Is Self-Respect Important? || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Full video: Ego vs Self-Respect || Acharya Prashant, IIT-Patna (2023) Link:    • Ego vs Self-Respect || Acharya Prasha...    ~~~~~  ‍♂️ 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: 20.03.23, IIT-Patna (Online), Greater Noida  Context: ~ What does it mean by self-esteem and self-respect? ~ What is Ego? ~ How much do we know about ourselves? ~ What is self-awareness? .  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Ego and self-respect, they are quite different concepts.

00:11Ego is simply I exist, I am, I am.

00:17And because you just cannot be without being anything, therefore ego completes the statement

00:25I am by saying I am a male, I am a student, I am a professional, I am wise, I am smart,

00:32I am handsome, I am distressed, I am suffering, I am happy.

00:37These are all ego statements, I am X, I am Y, I am Z, all this is the ego.

00:45What is self-respect?

00:46It's a very hazy thing.

00:49What is respect?

00:51If respect means to value, if the real meaning of respect is that you value someone highly,

01:03then the process of respect involves two things, one you must know what to value, secondly

01:13obviously the object must deserve that value or have that value.

01:21So do I really know what is important?

01:26And the moment I say do I really know what is important, I am referring to the ego, right?

01:32Because the I is the ego.

01:36So does the ego really know what is important?

01:39No.

01:41One very central defining characteristic of the ego is that to the ego only the ego is

01:46important.

01:49Because the ego is false and little and insecure, it just does not have the courage to give

01:55anything beyond itself much importance.

02:00In some way or the other directly or obliquely the ego accords importance only to itself.

02:08I am important.

02:09If I am important, then those who are related to me will become important.

02:13If I am important, then my thoughts will become important, my imagination will become important,

02:17my ideas will become important, my country will become important, my clan will become

02:23important, my past will become important, my dreams and my desires will become important.

02:29All these are ego statements and all these are founded on the mother statement, I alone

02:35am important, that is ego.

02:38I alone am important.

02:40The ego just cannot see beyond itself.

02:43So whenever the ego gives respect to something, what is it that the ego is respecting?

02:50Nothing but itself because the ego has no capacity to truly appreciate anything beyond

02:55itself that requires courage and that requires clarity.

02:58The ego has neither courage nor clarity.

03:01Are you getting it?

03:04So when you say self-respect, that merely means that you are looking at your reflection

03:10in the mirror and admiring it and irrespective of how you really are or how you look.

03:19That's the way several people are, don't you know?

03:23Irrespective of the position they are taking, they keep backing their position.

03:29Irrespective of how foolish their concepts or ideas or dreams or targets are, they keep

03:35chasing their dreams.

03:39That is self-respect, a mark of stupidity.

03:44If I'm not mistaken, the word respect comes from the ability to look cleanly and clearly

03:59at something.

04:03I think the root word is pikyure, so re, looking at something again, that's respect.

04:14Looking at something again and again with the intention to come to the truth, that's

04:19respect.

04:22Respect does not mean offering value to something without even knowing the value.

04:31For example, an elder comes to your place, the elder happens to be not merely an elder

04:37but an elder relative and you have been taught to offer respect.

04:42Have you not been?

04:46So the fellow has come and you do not know the fellow.

04:48You do not know how virtuous he is, you do not know how courageous or loving he is and

04:54yet you are supposed to offer respects.

05:03The fellow comes in and you offer some salutation.

05:11You greet him by saying sir or namaste or welcome or something.

05:19Now that's the way of the ego.

05:22It does not know itself, therefore it does not know what to respect.

05:30To know the other, first of all you must know yourself.

05:35Before you can tell how beautiful somebody's eyes are, you must have the eyes to look at

05:41his eyes.

05:46But the way of the ego is that it just cannot look.

05:50It has beliefs but no vision.

05:54It has dreams but no reality.

06:00So it respects out of bias or tradition or influence.

06:07It does not respect, that is it does not evaluate based on merit or clarity.

06:14Are you getting it?

06:18So just as you offer your respects to the other one in a blind way, equally people keep

06:26respecting themselves or sometimes even disrespecting themselves in a blind way.

06:34So self-respect as a prerequisite needs self-knowledge.

06:45If I say I respect myself, I must be asked who respects what?

06:55You say you have self-respect, so that would mean you respect yourself, correct?

07:02Then I must ask you who respects what?

07:06You say I respect myself, I'll say who respects what?

