If life feels alright, how to be motivated for change || Acharya Prashant, with IIT Delhi (2022)
Video Information: 24.07.2022
Context:
~How do I get motivated to change my life?
~How do you motivate change?
~How do you stay motivated when life gets hard?
~What to do if you have no motivation for life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
~How do I get motivated to change my life?
~How do you motivate change?
~How do you stay motivated when life gets hard?
~What to do if you have no motivation for life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
00:11 Kalpenj sir, kindly unmute and you can ask.
00:22 Thanks.
00:22 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
00:25 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
00:46 My query, Acharya ji, for you is,
00:49 if we reconcile with the current reality
00:53 and also feel genuinely satisfied,
00:57 then what can motivate the person further in life?
01:01 Is it an ideal state to be in, or is it
01:04 something to worry about?
01:06 A deeper appreciation of the same reality
01:11 that we feel satisfied with.
01:15 Because you see, what is this reality we are talking of?
01:18 We are talking of the facts of the universe.
01:21 And we are talking of the experiencer of those facts.
01:25 That's what constitutes reality.
01:28 Reality means two things.
01:29 One, there is this wall in front of me.
01:32 There is this camera.
01:33 There are all these gadgets that surround me.
01:35 There is this laptop in front of me.
01:37 There is this handkerchief.
01:39 And then there is me that is assigning meanings
01:42 to all those things that I can see, perceive, whatever.
01:46 So that's what is reality.
01:48 The experiencer and the experienced combined.
01:55 Now, do I really know that?
01:56 Because the human condition is such
02:00 that if we really know what is going on
02:04 in this game of duality, the experiencer, the experienced,
02:09 and the experience, gyan, gata, ge, this trifecta,
02:17 if we really know what is going on,
02:20 then we will know we are trapped.
02:21 We are born in a trap.
02:26 So it is impossible to be satisfied with reality
02:30 if we actually know it.
02:35 And if we are satisfied, it is worth
02:38 investigating whether there is a point at which our inquiry,
02:44 for some reason, has stagnated.
02:47 Because you see, the nature of ego
02:52 is such that it values security more than knowledge.
02:58 If knowing something might prove hazardous,
03:02 then it refuses to know.
03:06 And that refusal is anyway easy and comfortable.
03:10 That refusal is anyway comfortable
03:19 because knowing the truth is an arduous thing.
03:26 Now, who wants to slog in order to become
03:29 additionally uncomfortable?
03:32 I am in a happy situation.
03:34 I am in a comfortable place.
03:36 If I want to know the next level of truth,
03:42 then it would require exploration, investment,
03:46 effort.
03:48 Now, what do I get out of that effort?
03:49 Actually, more discomfort.
03:52 So there is no incentive to explore.
03:57 We see, once one is in a happy space,
04:00 what incentive is there to peel a few more layers of reality
04:05 to get to the core of truth?
04:08 One investigates, one explores so
04:11 that one may get some rewards.
04:14 In the case of reality, the reward is further discomfort.
04:19 So it's very then prakritic that one settles down.
04:27 One settles down.
04:28 You know, one settles down.
04:29 And that's why you probably now appreciate
04:31 that there is so much emphasis on settling down
04:35 in our culture, society, and thought.
04:38 One wants to settle down as fast as possible.
04:40 Because if you don't settle down,
04:43 you run the risk of letting things
04:45 become more and more uncomfortable for yourself.
04:49 Because you will know more.
04:50 And knowledge is dangerous.
04:53 Settling down means now you have turned a place
04:56 as your permanent station.
04:58 And you can have a nest there.
05:00 And you don't need to know much.
05:02 You don't need to travel much.
05:03 Your journey has come to a full stop.
05:05 And all that is OK.
05:07 So you see, we are born in a bad situation.
05:14 And it's a difficult thing to admit.
05:18 The very fact of birth is, in some sense,
05:22 an unfortunate event.
05:25 We are born with fear.
05:26 We are born with greed.
05:27 We are born in ignorance.
05:31 But with the potential to transcend all these.
05:35 The potential is a thing in future.
