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Video Information: Shabdyog session, 21.3.16, Rishikesh, Uttaranchal, India
Context:
~ What is real ignorance?
~ What is wisdom?
~ Are wisdom and knowledge related?
~ What is the state of the liberated one?
~ Is liberated one all knower?
Rumi's poem:
Do you think that I know what I’m doing.
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it’s writing,
or the ball can guess where it’s going next. .
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates?
Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
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Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work?
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Want to work with Acharya Prashant?
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➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: Shabdyog session, 21.3.16, Rishikesh, Uttaranchal, India
Context:
~ What is real ignorance?
~ What is wisdom?
~ Are wisdom and knowledge related?
~ What is the state of the liberated one?
~ Is liberated one all knower?
Rumi's poem:
Do you think that I know what I’m doing.
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it’s writing,
or the ball can guess where it’s going next. .
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 You think that I know what I am doing? That for one breath or half breath I belong to
00:19 myself as much as a pen knows what it is writing or the ball can guess where it is going next.
00:34 That is the state of the liberated one. We often think that the liberated one is a knower,
00:46 that he knows a lot, that he has some special knowledge. That is the way we refer to him,
00:59 jnani, the knower. That again is just an image, a stereotype. The liberated one is actually
01:09 a non-knower. He knows nothing. He is totally free of knowledge, totally innocent of knowledge.
01:18 The jnani really has no jnana. And you can be called a jnani only if you are totally
01:28 free of jnana. If you still have knowledge, then you are just ignorant. To have knowledge
01:34 is ignorance. To be free of knowledge is wisdom. The liberated one, as the verse says,
01:43 knows nothing. He knows as little about his actions as the pen knows what it is writing.
01:55 The pen acts just like an instrument. The pen has no free will. The liberated one
02:05 too has no free will. He becomes just an instrument in the hands of the divine.
02:16 Not acting as per his decisions, not acting as per his convenience, he lets decisions happen
02:26 through him. When decisions happen through you, they are spontaneous. When you decide,
02:34 then you weigh, you analyze, you criticize, you take time. The liberated one responds spontaneously.
02:45 So, the image of the liberated one as an all-knowing one is a misleading image.
03:00 In fact, the liberated one is first of all liberated of knowing anything.
03:06 We find it important to know. We find it important to gather knowledge.
03:14 The liberated one knows nothing. For him, there is no insecurity and hence no need to store knowledge.
03:22 He lives in surrender, not in memories.
03:39 To the ego, it is quite horrifying to become like the pen. The pen that writes,
03:45 but does not really know what it is writing. We want to be the holder of the pen. We want to be
03:52 the master of the pen. We want to know what is being written, especially if what is being written
03:56 is our life story. We want to be in charge of the story, do not we? The liberated one
04:05 knows nothing about the story that is being written to him. Others may later on capture
04:10 that story. Others may later on decorate that story and turn it into a fable and a myth,
04:15 even a religion. But he knows nothing. He is like a shooting star,
04:23 happy in his own dissolution. And as he is dissolving,
04:33 he is turning into a streak of sharp light.
04:52 If you decide and act, if you plan and live life as per your
04:59 pleasures, likes, choices, then you will remain what you are.
05:12 (Pause)
05:38 Beautiful issue. Do you think for one breath or half a breath I belong to myself?
05:43 Surrender is the decision to not to belong to yourself. Surrender is the yes to belong to God,
05:55 belong to truth. Surrender is the realization
06:01 that there is something more important than your own petty self.
06:06 (Pause)
06:08 Remember, it is not a decision, it is a realization. You see that there is an immensity
06:13 that deserves more respect than your limits do. That is surrender. Then you say that why must I
06:25 act responsible for myself? I would rather leave my welfare to the one who is really capable of
06:34 providing me welfare. And then you belong to somebody else. Then you can say that you are
06:43 a lover who is united or you can say that you are a servant who is very close to the master.
06:57 Then you say that when all this comes from you,
07:00 when you created all this, including all the mess that is there,
07:09 then you have to be responsible for running all this. It is your show, you run it.
07:16 It is your game, you play it. It is your mess, you clean it.
07:25 I will relax. And that relaxation is effortless action.
07:31 In that is beauty, in that is truth, in that is love, in that is life.
07:41 Simple relaxation, not organized, not cultivated, simple relaxation.
07:52 So,
08:20 free will is in any case a mirage. That what you call as your own will is all conditioned will.
