Why do you appear harsh, when saints are supposed to be pleasant?

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

Question: Acharya Ji, I have a few friends who also follow different Gurus and their paths. We often discuss Spirituality and land up at the conclusion that a Guru who has known the Truth should always present himself in a pleasant way. That itself shows that he has known the Truth because the Truth itself is blissful and ecstatic.

When I say something to them, they happen to find some of your videos where there is little anger.

Acharya Prashant (AP): There is a lot of anger.

(laughter)

Listener (L): I often find it difficult to tell them that Truth is not something that is pleasant.

AP: When even the great Masters could not tell them, how would you tell them? One needs to be absolutely, spiritually illiterate to assume that Truth has to be pleasant, or the Spiritual Master has to be pleasant.

Who was pleasant? Kabir Sahib, Nanak Sahib? Do you know how Nanak Sahib described the gathering that the world is?

“Asankhya chor, haraam khor. (Countless thieves and cheaters).”

How pleasant is that?

You have to be totally illiterate to see Truth as pleasant.

You are surely going to a Guru who is advising against reading Scriptures.

Have you gone to Kabir Sahib? He beats you around with a thick stick. You said, “Truth is pleasant.” To whom? To the ego? Seriously? Truth is poison to the ego, not pleasant to the ego.

From where are you picking this notion that Truth is pleasant?

If Truth were pleasant, why would the entire world avoid the Truth?

Shopkeepers are pleasant because they have things to sell. So they will smile and laugh.

Teachers are not pleasant, they don’t have stuff to sell you. They are not unnecessarily sour or unpleasant either.

It depends on what you need.

If you are someone who would understand through pleasant-ness, then the Teacher’s method would be a pleasant one. If you are someone who…