When lust overpowers you || Acharya Prashant, with IIT-Hyderabad (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00I have a question sir. Like you said that we know that when we have that say lustful

00:10an example, we have that lust and we know that it's like animal, we are animal now.

00:16And you say you said this we need not be an animal, I need not be animal. But the thing

00:22is when we are in that situation, it is very difficult to get reminded of ourselves that

00:29we should not be an animal like that. Take an example of any negative feeling, not only

00:35lust, say anger, or being egoistic, or having any powerful negative feeling, when we have

00:43at that time, how to remind ourselves how to be conscious and come out of that animalism.

00:51That is my question that how to see there is a pleasure that lust or anger or envy or

01:10hatred or possessiveness offer you. And there is another pleasure that is offered by the

01:22high stuff of life. It says that the ego is not convinced that there is any pleasure at

01:32all in the higher things. Why is the ego not convinced? Because the ego has a history

01:41of deriving pleasure from all the lowly things. The child is born, where does the child get

01:50its first pleasures from? From the Bhagavad Gita? No, it gets its first pleasures from

01:59skin to skin contact, from something very sensual, from something very bodily, right?

02:07So the ego is convinced of that dimension. In the sensory dimension, in the dimension

02:15of flesh, there indeed is pleasure and I can experientially verify that. It is in my history,

02:24I know of that. Nobody need to come and convince me. Since the moment of my birth,

02:30I have derived pleasure from all the sensory things. The mother wants to put the baby to

02:39sleep. She need not tell the baby stories from Upanishads. She has to just hum some

02:51meaningless tune and pat the baby a little and it sleeps off. So there is pleasure and

03:02that pleasure is not coming from any higher domain. That pleasure is coming from something

03:08very basal. So the ego is convinced. Now the Bhagavad Gita comes into the picture and someone

03:19says well there is higher pleasure in the Gita. Why must the ego believe that? The ego

03:26has derived pleasure only from food, from the bed, you can have a comfortable sleep

03:35or from sex or from other things like snatching something away from somebody. There is pleasure

03:42there. Ego knows all of that and now suddenly you are saying no, no, no, you go to the Bhagavad

03:48Gita and there is higher pleasure there. Why should the ego believe you? So the ego

03:53needs to be given a taste and that's a difficult thing to do because the ego already knows

04:01where to get its dose of pleasure from. So how to lure the ego away from that place?

04:08Something has to be done, some trick, some method, sometimes a little force has to be

04:16applied. Something has to be done. That's why the world of religion has been so colorful

04:22you see. Do you see how colorful our religious practices are? Do you see how religious festivals

04:30have been designed to offer you pleasure even to the kids? Throw colors on someone. Now

04:37the festival is arising from a spiritual core but care has been taken to add an element

04:45of very normal pleasure to it so that the normal public can be attracted. You come,

04:51you come, you come and as you come closer you find that now the spiritual core starts

04:59beckoning. So some trick has to be used, something has to be done. Somehow the mind has to be

05:06brought close to Vedanta and once the mind has sufficient proof that pleasure need not

05:15necessarily come from all the lowly things only. It can come from a higher place too.

05:22Then it becomes easier for the mind to make a better choice. Well you see there is pleasure

05:28in envy, greed, whatever, anger, lust but there is pleasure in solitude, there is pleasure

05:38in reading something sublime, there is pleasure in singing the couplets of saints. Why not

05:48go for that pleasure? The ego is a calculator you see. It calculates. It is very animalistic

05:59and it is very calculative. If you can display clearly to the ego that a higher quantum,

06:10a bigger dollop of pleasure awaits at a higher point then it will be possible for the ego

06:20to rise higher. Otherwise you can keep ceremoning, you can keep lecturing.

06:28The first experience, that first glimpse has to be given. Sometimes that glimpse comes

06:34not by way of a book. That glimpse sometimes initially comes in the form of a person. A

06:44person stands in front of you and that person is a living proof of spiritual joy or spiritual

06:52power and then you say well, well, well, there is something important, there is something

07:00rather magnetic in the personality of this person. How do I refute his fact? When Gautam

07:09Buddha was to deliver his first sermon, he started looking for listeners. There was nobody

07:18to listen to him. So he thought to whom should I speak? He thought of one person and started

07:29looking for him. It came out that the person had already died. Then he thought of another

07:34person, he too had already died. The Buddha had been searching for more than a decade

07:41and in that period people had expired. And then he thought of the five chaps who had

07:48abandoned him when he was rejecting the path of severe austerity, Kayaklesh. So he said

07:59why not go to these people? And they were my good friends and they were good listeners.

