Which books should one read? || Acharya Prashant (2017)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 Books are very important.

00:02 They are the source of knowledge, all kinds of knowledge.

00:07 Now, after exploring the scriptures and the Hindu literature, I also came to know that

00:16 knowledge is dangerous sometimes.

00:18 So now, how as a reader I should know that what books to read because there are many

00:28 numbers and life is short, short in time and infinite in living as well.

00:36 So, what is the intelligent way of looking at books and find out what are things to find

00:44 out, read and then contribute for learning.

00:48 At the root of the question, what is the right book for me?

01:12 What is the right book for any reader?

01:19 Lies the question, who is this entity that is being called as the reader?

01:26 Who is this one who reads any book?

01:34 Surely this person is the one we see all around, this entity is nothing but the one who thinks,

01:49 thinks, plants, lives, dies, celebrates, suffers, remains in his own world.

02:04 This is what the reader is.

02:08 This reader has been classically, as you already know, called as the ego for the self.

02:27 What is good for this self?

02:29 I am broadening the question.

02:31 The question was, which one is the right book for me?

02:34 Which book is good for me?

02:36 I am broadening the question to me.

02:39 What is good for me?

02:41 What is the good book for me?

02:42 What is the good person for me?

02:44 What is the good action for me?

02:46 What is the right decision for me?

02:49 What is this rightness?

02:52 What is the fundamental definition of goodness?

02:55 What is good for the ego?

03:00 I am asking, what is good for me?

03:03 I am asking, what is good for the ego?

03:06 What is good for the ego?

03:10 That which is good for the ego is marked by two parallel effects that it has upon the ego.

03:23 Only note those effects very carefully.

03:28 The right book, the right person, the right environment, the right decision will always have two effects upon you.

03:38 Two parallel effects.

03:40 First effect is, they will not be pleasant.

03:47 The first effect is, they will not be pleasant.

03:50 Read the right teacher, read the right book, read the right place, read the right word, the right advice, the right decision.

03:57 Write anything.

04:00 It will not be pleasant.

04:02 It will not be a source of pleasure.

04:05 The ego will not like it because whatsoever is right for the ego is right only because it acts on the ego and resolves it.

04:16 The ego wants relief from itself while parallelly wanting not to dissolve.

04:24 So when the right thing happens, the ego does not feel happy.

04:28 Pleasure is not there.

04:30 The right book will repulse you.

04:37 The right book will have something that you will resist and resent.

04:41 Same is the case with the right person. Same is the case with right anything.

04:47 You will not like it. You will want to run away from it.

04:50 Something within you will contrive, conspire, will push you away.

04:55 That something often succeeds.

05:00 You are pushed away from that which is really essential and necessary.

05:05 And that brings me to the second effect that rightness and goodness have upon the ego.

05:12 The second effect is you will not be able to stay away for long.

05:17 The first effect is that you will be pushed away.

05:22 The second is you will not be able to stay away.

05:26 So the right one will tear you apart.

05:30 On one side will be the momentum of your past life, of your existing tendencies.

05:37 On the other side will be the inexorable push of the new.

05:44 You will not know which way to go.

05:48 In fact you will know if you want to decide, if you want to think only one way to go.

05:54 And that way will be the way that goes away from the right book, from the right teacher, from all rightness and goodness.

06:03 So you will do everything in your power to run away.

06:07 Somehow you will get some kind of an excuse to escape.

06:12 Situations will arise that will assist you in your escape.

06:17 And when your tendencies really want something, they are able to somehow get favorable external situations to execute their desire.

06:34 So you will run away. That will definitely happen.

06:38 And after you run away you will find that you have not been able to run away.

06:43 You are being pulled in. You are not able to rest.

06:47 Even if you are trying to act normal, deep within you know that you are missing something.

06:56 Deep within you know that something has gone wrong.

07:01 Deep within you know that there is a hole that is crying out to be filled.

07:10 You will say if I go to the right one, I am damned.

07:15 And if I do not go to the right one, I am doubly damned.

07:19 I repeat the right one might be a book, the right one might be a place, the right one might be anything under the sun.

07:30 But if it is right, and the only mark of rightness is that it pulls you towards peace and silence.

07:41 If it is right, it will put you in trouble.

07:46 You will be disturbed. You will be torn apart.

07:50 In fact, you will curse the day you came in touch with the right one.

07:56 Thousand times you will yell out, you will say I do not know what stupid moment brought me in contact with you.

08:08 I do not know how foolish I was to stay with you, to get close to you.

08:22 And you will want to run away.

08:28 You will want to somehow return to your old world.

08:32 You will somehow want to delete all trace, all memory of the right one from your mind.

08:38 To some extent you will succeed. For some time you will be able to live in your protected cocoon.

08:45 For some time you will find that you are relaxing in your make believe world.

08:50 But very soon, the inner yawning gap will start making its presence felt.

09:01 The hollowness of your existence without the truth will stare you in the face.

09:08 And you have to return because returning is your destiny. You cannot not return.

09:15 The only question is how soon are you going to return?

09:22 The only question is how soon are you going to stop deceiving yourself?

09:30 The only question is how soon are you going to acknowledge that you slipped?

09:37 That life tempted you into making a false decision.

09:46 The sooner you realize and acknowledge, the better it is for you.

09:51 The more you delay it, the more you are cursing yourself to a mediocre existence.

09:58 Man's destiny is to not to remain caught and torn. Man's destiny is to reach the point of total and final relaxation.