08:31 The choices that you make for yourself are all choices that have been embedded
08:37 within you by several forces of evolution, biology, society, education, environment.
08:50 So, there is no way it can be called as free will.
08:52 When it is coming from somewhere else, how can it be freely yours?
08:57 And when you act from the right center,
09:02 then there is free will, but that is not your free will. That is free will of the free.
09:10 So, whenever you say my free will, that is actually a meaningless statement.
09:18 The ego loves to talk of free will. The ego loves to talk of choices and preferences.
09:23 Oh, it must happen as per my like. What you call as your liking is not at all your liking.
09:32 You will pay attention to it, you will find that you have been made to like something.
09:36 And now you have internalized that liking, you started believing that it is you who actually
09:41 likes. Do not you see that as Indians, one likes a particular food? As Europeans, you like another
09:52 kind of food. Now, how justified are you in saying that it is your liking? Were you born in India,
09:58 would you have liked the same food? In India, everybody likes football. Oh, does he?
10:09 What do we like here? Cricket. And in Canada?
10:13 Ice hockey. In Brazil?
10:19 Australia? I would not ask because they too like cricket a lot.
10:37 Mars? Saturn? Do you have cricket there?
10:44 Andromeda Galaxy? Would you like to say, I like cricket?
11:03 What if you were born in Antarctica?
11:10 The ball would freeze.
11:15 Pun intended.
11:20 Would you still like it?
11:33 So, free will is,
11:34 we do not like to hear that. They are so particular about our choices.
11:49 It is important because I chose this. And there are so-called wise men who tell us,
12:01 choose with care, choose with wisdom. In wisdom, we do not choose at all, that is the only wisdom.
12:09 But you even have books on, thick books on how to make right choices.
12:20 And they have all kinds of algorithms and processes and checkboxes.
12:28 So,
12:36 see, to take any of what I am saying, you need to have a little courage, a little faith.
12:57 If you start feeling afraid on every little thing, then you will only be doubtful of whatever I say.
13:04 What I am saying is not for the chicken-hearted.
13:08 That is why I make enough space for people to leave.
13:13 Because not everyone would take this. People are very wedded to their insecurities and their
13:25 pettiness. You do not want to take that look. It is beautiful, divine, comfortable, relaxing,
13:36 everything. But to the ego it looks scary, it runs away. And you cannot take truth seriously.
13:47 Remember that you are a man of truth only if truth makes you smile.
13:54 If truth makes you go haaas like this, what is he saying? It is like acid rain.
14:02 If my words fall upon you like acid rain, then
14:10 I will consider. I will see whether to choose what you are saying.
14:25 If truth is not funny, it is not truth at all. If it does not make you laugh, it is not truth at all.
14:35 In seriousness, you only protect yourself.
14:45 I will go through the recording a few times. I will sit over it.
15:02 I will appoint a consultant. I will refer my family guru, my pet master.
15:15 You either say an instant yes to it, it is like a love affair.
15:31 You do not deliberate over it. You do not chew it.
15:34 It is an instantaneous yes, of course yes, of course yes.
16:00 I have come here and I have been surprised. Why are the audiences so serious? And why do
16:07 not they ever open their mouth? It is as if they have come to test me.
16:13 Let me gather something from here, something from there, go to the next shop,
16:22 take, buy, compare, leave and then fly back home.
16:27 Can you speak to us about maybe the flow of inspiration?
16:34 Who?
16:35 The flow of inspiration, I am not sure how you would put it, but we look at these things,
16:42 these problems in this country and it is coming from a place.
16:50 But are you saying that the seriousness is an inspired seriousness? No, that is not what I am
16:54 saying.
16:54 No, no, I am saying it is a true inspiration to those two. So, you might see someone who writes
17:04 poetry or someone who does poetry, at times does the mind try to alter or is this not the case?
17:33 Most of us are too identified with the shopper. We come to this place as if we have come to a
17:45 mega spiritual mall, mega spiritual mall, one shop after another, goodies on sale, little Buddha,
18:00 Mahavira s brain, somebody s little fingers, somebody s nails,
18:08 dial of liberation, the fee of peace, acrobatics, gymnastics, tabla, harmonium, everything is on
18:25 sale and you feel like privileged buyers, yes, yes, yes, you are looking at everything, yeah,
18:33 what do you have to offer? Sure. You come and sit here and that is the way you look at the speaker,
18:40 yes. So, what is on display here? It has to do with the shopper, seriously. This is not a shop.
18:52 Truth has no business selling itself.
18:58 [Music]