How to unburden the mind

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

Question: Acharya Ji, I just keep feeling burdened most of the times. And to escape this burden, I keep racing all day long. But I find myself feeling heavy again.

Please help me unburden myself.

Acharya Prashant: You are burdened, that itself is the proof of the burden. The burden surely does exist, otherwise why would there be a burdened one. So, you are burdened, and you are moving. That movement, you are describing as a race. Great!

If you are burdened and troubled, then surely you must move.

But if you are burdened and troubled, your movement has to be with the intention of, and in the direction of un-burdening.

If I am burdened, and as a result of the burden I run, then the purpose of the run should be to un-burden myself.

So, it’s great that you are running everyday. Now, what remains to be asked is the question, that whether your race is helping you to be unburdened.

You wake up in the morning and the entire day you have been running, has this running helped you by the evening? If it has helped you, congratulations! Again tomorrow, run more, run faster. Running is exactly what you need. But, if it has not unburdened you, then all your running has been in vain, and it has been a stupid thing, to run without knowing the destination, or the purpose.

I am a great supporter of movement.

If one is at the wrong place, one must move, and one must move fast. One must run indeed, and one must energetically run. I seriously support action, but action ought to have a purpose. The purpose is decided by the state of the actor. If the actor is in bondage, then the sole purpose of the action has to be — the Liberation of the actor.

Now, are you acting towards your Liberation? Look at your daily actions. Are they contributing to your Liberation? Or are you rather acting to enslave yourself even more deeply?

Action is good, action is inevitable. But what is your action leading to? Run, run fast. But run in the right direction. Sometimes we run so fast and in such scare, and with such blindness, that we become incapable of knowing…