You are surely the Best

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

Acharya Prashant (AP): Abhay said that there is a feeling, a strange feeling, he does not probably know the origin of it. But the feeling nevertheless is, and the feeling says, ‘I am the best, Abhay is the best’, that’s what the feeling says. And because of what the feeling says, he feels entitled. For if I’m the best, must I not expect respect and special treatment from others? That’s the situation Abhay has brought to us, let’s look into it.

Abhay, one is indeed the best, there is no doubt about it. But the dimension in which you are the best is the dimension of non-duality. In that realm, in that dimension, you are the best without a second. Unarguably, indubitably, you are the best. But you are the best, without a second.

Eko-aham-dvitiyo-naasti (एको अहं द्वितीयो नास्ति)

When you are the only one in that dimension and there is nobody else, there is no question of you being inferior. So, you are the best. But you are the best one who is incomparably best and if he’s incomparably best, it actually means that there is nobody to compare the best one with. There is only the one, so the one is the best one. Why call anything less than the best, for there is only, the one?

In that realm, there exists no meanness, no scope for improvement, no imperfection. And as we said, you are second to no one in that realm. Nobody can show you down. And you don’t need to look up to anybody, for there is nobody to look up to.

You are fully entitled and authorized to take yourself as the best if you are abiding in the non-dual realm. Now my question to you is, honestly, is it in that realm that you abide?

If that’s where you live, go ahead and declare to everybody that you are the best. But that declaration will be difficult because there is nobody except you. In that realm, there is nobody except you. See, you will find, announcing it to the world, a little difficult. Why? Because a world will be difficult to find. There’s only the Truth. Getting it?

Each of us is manifestly brilliant, each of us is not only the best, it would be an understatement to say that we are just marginally better than the second-best, we are incomparably better.