dissolves into the Supreme.

L: So, that way you feel that your problems are very much predictable.

AP: Except for the Truth, all is predictable.

Watch the full video here.

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