Personal enlightenment is a myth

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

Questioner: Sir, you said a while ago that there is no personal salvation. I have heard you saying this before as well, but somehow this doesn’t hit hard. I am not able to understand this.

Acharya Prashant: Then you must try personal salvation and fail. You still seem to be insisting deep within, that personal, localised, divided Liberation is possible, that belief is probably quite deeply entrenched. And nobody is to be blamed, because that’s what the tradition of ‘Enlightenment’ has been.

We say, “This fellow got Enlightenment, and then in another century and at another place that fellow got Enlightenment.”

And then in this gathering — “O! This one is Enlightened.”

So the entire concept is of — one among a million. That must have gone down deep into you, so you are finding it a bit difficult to pluck and throw it out. We say, “The Buddha tried and got it.” It’s almost like a Tech Unicorn in today’s age — there are so many who try for it, but there is one in a billion who manages to get that billion-dollar evaluation.

Doesn’t happen that way, can’t happen that way.

Try for your personal Liberation, and if you are serious about your personal Liberation, sooner that later you will find that for your own sake you are compelled to help others.

For your own self-interest you are compelled to help others.

Is that okay?

Watch the full video here.

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