You are not diseased, you are the disease

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

Question (Q): How can I be liberated from bondage?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Let me start with the story of a monkey. There was a monkey who had been chained since birth. Some people even say that the monkey was born with a chain. We don’t know about that. But what we know is, that the monkey had been chained since birth.

The monkey now says, “I want to get rid of the chain.” But because the monkey had been chained since birth, it had developed a strong attachment to the chain. So strong is the attachment that he had started thinking that the chain is one of his hands. So he would say, “I have two hands, two legs, and I also have a third hand here, the one which is tied to my neck.”

Now the monkey asks, “Why can’t I go beyond this limited area?”

The monkey has grown young. The monkey says, “The world looks wide and big. I must be able to go everywhere. There are these trees, and there are these juicy fruits, and I can have them. Why must I be limited?” The monkey now says, “I must be free of bondage.”

What is the monkey now trying to do? He says, “I must be free.” and ‘I’ means ‘me,’ which is my body . . .