To be clever is to be clever against yourself ll Acharya Prashant on J. Krishnamurthi (2017)
♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?
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?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work?
Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...
Want to work with Acharya Prashant?
Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: 31st Advait Learning Camp, 29.4.17, Jim Corbett National Park, Uttrakhand, India
Context:
~ What is cleverness?
~ How to be really clever?
~ How to live rightly?
~ Why should we avoid cleverness?
~ Is cleverness good for love?
Quote: Clever people, people who are cunning, do not know what love is because their minds are so sharp, because they are so clever, because they are so superficial - which means to be on the surface, and love is not a thing that exists on the surface.
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?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work?
Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...
Want to work with Acharya Prashant?
Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: 31st Advait Learning Camp, 29.4.17, Jim Corbett National Park, Uttrakhand, India
Context:
~ What is cleverness?
~ How to be really clever?
~ How to live rightly?
~ Why should we avoid cleverness?
~ Is cleverness good for love?
Quote: Clever people, people who are cunning, do not know what love is because their minds are so sharp, because they are so clever, because they are so superficial - which means to be on the surface, and love is not a thing that exists on the surface.
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 What is Love?
00:09 Clever people, people who are cunning, do not know what love is, because their minds are so sharp, because they are so clever, because they are so superficial, which means to be on the surface.
00:24 And love is not the thing that exists on the surface.
00:31 Are these two the same? Sharpness of mind and cleverness?
00:51 What is meant by cleverness of mind? What is meant by that Chaturai that Kabir denounces?
01:11 Cleverness is manipulation.
01:21 Trying to change things.
01:25 Trying to change things so that... Would you see only that which the mind is trying to change or would you also see that which the mind is trying not to change?
01:43 In manipulation surely you want to change a few things. But why do you want them to change?
01:54 So what do you want to keep intact?
02:01 So please do see that the mind is prepared to change everything, just so that it does not have to change.
02:15 So that your own story about yourself remains intact. You are prepared to weave a thousand fantastic stories about the world, about the universe.
02:26 You are prepared to distort all the facts, just so that you do not have to come to self-correction.
02:37 Is that not what happens?
02:41 So that we might be proven right. We are prepared to prove everything and everybody wrong.
02:54 So that our own personal version of ourselves and the universe can be sustained.
03:05 We are prepared to ignore all the facts about the world and come up with baseless stories.
03:20 Don't we do that? That is manipulation. That is cleverness.
03:28 Cleverness shoots outwards. It wants to change that which is seen and that which can be shown.
03:44 And it shoots outwards so that it can defend that which remains inside, the core, the shell.
03:59 And here by the core and the shell I do not mean the truth.
04:04 I mean the very seed from which all manipulation arises. The I tendency, the weak, fragile, indefensible I tendency.
04:25 Clever people, manipulative people surely do a lot, don't they?
04:36 They are quite skillful with their actions, are they not?
04:42 They display sometimes extraordinary skill.
04:48 They are a master of their craft.
04:54 But what is all that mastery, that craftiness intended at?
05:09 They can make the world run according to their wish.
05:17 They can come to a situation and append it to suit their purposes.
05:30 What is it that they are really doing?
05:57 They are just trying to save themselves.
06:04 In this effort to save themselves, they are using the world as an instrument, as a ratification, as a proof.
06:24 One might not be lame, let's say.
06:31 But one might have started believing in his lameness.
06:38 And believing in his lameness, one can craft an outstanding support, a brilliant crutch for himself.
07:00 One can get the wood at the least rate possible.
07:08 One can negotiate very deftly with the carpenter.
07:18 One can draw a very well engineered design of a crutch.
07:30 All of this is cleverness.
07:33 And ultimately one does succeed in getting a magnificent crutch and the world will come and congratulate you.
07:43 The world will term you a winner. You got what you wanted.
07:49 You wanted to produce a crutch. You succeeded in producing a crutch against all odds.
07:58 But do you see how terrible your success is? Do you see how tragic all your efforts are?
08:13 By managing to create a crutch for yourself, you have further established your lameness.
08:24 That is what cleverness does. It succeeds on the outside and fails terribly on the inside.
08:31 In fact, the more it succeeds on the outside, the more tragic and more grave is the inner failure.
08:40 If you have a beautiful crutch, then your lameness has been deeply fortified and secured.
08:51 And your lameness is artificial. Are you getting this?
08:59 You have succeeded in creating something brilliant on the outside and all that brilliance is just a decoy to hide something very unnecessary within.
09:23 Look at it from the eyes of ignorance and you feel like congratulating yourself.
09:33 Look at it with eyes of wisdom and you curse yourself.
09:58 Success on the outside is often needed just to hide deep failures on the inside.
10:13 And those who have one inside mostly do not need to succeed on the outside.
10:24 That does not mean that they will willingly go for failures, but they will not be obsessed with success.
10:37 Do you see what cleverness is?
10:40 Cleverness is a terrible powerlessness, helplessness, because you cannot treat the patient, so you are treating the patient's car.
10:57 That is cleverness.
11:05 You are unable to treat the real patient, so what are you doing?
11:10 You are now treating the patient's car and you indeed succeed in treating the patient's car.
11:19 You give it a new color, new tires, new machinery, but so what?
11:27 What have you treated?
11:30 You have treated that which required no treatment.
