On Advait Vedanta: Freedom can come only by deception

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

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, since the last few days I have been sharing my learnings with my parents. Every time I discuss something with them, I have to deliberately attack their conditioned mind to make them aware of their conditioning. I feel sorry for them and I find myself being cruel sometimes. How to get rid of this sense of cruelty and proceed further?

Acharya Prashant (AP): I am not the right man to answer this. Yes, you obviously do feel that there is cruelty involved in this. The other fellow is happily living in his cocoon, in his bubble, and you, being driven by love or empathy or just the missionary spirit, want to puncture the bubble. This does involve inflicting a certain pain on the other, there is no doubt about it. Do it as much as you can.

When you can’t take it anymore, then call it a day. Stop the sermon, hug them, treat them with some sweets, and say, “No, no, no, all that I have said so far was all junk. Let’s talk of cute kittens and nice sweets and what’s happening in the daily soaps!” Comfort them. If they are still not comforted, as we said, search for the trending cat videos on YouTube; they are great to watch with family. A dog chasing a cat, a cat chasing a rat¸ cute kittens, baby monkeys —…