05:37 The potential is a thing to be realized.
05:40 The potential is not automatic.
05:42 But the misery is automatic.
05:45 The child cries aloud the moment it is born.
05:49 But the child has to be painfully
05:52 educated for two decades before he
05:54 can be called a human being.
05:57 So education takes so much effort.
05:59 But ignorance is automatic, prakritic.
06:02 It just happens.
06:03 It is there right from the womb.
06:07 So one cannot be born into a happy place.
06:12 One cannot be born in freedom.
06:13 We are all born in bondages.
06:15 One cannot be born in realization.
06:17 We are all born in ignorance.
06:19 So the fact of human existence is really not a joyful one.
06:26 Joy is something one has to attain
06:31 with a lot of effort, determination,
06:35 and renunciation.
06:38 That's when you come to liberation and joy
06:41 and that bliss that we so much talk of.
06:47 Have we come to that if we are contended?
06:50 Have we really come to that point?
06:51 Now, can there be contentment without realization or joy?
06:56 Have we really realized right up to the point
07:01 where the object to be realized and the subject that realizes
07:06 have both merged into each other and vanished?
07:10 All that euphemism that we have for the absolute,
07:15 have we come to that?
07:16 And if we have not come to that, how
07:17 is it possible that we are already free of our troubles?
07:22 Now, it's a dangerous situation where the troubles still exist,
07:30 but one feels as if they do not.
07:33 The enemy has succeeded in masquerading itself
07:37 to the extent that the victim, that the attacked one,
07:46 has been lulled into complacency.
07:52 Now, having an appreciation of the threats that surround you
08:01 at most gives you sleepless nights,
08:06 but it still saves you because you
08:08 know that you are threatened.
08:10 But what if you are threatened, but feel that you are not?
08:15 What if there are problems, but they have become invisible?
08:20 That's a bigger threat, is it not?
08:24 So that's also the reason why there
08:28 are so many people who do not want
08:31 to come to the scriptures, who do not
08:35 venture into spirituality.
08:37 Because the first thing the Upanishads will tell you
08:43 or a Buddha will tell you is that you are in a bad place.
08:46 How does the Bhagavad Gita open?
08:51 Arjuna says, Krishna, take me to the middle of the battlefield.
08:56 And there he realizes that he is sandwiched very badly.
09:04 On one hand are the people who have suffered along with him,
09:11 his brothers, his relatives.
09:15 On the other hand are his teachers, his friends,
09:24 and so many others he has lived with.
09:27 What to do?
09:28 I find it very symbolic that first of all in the Gita,
09:35 there is an appreciation of the dire situation
09:39 every single individual is in.
09:42 That's life.
09:43 We are in a bad situation.
09:46 And if Arjuna does not appreciate that,
09:48 then the Gita won't happen.
09:50 Arjuna is the only one on the battlefield
09:52 who says, I want to take stock.
09:55 I want to really know what's going on.
09:59 We need to know what is going on.
10:02 And when you know what is going on, it is often not pleasant.
10:07 Just as the first noble truth of Buddha is dukkha,
10:13 life is suffering.
10:14 Life is suffering.
10:16 That has to be appreciated.
10:18 And acknowledging that is not easy.
10:23 Because to acknowledge that life is suffering,
10:26 you'll have to admit that all that which you call
10:31 as pleasurable in your life, all that which you
10:36 think of as good, healthy, OK, acceptable,
10:43 is not as healthy or as acceptable as it appears.
10:48 A lot of change is needed.
10:50 Things are deceptively all right.
10:57 Probably nothing is all right.
10:58 The all rightness would vanish when
11:02 one would go deeper into the reality of things.
11:09 So I suppose if one is blessed to be in a position
11:15 where one feels that there are no obvious challenges
11:20 or troubles and that things are mostly all right,
11:23 then one should use this opportunity
11:26 to go deeper into reality.
11:29 How?
11:29 By asking questions.
11:31 How?
11:31 By experimenting.
11:33 By exploring.
11:39 By going into places where mostly people don't dare to go
11:49 or don't feel interested to go.
