NIT Trichy: We exist, and we do not

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

Questioner (Q): Sir, it is pretty evident that I exist and you exist, but you have also stated that the ego does not exist. So, when someone calls you Acharya Prashant and you reply, isn’t that an identification that reflects an ego?

Acharya Prashant (AP): It is a thing that is useful to the other.

Q: Yeah, it has a utility for the other. Would you, in a spiritual context, make an absolute statement that “I am not Acharya Prashant, I am something else”?

AP: Not to you. To you, I will say something that is useful to you. The absolute can be uttered only to the Absolute. The Absolute and the false cannot engage in a conversation.

So, that is why even when the Truth has to engage with the ego, it uses words. Remember that every single word represents a concept and is, therefore, in a sense, flawed and false. But to engage with the ego one has to have an identity, one has to use words, and one has to act in a bodily way; otherwise, even the body is false.

Q: But who is that one? Isn’t that one again the ego?

AP: Which one?

Q: When you said one has to engage in an inward conversation with the ego, who is that one who has to…