The only way to solve the problem is to surpass the problem

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

Questioner (Q): There are certain things that I would like to change about myself. Is it a waste of time?

Acharya Prashant (AP): It’s a waste of time, surely.

You are the one who is deciding what to change about yourself. It means you do not like the one that you are, right? That’s why you want to change him. And, if you do not like the one that you are, how can you trust him to bring about the right change?

(Laughter)

You see what is happening — we are saying I want to change myself, that means I cannot be reliable. Had I been reliable, why would I need to be changed?

I have a computer that malfunctions, it’s gone bonkers. Would I use the same computer to find out the solution to the problem? I have a computer that has gone mad, it takes something as input, process something else and displays something else. And it gets influenced by many other computers around especially if they are female computers.

(Laughter)

Would I depend on this computer to find a solution to its own problem? Would I? Then why do we depend on ourselves to find solutions to solve our own problems? Why do we say that I know what kind of change I want to bring about in myself?

Q: Sir, isn’t it the distinction between me and the problem? I see that I have a problem and I start solving it.

AP: No, there is no distinction between the I and the problem.

The distinction between the I and the problem is called the ego. The ego wants to believe that the problem is separate from itself. The ego wants to say the problem is out there, the sickness is out there, I am healthy, and I can cure the sickness. The ‘I’ itself is the problem. And remember that the ‘I’ never witnesses the problem; the ‘I’ always experiences the problem.

We do not know problems because we witness them; we know of problems because we experience problems and suffering. Had we witnessed problems then one sure-shot indicator would have been that we would not have called them problems, we would have just called them situations. When…