11:52 That's when something opens up.
11:55 Is it not?
11:56 I put it this way.
11:59 Probably the game wouldn't have turned around
12:05 for Siddhartha Gautam had he not asked those three, four
12:10 questions to his charioteer.
12:13 And what did he ask?
12:14 He said, does old age happen to everybody?
12:18 Does sickness happen to everybody?
12:22 Then he asked, does everybody die?
12:26 And finally, he had the heart to ask, please tell me,
12:34 will I too die?
12:36 And he was fortunate to have a companion, a charioteer, who
12:41 said, yes, prince, you too will die.
12:44 And it was those questions, those uncomfortable questions
12:47 asked in an inopportune moment that
12:54 helped Buddha seek liberation.
12:57 Because you see, at that moment, he
12:59 was going to a festival, a gala carnival of some kind.
13:05 It was a youth festival of his kingdom.
13:08 It was not at all opportune or comfortable to that moment
13:15 to have asked those questions.
13:16 But he did.
13:16 Do we ask those questions?
13:19 My hunch is that the most important questions
13:22 remain unasked.
13:24 The most important conversations never really happen.
13:28 They don't happen because we make it a point to avoid them.
13:32 We talk of all the silly things.
13:35 We engage into all kinds of discussions and conversations.
13:40 But we don't get into that which is really
13:43 needed to be talked of or discussed or explored.
13:48 Similarly, think of the bandit who
13:55 was called Ratnakar at that time, Daku Ratnakar.
13:58 And then he became the sage Valmiki.
14:02 He asked his wife, he said, you partake in all the riches
14:06 I bring home.
14:09 And tomorrow, if I rot in hell, will you suffer with me?
14:14 And he, too, was fortunate to have a wife who candidly
14:17 admitted, no, no, dear one, that you have to bear all alone.
14:24 I won't accompany you.
14:26 Now, that's the kind of question most persons
14:31 don't ask their spouses.
14:34 That's where we feel we are in a happy and comfortable
14:37 and settled place.
14:38 You are in a settled place only as long
14:40 as you are not asking those honest questions.
14:45 The thing is, we are so afraid of honesty and those questions
14:49 because we know that our fragile peace would simply
14:53 shatter the moment real inquiry happens.
14:58 Husband asks these questions to the wife.
15:01 And after that, you have a huge war for the next seven days.
15:09 So you just want to avoid all that.
15:12 You don't want to ask those questions.
15:14 Similarly, do you want to know the relationship,
15:18 the fact of our relationship with our customers,
15:23 with our employees, or our employer,
15:26 with anything we are related to and anything
15:30 that we feel good and nice about?
15:34 That's the thing with all this apparent goodness and niceness.
15:39 It does not survive being scratched.
15:43 It is so superficial.
15:45 You just scratch the surface, and the ugliness beneath
15:50 shows up.
15:52 So we let the surface remain as it is.
15:55 We don't even scratch it.
15:57 We don't ask the real questions ever.
16:00 And we just talked of asking real questions
16:02 to the ones you are related to.
16:05 Worse still, we do not ask the real questions to ourselves.
16:11 Why do I visit this place every day?
16:14 Why do I return to this place every day?
16:17 In the morning, I do something every day.
16:20 Why?
16:23 Why do I have all these phone numbers in my directory?
16:28 Why must I live in the place where I do?
16:31 Because we have not asked these questions since long,
16:38 so they start appearing odd.
16:41 We feel, but nobody asks these questions.
16:43 Certain things are taken for granted.
16:47 This is commonsensical.
16:49 No, keep commonsense aside.
16:52 And keep truth at the center for a while.
16:57 And then you'll realize that you have
17:01 something to be grateful for.
17:05 Once you put truth in the limelight,
17:08 you will get a purpose for life.
17:11 Because you see, a rightful purpose for life
17:14 has to be in the negativa.
17:18 We are people in bondages.
17:21 So the right purpose must involve
17:25 challenging your bondages.
17:27 Now, you cannot challenge your bondages
17:29 if you do not even know your bondages.