08:06They got very angry with me because I rejected the doctrine of senseless austerity. So again

08:15he tried to somehow locate them and found them and he went to them and when he was approaching

08:21them they saw him coming and they were angry with him because he had refuted their doctrine.

08:30So they thought among themselves, when he comes to us, we will not offer him any respect.

08:36We will not even talk to him. It is considered courteous to take the other's belongings

08:47when he approaches, when a senior one approaches, then you go and you take his luggage as we

08:52still do in India, don't we? So they said to each other, when he comes close, we will

08:59not offer to take the luggage or whatever stuff he is carrying. We will be very obviously

09:07disrespectful to him. We want to make a point loud and clear. But literature says that as

09:17the Buddha approached them, they forgot all that they had planned. It was the sheer weight

09:29of his personality that made them bow down. And they bowed down to him and they offered

09:37him a decent place to sit and he sat there and they had nothing else to ask. You know

09:46what was the first question they asked? What did you do sir after we left you? That's

09:55a childlike simplicity that an awakened personality can induce in you. It was induced simplicity.

10:07So there has to be a proof. Now those five got a proof. They said just by looking at

10:14this man, it becomes obvious that there is something of the truth within him. So now

10:22they opened up to listen to him. They said, please tell us. Please tell us. We want to

10:28listen to you. And he preached to them and it was the first sermon. So it's a long drawn

10:40statement I have made. But the point is, the short and simple point is, convince the ego

10:47of some higher happiness and then you will find that the lower things do not remain relatively

10:59that attractive. Relatively, right? To the body, the attraction of all the sensory things

11:06will remain because that's the way the body is configured. But something else, something

11:14higher in comparison will open up. And therefore you will lean towards the higher thing.

11:24And sir, one small doubt was there. Can you give some examples of like what are those

11:34highest things which we can remember at that time?

11:39See, there are pleasures that come from the world and there are pleasures that come from

11:48the truth. You sing a beautiful couplet, very insightful couplet. Insightful yet very simply

12:07put. And there is a deep pleasure there. It's not as if there is pleasure only in

12:18making merry, eating and frolicking and such things. There definitely is pleasure in all

12:27those things and those pleasures we share with the animal kingdom. But there are pleasures

12:34exclusive to our species. Pleasures that only we can enjoy. So, when you for example

12:44are witnessing the conversation between Krishna and Arjun, there is a deep subtle joy there.

12:52The joy of understanding what is going on. The joy of seeing how Arjun's condition resonates

13:01with yours and how Krishna is able to very simply and yet very tactfully communicate

13:12to Arjun who he is and therefore what he must do. This understanding is something very unique

13:23to human beings and in this understanding there is that higher pleasure called joy.

13:31So look at the world, look at your condition. The internal training must be to try to understand

13:42and you understand when you are not lost, when you have the intention to know and that

13:48is called attention. The intention to know, attention. And then you do not need those

14:01little filthy pleasures. Equally those little pleasures actually now become little to you.

14:11Therefore you do not despise them either. Because you cannot despise something so small.

14:18And then things are put in their place. It's not as if you started your question by talking

14:24of lust. It's not as if you read the Bhagavad Gita and you will totally abstain from sex.

14:35That does not happen and that is not supposed to happen. It's just that the thing is put

14:40in its right place. The thing is put in its right place. By the way that was also the

14:49content of the Buddha's first sermon. He told those five, you know, obviously the ones

14:59who are living lives of relentless consumption are idiots. But look at you five, you have

15:06chosen the path of starvation. You have said we want to simply kill the body through starvation.

15:17Now even this is not proper. Everything has to be put in its right place. Those who are

15:24appeasing the body all the time are body minded. You too are body minded because you are hurting

15:30the body all the time. Are you getting it? So when you know of the higher thing, then

15:40everything else falls in its proper place. And that's the yardstick of your humanness,

15:49the depth of your understanding in which there is deep joy.

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