10:12 You will not reach that point till you keep avoiding the real one.

10:16 Know the real one by his marks.

10:22 Jesus was very forthright when he said that a tree is known only by the fruit.

10:28 Know by the effect a book, a man, a situation, a world has upon you.

10:36 Does it just comfort you, console you or does it shake you up?

10:44 Is the person just trying to put you deeper into your sleep or is he giving you an uncomfortable wake up call?

10:56 Wake up calls, mind you, are always uncomfortable.

10:59 You want to put off the alarm. You want to prolong your sleep and misery a little longer.

11:05 Note that not everything that appears bitter, not everything that experiences uncomfortable is bad.

11:19 The truth will always appear a stranger.

11:27 Not all strangers mean ill.

11:35 And when you start missing that which is really valuable, do not suppress the realization.

11:47 You have invested a lot in falseness, that is mankind's doing.

11:54 But just because you have invested many years in something, that does not mean that you keep investing more into a false asset, into a false hope.

12:10 That happens. Just because one has gone a long way down the wrong road, he often feels that there is no point taking a U-turn now.

12:23 I have come just too far. No, nobody has ever gone too far because returning is an irreversible destiny.

12:32 And when it comes to the infinity, when it comes to that which is immeasurable, no distance is too far, no magnitude is too much.

12:45 Return. If you do not return, you remain in what is classically called as the cycle of birth and death,

12:57 which is practically nothing but the cycle of incessant human suffering.

13:02 Attraction is no yardstick of authenticity. You will find many books here that attract you.

13:20 You will find many words here that tempt you. Attraction is not authenticity and temptation is not truth.

13:28 In fact, if you can know nothing else, then go to the one who repels you.

13:38 Repulsion by no means is a guarantee of the truth, but the chances that you will find something of worth and value there are higher.

13:50 Go to the person, the book, the situation, the place, the thought that appears really obnoxious.

14:00 Go there. Go there, explore it, be there, have some courage, have some holding power, don't run away.

14:07 And then slowly something just might emerge. Books are not meant to defend the wreck that mankind already finds itself in.

14:35 When one goes to a book, one goes to a possible source of liberation.

14:41 Now do not turn the book into an extension of your existing boundaries.

14:51 Do not buy that which you anyway already are. Do not read that which you anyway already believe in.

15:00 And that brings us to another important thing. Go to a book that is very difficult to be co-opted.

15:08 If you go to a book that lends itself easily to any kind of interpretation, then you will become a master of that book.

15:17 You will use that book to justify your existing ways of life.

15:23 Now the book sadly is not a conscious entity. The book cannot rise up and interrupt you and tell you on your face that you are reading me wrongly.

15:42 So man tends to buy those books that he can use for his own personal purposes to extend the ways of his current life, to meet the demands of his ego.

15:55 Even the best of books become helpless when it comes to this.

16:01 Even the best of books can be read just as per the reader's convenience.

16:06 And that is why sometimes it becomes important to move from the book to the book writer and catch yourself.

16:15 Often you will want to go to the book but avoid the source from where the books come because the source is dangerous.

16:24 Because the source can intercept you. Because the source can catch you by your ear.

16:28 The source can give you a little rap on your knuckles and say no no no no no you are going wrong, you are trying to co-opt me.

16:40 No, this is nothing but the ego at play.

16:43 If there is someone who does that, thank him. Don't run away from him.

16:52 And he will do everything to run away. Every instinct, every cell in the body cries to just maintain its configuration.

17:06 It does not want change. It only wants continuity.

17:10 That is the terrible mess that man finds himself in.

17:15 He is configured to continue as he is and he is destined to be liberated from how he is.

17:27 That is the whole human situation. That is our predicament.

17:31 Every bit that is conditioned just wants continuity.

17:39 It says let everything remain as it is. Let my desire for pleasure remain. Let my tendencies remain. Let the world remain.

17:48 And then there is your heart which says let the world dissolve. Let everything come to a standstill.

17:53 I want total sleep, total relaxation, total samadhi.

17:56 That is human condition.

18:01 You have to decide which side do you want to favor.

18:09 You have to take the right call.

18:12 Just too many people decide to favor their conditioning.

18:16 Just too many decide to take the easy route out and escape away.

18:21 My request is kindly take the difficult route.

18:27 Because the easy is not easy. The difficult is really easy.

18:33 How is the easy easy when the easy is not going to land you anywhere?

18:39 For sure not there where you really intend to land.

18:45 Your deepest desire is peace. Your deepest desire is truth.

18:50 And your conditioning will not take you there. Your desires will not take you there.

18:54 Your existing ways will only keep you deprived.

18:59 Go to the book that dissolves you.

19:05 Go to the book that scares you a little.

19:13 Go to the book that you cannot master.

19:19 Go to the master.

19:24 Because books can be mastered. Master cannot be mastered.

19:30 I am not saying this out of any personal consideration.

19:41 Or because of a misplaced belief that personalities matter more than written words.

19:51 I am saying this out of a careful observation of what a human being really is.

19:59 I write, I speak, I work so that mankind can find a way out of its misery.

20:09 Books can be very very important means and instruments.

20:16 But books can also be very helpless.

20:19 Worse still books can become co-prosperators in human slavery.

20:24 I must warn you of the pitfalls associated in dealing with books.

20:31 [Heartbeat]

20:38 [Music]

20:46 [Music]

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