17:31 And realization of bondages comes from honest inquiry.
17:37 So when you really inquire, what do you get?
17:39 You get an idea, an assessment of how deeply bonded you are.
17:47 And once you get that, you get a purpose to live for.
17:52 Now, there would be energy in life.
17:56 Now, there would be a certain vitality and a certain honesty.
17:59 Because you know there is something
18:01 that ought to be challenged.
18:03 You'll say, can't one live simply?
18:05 Can't one live purposelessly?
18:07 Well, that is the prerogative of realized saints.
18:11 Those who have lost their bondages, they, and only they,
18:16 can live purposefully.
18:19 We, common human beings, must have a great purpose
18:23 to live for.
18:24 Our life needs to be purposeful.
18:27 And if your life is rightly purposeful,
18:31 then one day you might come to the point of purposelessness.
18:36 That is the absolute, the final.
18:38 But right now, as we are, we must have a great purpose.
18:41 And that purpose, I said, can come only
18:44 from an assessment of one's bondages.
18:48 And that assessment can come only from courageous inquiry.
18:54 Courageous inquiry.
18:55 Ask, see, probe, experiment, inquire.
18:59 And then you will see that there is something.
19:01 In fact, there is a lot waiting to be done.
19:05 Take that up.
19:05 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
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19:21 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
19:23 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
19:25 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
19:27 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
19:56 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
19:57 Once you ask a certain question, what you get
20:14 is clarity.
20:16 Then that clarity is not there just to be thought of.
20:22 It is not an idea that has been given to you.
20:26 If you are honest enough, then that clarity is something
20:30 you are obliged to now live.
20:34 Once you live it, once you start putting it in action,
20:40 then you get the right to ask subsequent questions.
20:44 And then again, those subsequent questions have to be lived.
20:48 Right?
20:49 Now, what is happening in the process of putting
20:56 that clarity in action?
20:58 What is happening is that the actor is getting reduced,
21:03 that the actor is losing his baggage.
21:07 You do not reach a destination.
21:13 The actor is the one aspiring usually
21:16 to reach a destination, is he not?
21:18 That actor never reaches a destination.
21:21 The destination of the actor is to reach his dissolution.
21:29 Whereas your mental model is that
21:31 of a man walking down a road.
21:34 You feel you are starting from somewhere
21:36 and you have to reach a point somewhere
21:39 outside of yourself far away.
21:41 That's not how the spiritual thing operates.
21:45 In the spiritual journey, you are not walking down a road.
21:50 The action that is happening is reducing you.
21:54 And when have you reached the destination?
21:56 When there is nobody left to reach the destination.
22:01 When there is just nobody left to talk of a destination,
22:05 to talk of this and that, that's when you have arrived.
22:09 The only problem in this is that when you tell this to the ego,
22:13 it does not sound attractive or appealing at all.
22:16 Why?
22:17 Because the ego wants to have the pleasure of knowing
22:22 and announcing that it has reached the destination.
22:25 That's what you want to do, right?
22:27 I've won this title.
22:28 I've completed my degree.
22:29 And then you want to put that on Facebook.
22:33 The thing is, in the spiritual process,
22:36 when you have really won it, you won't survive to declare it.
22:41 And that's why the ego does not like the spiritual process.
22:43 The ego says, what's the point?
22:47 If at the destination, I will no more be alive.
22:51 I want to be at the destination and also
22:53 have the pleasure of experiencing the destination,
22:58 of consuming the fun.
22:59 But if that is the objective, then you
23:03 will never be at the destination.
23:07 So the right action, therefore, is something
23:12 that keeps dissolving you.
23:15 Do you get the kind of algorithm we are talking of?
23:17 There can be no algorithm, but just for the sake
23:19 of a bit of clarity.
23:22 So you know, you live, and when you live rightly,
23:29 that enables you to know further.
23:31 And all this is happening at the periphery,
23:35 internally, when all this is happening,
23:37 you are getting dissolved, dissolved, and dissolved.
23:40 So basically, there is nothing called destination
23:42 or something called accomplishment.
