To know your intentions, watch your actions

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

Listener: We did this play on –‘What is the intention?’

What is the intention? We live more in the conscious rather than the sub-conscious, right? So can we figure our our intention using only the conscious mind?

Acharya Prashant: From the conscious you will know the sub-conscious, the unconscious, everything. What else is the function of the root, it shows up as the fruit. So go and look at the fruit and you will know the root. Fruit is nothing but an extension of the root. So, if you can look at the conscious, you will find that it is just an extension of the unconscious.

The conscious mind is only an expression of the unconscious mind. It is not different. If you are not careful enough, you will start saying the fruit is different from the root. They are not different. They are organically linked.

The root is becoming the fruit. Similarly, the unconscious is bit showing up as the conscious. So, pay attention to the conscious. Pay attention to whatever is going on and you will figure out what is hiding.

So, just keep looking at your thoughts-actions, thoughts-actions and you will know your intention. In fact, it was a very nice revelation in the first scene of your play, you (pointing to one of the listeners) were there and you come in and ask him, “What is the intention? What is intention?”

After you ask him four times, he starts getting irritated. So, is it exposed what the intention is? The intention is self-preservation. Because you are asking him what is the intention. Then he is getting irritated. Don’t you see what he is trying to do? He is trying to defend himself, to protect himself. That exposes the intention, the intention is to? –Protect oneself. Full stop!

So if you just look at how we behave, react, respond these little things then you will know what is lurking within, what is trying to hide itself.

That is why facts are important. See where you spend your time that will tell of your intention. See where you spend your money that will tell of your intention. Money is a very important indicator. See where you spend your money and where you do not spend…