y = x + sin(x)

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

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, in a recent session, one has heard from you that the binary of going up and down in life, will continue. It would never happen that you would have either only highs or only lows. So, somebody had asked that the person was experiencing these highs and lows very frequently. So, I could relate to this question and I was in a way anticipating a response, but what you said was very radical for me. You had said that such a movement will exist, it would not cease, what you have to ensure is that this movement is upward and not downward. So, your lows have to be higher lows and you move upward. If you could say something about it.

Acharya Prashant (AP): You are talking of the spiritual journey?

Q: In general living from day to night.

AP: My response would only be in the context of spiritual movement.

Q: Yes, yes, of course. Like you had said that this image has stuck in my mind- you moving your hand and saying, “Not this, but this.” So, if one can hear a little more about it, it would be helpful.

AP: This is the superimposition of two curves. This is the curve, y= sin (x). It really never attains any height. It moves centered on the Y-axis. The highs and the lows both are predetermined and dualistic in a sense. You know of the sine curve, right? So, y=sin(x). Now add to this the curve y=x. How does the curve y=x, look like? It is the straight line passing through the origin, at 45 degrees to both the X-axis and Y-axis.

These two when added, give the curve that you are talking of.

What does the addition of these two curves mean? Man is both Prakṛti and something else. Prakṛti is y=sin(x). You are confined within duality- ups and downs, ups and downs, leading to nothing. The up will not remain up, forever; the down will not remain down, forever. Crests and troughs, crests and troughs; that is Prakṛti.

In a state of endless movement: day and night, summer and winter, dry and wet, here and there, yesterday and tomorrow. That is y=sin(x). Man is usually just Prakṛti. So, his life too remains confined within the limits of that curve. A lot seems to be happening, nothing really happens. The curve of…