23:44 It's about enjoying the process.
23:46 It is about daring to be in the process.
23:49 Enjoyment and all, I do not know.
23:53 It requires lots of guts.
23:54 Thank you, sir.
23:57 Thank you so much.
23:58 Wonderful.
24:00 Introducing myself, I graduated in 2010.
24:04 And right now, I'm working as an associate professor
24:07 at IIT Jodhpur.
24:09 So I've been listening to you, and I sincerely
24:13 admire the depth with which you teach spirituality.
24:17 So in line with what you have been talking about,
24:21 I have--
24:22 actually, I had a lot of questions.
24:24 But looking at the time, maybe you'll
24:26 be able to take up one or two.
24:28 So the first question was, what is the main aim
24:31 of getting this human life?
24:32 So you said there's a purpose.
24:34 And the common man should have a purpose.
24:39 And once you reach the state of enlightenment,
24:42 then you become purposeless.
24:43 Then you become one with the formless.
24:48 So when we talk about the main aim of getting this human life,
24:53 what is that?
24:54 Why am I born?
24:55 So this is number one.
24:57 The other thing, in line with what you were explaining
24:59 to the other questioners, was that the aim
25:04 is to remove the suffering.
25:05 Because we feel that we are suffering.
25:07 We experience emotions.
25:09 We fear.
25:10 We experience fear.
25:11 We experience sadness.
25:12 We experience a lot of disappointments in our life.
25:17 So that is the aim, that animals are better,
25:19 because they don't have that level of information processing.
25:21 And therefore, perhaps they have lower stresses and lower
25:25 tensions in life.
25:27 Then what is it that is so special about being called
25:30 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
25:32 So why it is called so important to get a human body?
25:37 And the other thing is that when we look at the history,
25:40 we talk about saints.
25:41 We look at their lives.
25:43 We talk about Jesus Christ, how he struggled passing
25:45 the message to the common man.
25:47 People were actually cruel to him.
25:50 And similarly, we witnessed there
25:52 were 10 Sikh gurus who also encountered these, I would say,
25:58 counterattacks.
25:59 When they tried spreading the message of truth
26:02 across masses, there was a retaliation.
26:05 There was a resistance.
26:07 And that actually impacted them physically and financially.
26:10 So what should be my driving force?
26:15 How do I know what my aim is?
26:17 And if I am not able to reach that aim,
26:21 what are the consequences?
26:23 What is going to happen then?
26:24 Where am I losing?
26:26 What am I losing?
26:28 And the other thing is that after enlightenment,
26:31 if there are sufferings still, so what is the benefit
26:36 of being enlightened?
26:38 These are my questions.
26:39 Thank you.
26:41 See, if we know what is it to live, what is it to be alive,
26:50 then the purpose of life is easily apparent.
26:56 We are born into ignorance, are we not?
27:04 There is no moment when we are not divided, not worried,
27:09 not afraid, not tempted, not insecure.
27:15 There is hardly any decision that goes as per the plan.
27:25 We think of one thing and something else happens.
27:29 We live at the mercy of circumstances so much,
27:38 therefore we have to keep fighting the circumstances.
27:45 Death keeps staring at us as the biggest scare there can be.
27:54 That's the human condition.
27:58 We have to first of all acknowledge
28:00 the human condition as we live it
28:04 and as we see it unfolding all around us.
28:09 You look at the common man on the road.
28:11 Do you see joy, peace, contentment on his face?
28:17 You look at the family, you look at the man, the wife, the kids,
28:21 the parents.
28:24 Do you really see honesty and confidence and faith
28:31 and deep love there?
28:33 Or do you also see things that are not apparent,
28:40 but very strongly present below the surface?
28:43 You look at friends hanging out together,
28:49 having apparently a good time, and then you see them splitting.
28:57 You look at the man proposing to the woman
29:05 and tossing up words like love and togetherness
29:09 and eternity and infinity.
29:11 And then you see what happens to all that just a few months
29:18 down the line.
29:20 So that's the human condition.
29:24 You would also look at how our jungles are,
29:28 what we have done to the other species.