07:10Do you really know yourself?

07:12There can be no self-respect without self-knowledge.

07:15And we have been repeatedly saying that the ego survives only in lack of self-knowledge.

07:23The less you know yourself, the more dense and crystallized your ego is.

07:34Self-respect is nothing but self-awareness.

07:38The more you know yourself, the more you realize who you are not and that brings you to who

07:44you are.

07:48That is real self-respect.

07:51Knowing oneself, but knowing oneself is not a direct or positive process.

07:57Knowing oneself can happen only through the root of discarding all that which is not you.

08:05This is not me, this is not me.

08:09You keep rejecting all that and that brings you to the real self and that is self-respect.

08:16Essentially that means that people who do not know themselves are the ones who greatly

08:22disrespect themselves.

08:27And that is quite interesting because if someone comes and says a few abusive or coarse words

08:37to you, you feel hurt, you say the fellow disrespected me.

08:43But this disrespect is nothing compared to the disrespect that we heap on ourselves by

08:51remaining ignorant of ourselves all lifelong.

08:56You live for 80 years without ever thinking deeply about yourself, your life, your relationships,

09:04your dreams, your hopes, your regrets, your suffering, your phobias.

09:10You never think about these things and you live for an entire 80 years and then you die.

09:16That's the deepest disrespect towards the self, to not to know oneself.

09:23And this disrespect towards the self is also called as ego because ego is another name

09:31for self-illusion.

09:33I do not know who I am, yet I keep saying I am.

09:36That's the ego and that's disrespect.

09:41Now, come to the next part of your question, what are you saying?

09:49I mean, sir, why can't we just let it go when some people intentionally or unintentionally

09:56hurt our so-called ego?

09:58I mean, when I try to let go of things and people who hurt my ego or self-respect, I

10:06observe that after a period of time, people don't take you seriously and your opinion.

10:15I mean, I am a little confused in being a humble person or a person having an attitude

10:22because attitude makes you look confident and attractive and get you respect in the society.

10:29The important thing is to first of all be assured of who you are and what you have.

10:41You must be confident of your own truth in the first place.

10:47You are carrying a textbook of advanced calculus and a class four student starts spitting at

11:02it and says, this is all nonsensical and what is this integration sign?

11:07Is this some snake or something?

11:10Would you feel disrespected or humiliated, dejected?

11:15How would you feel?

11:21But if you yourself are like that class four student, then your self-esteem will take a beating.

11:29You will say, oh my god, my book has been dishonored.

11:33How are they able to bother you with whatever they are doing?

11:42How are you not assured of what your truth is?

11:49And if you are assured, how can you take them seriously?

11:53A class four student who knows nothing about anything comes and starts debunking a PhD thesis.

12:04Should he be taken seriously, given some importance?

12:12The thing is, do you know?

12:20Do you know of what you have, what you are saying, what you are?

12:25When you are assured of yourself, then what the world is saying does not matter too much.

12:34But when you are yourself half here, half there, uncertain, then anybody can influence you.

12:49Humility, that's the word you used.

12:56Should I be humble or should I not be humble?

13:00What is humility?

13:01Humility is about knowing that your default identity is the ego.

13:13That's humility.

13:15Humility is to know how vulnerable to mistakes you are.

13:21Because that's the nature of the ego.

13:24It can survive only in mistakes.

13:27Those are not even mistakes.

13:30Those are ego's compulsions because without them it cannot survive.

13:35That's humility.

13:39So when somebody attacks you and you feel hurt, humility lies in looking at yourself and smiling and saying, see how vulnerable I am.

13:51They are tossing nonsense at me.

13:57And yet I am giving it importance.

14:03What they are saying has no ground, no foundation.

14:07And yet I am taking it seriously.

14:09See how stupid I am.

14:11And this is humility.

14:13You must be able to always recognize your own weaknesses.

14:19And when you recognize your weaknesses, you do not say they are my weaknesses.

14:24You just say they are systematic, they are biologic, they are social, these weaknesses.

14:35And when you say thus, then you can smile at them with detachment.

14:41That's humility.

14:43Humility does not lie in surrendering to others or bowing down to others.

14:50Someone who cannot call a spade a spade is not humble.

14:58The humble person is one who can call illusion as illusion.

15:03That's what humility is about.

15:05To call illusion as illusion.

15:16Anything else on this?

15:19No sir, my all notes have been cleared.

15:22Thank you sir.

Category

Transcript

Recommended