11:33 You have succeeded where no success was needed, where no success is relevant or applicable.
11:42 And where real success was needed, there you are an abysmal failure.
11:55 Are you getting it?
12:00 Would you like to go to a doctor who starts treating your shoes?
12:07 That would be a clever doctor.
12:10 The thing is, if there indeed is such a doctor and he really treats your shoes quite well,
12:16 there are many a patients who would get impressed and they might just give him more business, return to him again and again.
12:28 Is it not possible? It's quite possible.
12:36 To be clever is to miss the point.
12:41 To be clever is to shoot at the wrong target and succeed.
12:50 To be clever is to go to the market to purchase sugar and instead buy salt at deeply discounted rates
13:00 and return home happily celebrating your success.
13:04 After all, you have managed to procure salt that too at deeply discounted rates.
13:11 You totally forget why in the first place did you go to the market.
13:17 That is cleverness, to miss the point and succeed elsewhere.
13:27 You couldn't get love.
13:29 So, you have raised three factories and the factories are doing wonderfully well.
13:34 That is cleverness, to miss the point.
13:49 You are thirsty and just when you are looking for water, you found some sweets and now you are rejoicing.
14:00 That is cleverness.
14:04 Would these sweets quench your thirst?
14:09 But you are rejoicing. That is cleverness.
14:13 Cleverness is such a deep tragedy.
14:19 It makes you feel that you are a winner exactly when you are the worst loser.
14:37 And what is meant by a sharp mind?
14:41 A sharp mind is the one that gets water when it goes for water.
14:51 Now liquor and sweets cannot distract it.
14:56 That is sharpness.
14:58 Sharpness and cleverness are two very different things.
15:04 Sharpness is attendance, sharpness is devotion, sharpness is observation.
15:22 Observation in the sense in which you say one observes religion, one observes the truth.
15:31 To observe is to follow.
15:36 To be sharp is to follow the truth.
15:40 To be sharp is to remain continuously with the fact, not forget it, not weave dreamy stories.
15:53 That is sharpness.
16:02 But you must know the difference between a simple mind and a clever mind.
16:16 So, you need two proxies to denote the difference.
16:22 Words are merely proxies.
16:24 Words do not matter.
16:26 What is important is that you know that there are indeed two qualities of mind.
16:31 Those two qualities can be denoted by whatever symbols, green and red, A and B, sharp and clever, sharp and simple.
16:39 It doesn't matter which words you use.
16:41 What is important is that you know that there exists a distinction.
16:46 That line of separation must be very clear.
17:08 Observing is not watching.
17:09 To observe is to be surrendered to.
17:13 Serve, focus on the word serve.
17:18 So, whether you say you are observing or whether you say you are attentive, the emphasis is always on serving, on attending.
17:42 Do you see what these words point to?
17:44 They point to surrender.
17:47 You are attending.
17:50 Attending in the same sense as the waiter attends to the guest.
18:01 Serving in the same sense as the servant serves.
18:14 Observed observance must be taken in its true spirit.
18:20 Observation is not to be taken superficially.
18:24 Observation does not mean watching with the eyes.
18:29 To observe something means keeping closely with the thing.
18:35 To observe is to keep closely with something.
18:41 That's the same as attention.
18:44 That's the same as devotion.
18:50 To observe means to keep closely with or to follow or to stick to the discipline of.
19:05 It strikes my mind, the thing about cleverness.
19:15 Cleverness is like switching off the lights because you do not want to see your ugliness.
19:24 Cleverness is like manipulating the mirror because you don't want to see your spoiled face.
19:32 Cleverness is like manipulating the measuring tape because you do not want to see that you are a dwarf.
19:45 That is what cleverness is, trying to change things on the outside just so that the inside remains secure.
20:09 Cleverness is a bit like the lights on the disco floor.
20:14 The lights themselves are so drunk there.
20:18 One comes on, the other goes off in some random arbitrary pattern that even a non-dancer appears like dancing.
20:28 Even if you are standing still, the ambience is such that you appear like a fantastic dancer.
20:37 That is cleverness.
20:41 When so much arrangement has to be made so that you may enjoy the pretense of dancing, that is called cleverness.
20:50 Now you are not really a dancer, you aren't dancing in any sense, but an environment, a total scene has been created in which you feel as if you are dancing.
21:05 The music is so loud that it will penetrate your eardrums.
21:14 Then the lights, then the darkness, then all the people around you and you start feeling as if it is a scene of great celebration.
21:29 Actually, there is no celebration. You are just tricking yourself.
21:35 That's nice. To be clever is to be clever against yourself.
21:40 To be clever is to trick yourself.
21:51 I know of a very clever child.
21:59 He had pain in his right arm, but whenever he would be taken to the doctor, the doctor would hold his arm and press it and check it and that would make the arm pain even more.
22:16 So one day when he was taken to the doctor, he showed his left arm to the doctor and the doctor declared that he is fine.
22:26 That is cleverness. Hiding your disease, fooling the world just so that you can hide your disease and thereby continue your disease.
22:39 All that the doctor remembered was that there was some problem with one of the arms.
22:44 The child very cleverly showed him the left arm and the doctor says, "Wow, chap, you have recovered nicely. Good. You need not come to me again."
22:55 That is cleverness.
22:59 [Music]