29:33 The hundreds of species that are going extinct every day, yes,
29:38 every day.
29:39 You could look at our slaughterhouses.
29:46 You could look at our carbon footprint.
29:50 And then you will realize what the purpose of life is.
29:55 The purpose of life is to extricate ourselves
29:59 from this abominable situation.
30:04 We are in a muck, and we need to be redeemed, extricated.
30:17 That's what one has to live for.
30:18 Now, human beings are special because they
30:28 have a consciousness that asks for liberation.
30:31 I said special, and special does not necessarily
30:37 mean better or higher compared to the other species.
30:42 All the other species are completely prakritic.
30:50 They have no urge for liberation.
30:51 They have only one center within,
30:53 the center of physical nature.
30:56 The moment they are born, their fate has already been decided.
31:03 A dog will live as a dog.
31:06 No dog is ever going to do great things.
31:09 And equally, no dog is ever going to do demonic things.
31:19 You will not find a great dog in the jungle.
31:23 You will not find a great difference between one dog
31:27 and another dog.
31:29 Dogs are dogs.
31:31 But you will find a great difference
31:33 between one man and another man.
31:37 It is very possible that one person can be absolutely
31:42 incomparable to another person when
31:45 it comes to the level of consciousness
31:47 and the quality of life he has lived.
31:53 This urge to be liberated is a double-edged sword.
31:58 It works both ways.
31:59 It can take you higher and higher,
32:05 or it can make you sink to unimaginable depths.
32:10 So are human beings actually privileged on account
32:17 of their human birth?
32:18 Not really.
32:20 999 out of 1,000 human beings actually
32:26 live lives worse than that of animals.
32:30 The opportunity to rise above the animalistic consciousness
32:36 is utilized only by one in 1,000.
32:40 Yes, that one in 1,000 is actually
32:43 far better than animals.
32:46 But only one in 1,000.
32:48 The others would actually have been better
32:51 off being born as animals.
32:54 It is their misfortune that they were born as human beings.
32:57 Because if you are born a dog, you cannot suffer beyond a point.
33:02 You cannot also fall beyond a point.
33:04 Being born a human being, you can fall to atrocious depths.
33:16 The freedom to choose, the faculty of choice
33:21 is available only to human beings.
33:24 Most of us misuse it.
33:29 Why? Because we have no self-knowledge.
33:32 We do not know who we are.
33:34 We do not understand that we are just incomplete consciousnesses.
33:42 We are thirsty minds whose purpose is to quench their inner thirst.
33:49 We think that we are born to earn, to marry, to procreate,
33:58 to consume, to have fun, and then die one day.
34:02 This kind of life philosophy arises from absence of self-knowledge.
34:11 Unfortunately, this is the prevailing life philosophy
34:14 and it has always been this way.
34:16 It's just that today we are additionally, especially unfortunate
34:24 because this philosophy has been empowered
34:30 with a lot of progress in technology and a lot of prosperity.
34:37 A false philosophy has been given a lot of technical and economic power.
34:46 So we are wreaking havoc on ourselves and the entire planet.
34:52 We are very very different from animals.
34:59 Animals are born to live and die as animals.
35:07 A road accident happens, right?
35:13 And the road is running in the middle of a jungle.
35:15 A road accident happens and no animal comes to help the victims.
35:22 It's okay. It's okay.
35:25 You need not raise your finger at animals and prove them guilty.
35:34 It is even possible that if there is a dying person on the road,
35:41 some eagle or vulture may actually come close to feast upon this dying one.
35:55 And you will not be able to declare that bird as evil
36:02 because the bird is only doing what its prakritic constitution,
36:07 what its genetic impulses command it to do.
36:11 It cannot do anything else. It does not have the power to choose.
36:16 But if there is a road accident and human passerbys do not stop to help,
36:24 then they are indeed guilty. Are they not?
36:26 That's the difference.
36:30 We are creatures of consciousness.
36:33 Human beings have a consciousness that can look at itself.
36:40 And when it looks at itself, it sees bondages.
