You are the personification of the only Real; why then must you chase an ideal?

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

Questioner (Q): Sir, it is also not incidental that man has, throughout history, connected otherworldliness with Truth or God, I mean this is the way that things have been propounded, right, in all the religions, in all the images…

Acharya Prashant (AP): Not really, are we saying that Dattatreya is outside the domain of religion? The highest word in religion has always been this. But if you are confining yourself to the lower echelons of religion…

Listener (L): Which is the mainstream religion.

AP: The mainstream is idiotic, what can you do about it?

L: Sir, one thing is this that the way things have been presented, the other thing is also the style of the discourses, the way things have been presented — we always talk about the ideal — the way you should listen, the kind of expression that must be on your face — inadvertently an image gets created, you can’t help it — this is the way you should listen, this is the image of a saint, this is this, this is this.

AP: No, but that is important. You see, we are constantly talking about coming close to the material.