The honest man has just One priority

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

Question: Sir, there is a quote of yours that says, “Only by being firmly tethered to one’s core can one fly freely. Wandering without a center is looseness, not freedom.” Doesn’t that have something to do with priorities? Like, making a single priority and then letting it continue.

Acharya Prashant (AP): ‘Who’ is making that priority? You talk of priorities as if priorities are something objective. ‘Who’ is making the priority?

What is the priority of a politician contesting elections? — To win the election.

What is the priority of a thief breaking into somebody’s house? — Steal.

What is the priority of a man out to kill? — Kill.

‘Whose’ priorities are you talking of? Your priorities depend upon your mind. We all have priorities but we do not even know that those priorities are not at all ‘our’ priorities. Those priorities have been imposed upon us by various forces.

What you call as ‘your priority’ is not your priority, because first of all, you do not exist.

Whose priority is that? — Somebody who is conditioned, somebody who is a total product of conditioning.

Or let me put it this way —…