36:43 Therefore, it is obliged to work for liberation and that is the purpose of life.
36:52 By their bodily constitution, animals do not have a consciousness that can self-reflect,
37:01 that can know itself. Therefore, they will never know that they are in bondage.
37:06 Hence, they live in some kind of superficial peace.
37:10 Animals never suffer the kind of tensions and anxieties that most human beings do.
37:19 That is because they have no potential for liberation.
37:22 Now you have to decide what you want to do with your potential and your inner urge.
37:28 It's just an opportunity. And we said this opportunity works both ways.
37:32 It can take you to liberation or it can take you to the various substitutes of liberation
37:46 that crowd the market.
37:49 In our markets, markets of all kinds, what's being sold is actually in the psychological sense
37:59 nothing but substitutes to the real thing.
38:02 The real thing is very expensive from the point of view of the ego.
38:11 So the ego tries to have cheap substitutes and that's what abounds the markets.
38:18 Be it the markets of relationships, of jobs, markets of money, opportunity, career, growth, opportunities
38:26 or markets of material goods.
38:28 We go to those markets because we just don't have the courage to pay the price for the real thing.
38:37 So we go to these duplicate markets instead.
38:42 I'm not sure whether I have answered all the three, four questions that you had
38:49 but I tried to bundle all of them into one and respond. Have I succeeded?
38:55 Yes, you have answered all the questions.
38:58 So the last question which I asked you was that what are the benefits of being enlightened?
39:06 No, there is nobody to receive those benefits.
39:08 I will be free from all sufferings.
39:17 There will be no I, there will be no I as long as you are there.
39:22 How can you be free from sufferings?
39:24 See, let's be a little down to earth.
39:34 It does not behoove us to ask for what will happen when there will be complete freedom from sufferings.
39:42 Right now, let's acknowledge first of all that all of us, you, me, everybody, we are in a pretty miserable state
39:52 and we should be grateful even for a little relative progress that we can have in the internal sense.
40:03 What will happen at the final point is just too much to ask for.
40:10 Why are we asking for final enlightenment?
40:14 Have we had even a relative progress?
40:19 It's like asking what will happen at the moon
40:25 when we are so badly hit in the legs that we can't even move to our restroom or the nearby market.
40:37 So what is more practical and what is more honest is to look at where we really are in the practical sense
40:49 and try to improve from there.
40:52 It is not of much use to have a great discussion about the state of enlightenment.
40:58 That is one thing that should actually never be discussed.
41:02 But the ego finds a lot of pleasure discussing enlightenment.
41:06 You are so far away from it.
41:08 Additionally, enlightenment is not something that is ever going to happen to you.
41:13 When there is enlightenment, there is no you.
41:16 So why are you so interested in enlightenment?
41:20 We should be interested in relative liberation,
41:24 incessant, determined process of liberation,
41:28 not in the end result of the process.
41:31 And that is Nishkama Karma.
41:33 Don't talk too much about what would happen right at the end.
41:39 See where you are and proceed from there.
41:42 And that would be far more helpful.
41:44 Far more helpful.
41:47 Do the next thing right.
41:49 Don't speculate about some divine state.
41:53 Just do the next thing right.
41:55 Look at what is the next decision you have to make.
41:58 Look at the next issue you have at hand.
42:01 And ask yourself, what is the best I can do here?
42:05 Who am I and hence what is it that I now need to do in this present context?
42:11 That's what is spiritual.
42:15 Spirituality is not about speculating or imagining
42:22 some promised state of enlightenment.
42:26 Enlightenment is a word that I am really wary of uttering.
42:33 Because a lot of mischief has happened in the name of enlightenment.
42:38 The aim of spirituality is to give you freedom from your inner diseased state.
42:48 Not to give you theories and ideas and stories about what absolute health looks like.
42:55 The sick man does not need a great song about health.
43:00 The sick man needs a medicine that would make him relatively better the next day.
43:06 And the next day again he has to try to be relatively better the next day.
43:10 That's the process.
43:12 The process is what must matter.
43:14 Not colorful stories about the end result.
43:18 [Music]