Spiritual energy is a total myth

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

Questioner (Q): Every day, like a lot of my day I do practices like I get up every day at 3:30 and do the full morning of practices and even during the day later in nature…

Acharya Prashant (AP): Have they helped?

Q: They have helped and yeah I also assess that inner beauty retreats and there’s so much love there. It’s beautiful but some days I just, there’s, like these days come, like there could be the happiest day of my life and then the next day it could be like nothing helps. You know, like you just feel so much sadness.

And I’m so affected also by other people’s energies, that like I constantly wanna be there for everyone but it also affects me in some way. And I don’t know how do I put, like a protector around myself, so I can be there, honestly be there and I completely listen all time and be of service, as I say but without it affecting me?

AP: Practice, happiness, sadness, energies of people, how do you know that these are meaningful and important things? How do you know, for example, that the energies of other people do affect you? How do you know that there is something called ‘energy’ of a person? How do you know that your practice is indeed suitable for you, or to put it a little bluntly, is any good?

Q: The practice I do?

AP: Yeah.

Q: (Questioner is silent and thinking)

AP: Because you see, we must inquire a little. If the output of this entire mix is sadness, maybe punctuated by happiness but still a lot of sadness then we must ask whether the elements of this mix are actually worthy and useful.

You talked of love. How do you know what is love? And is it too late to erase everything and re-learn?

Q: Re-learn what exactly?

AP: Why is it not possible that there is actually nothing to be sad about but there are assumptions and beliefs that might be causing the sadness? Beliefs about things like energies, practices, love, life, happiness, sadness. I’m not asserting. I am just presenting that as a possibility.