The Tragedy That Is Man

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

Question: Sir, why is it that we cannot suppress the nature’s call but we keep on suppressing our expressions for lifetime. Is it that the body has a separate consciousness that cannot be held on?

Acharya Prashant: No, we suppress all that as well. It is just that in the physical system there are certain things that are designed to be totally involuntary. And it’s a great mercy, a relief, that they are involuntary.

The heart beats without our consent. We experience fatigue without our consent. Sleep comes and demands relaxation without our consent. We start feeling hungry without our consent. Oh, we may decide not to have food for a while, but hunger expresses itself without our consent.

So many things happen without our consent. And it’s alright. In the body also, wherever our consent is required, wherever our response is voluntary, there we badly interfere with the body. There our norms of right and wrong take total precedence over what the body is demanding. That is why I said that it’s a relief that certain things simply do not wait for our approval.

If our approval were required, then probably we will never allow ourselves to sweat even if that were to have a totally deleterious impact on the body. Even if that…