Dealing with painful thoughts || Acharya Prashant, with IIT Bombay (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Pranam Acharyaji. I am Chitra. I am a software developer. I have two questions. First question

00:09is that sometimes we have thoughts which causes us pain. We can call it a painful thoughts.

00:18We understand this, but we are not able to overcome these thoughts. And as in the beginning

00:23you have said that whatever thoughts the mind has, actually it sees some benefit in it.

00:29That's why it continues to exist. So, I want to know what benefit the mind sees in painful

00:33thoughts. Also, is it a tactic of our ego to keep it alive, keep itself alive through

00:40the pain, even in the, even through the painful thoughts? I mean, is it seeking a pleasure

00:45of being alive even in the pain? Yes, obviously. Yes, obviously. The thing with pain is you

00:53cannot have pain if you don't exist. So, even pain ratifies your existence. The ego is such

01:00an insecure thing that to prove to itself that it exists, it can even put itself in

01:08pain and it says because I can experience pain, so I exist. Don't tell me that I am

01:15fake. Don't tell me I am a myth. Because you see, ultimately the ego is a myth and therefore

01:23it's always scared. Somebody will call the bluff. Somebody will say, oh, you are such

01:28a fool. You don't even exist. So, it keeps trying all kinds of tricks. That's the first

01:36thing. Next, you remember the pain that comes with thoughts. What you don't remember is

01:49something more important. Let's say, you remember that you lost rupees 100 in the past

02:02and that pains you. Whenever the memory flashes, you find there is the experience of pain.

02:11You lost rupees 100 in the past. Let's say right now you are in the thought process.

02:19You are repeatedly thinking about those 100 rupees you lost in the past and experiencing

02:23pain. At this moment, if I tell you that right now you are about to lose rupees 10,000, what

02:34will you do? Or what will happen to you rather? I will come out of that previous thought and

02:43take action. Exactly. The past is of very little value compared to the present. Equally

02:52the loss you might have suffered in the past is of very little value compared to the loss

02:58you are about to suffer right now and are in fact suffering every passing moment. And

03:06why exactly are you suffering the loss every passing moment? Because you are too busy and

03:13lost experiencing the pain of the past. You are so focused on the past losses that you

03:24have just no cognizance of what you are currently and continuously losing on. The loss right

03:33now is tremendous. You can express that loss in various ways. It's an opportunity loss.

03:42Much better could have been done. You wasted that time in self-pity and melancholy. You

03:51could call it a time loss. You could call it an energy loss. You could call it the loss

04:00of one's very life. So, I am not saying that the loss in the past didn't happen or that

04:13it had no value at all. Obviously, we all suffer as we live our lives and there are

04:23memories and trauma and suffering and so much and there is no person who has not suffered

04:32and is not suffering. The question is different. The question is, is it so that you have suffered

04:40in the past and the suffering has come to an end? No. The suffering is continuing and

04:46by thinking of that loss, you are amplifying the suffering. Are you getting it? See, it's

04:57like this. You are driving your car on a highway, right? And you brush against a bike, right?

05:13Some paint from your bumper comes off and it is indeed a loss. One doesn't deny. And

05:24now you are continuously thinking of it. Continuously thinking of what the bike rider was doing,

05:31what you were doing and who was at fault and how it could have been avoided and how much

05:35money you will need to spend to get the bumper painted again and these things and you are

05:41continuously in it. And what is approaching you from the front? A 16-wheeler truck. Now

05:54what should I think of? The loss that has happened or the loss that is about to happen?

06:00And it's not as if the truck isn't honking. But you are lost, right? So much is at stake

06:13right now. Better be cautious. Take care of it. You have an immense treasure. Somebody

06:26stole from it a little bit in the past. But still so much of it remains. So much of it,

06:36you could say the entirety of it remains. But you are at the risk of losing it, if you

06:44don't wake up. But Acharya ji, when I say pain, it's not

06:51always related to the past incidents or past pain, maybe current situations also. So, what

06:57about that? If current situations have pain, ask yourself what makes you bear that pain?

07:06If you are bearing the pain to preserve your bondages, then you are on your own enemy.

07:12If you are bearing the pain to fight your bondages, then the pain is worth it. Pain

07:21is unavoidable. Pain is the very fact of life. The question is, what is it that you suffer

07:32the pain for? And believe me, there is nobody who doesn't have to suffer. I don't have to

07:42convince you. You know that very well, right? Look around yourself. What do you see? If you

07:50look honestly and deeply enough, you will see a lot of suffering. So, suffering is. Suffer for

07:59the right cause. That's the best you can do. The solution to suffering is not a state of no

08:08suffering. The solution to suffering is right suffering. And to complete the story, I would

08:18say, if you suffer rightly, then slowly your tendency to suffer keeps reducing. And probably,

08:29potentially, one day you can come to a point where you don't suffer. But one need not think of it.

08:35Where you stand, as things are, just think of choosing the right suffering. Most people suffer

08:47in a way that exacerbates the suffering. Most people are their own enemies. Challenge your

09:00suffering. Ask what it is doing to you. After each day of suffering, are you more prone to

09:11suffering or are you getting liberated? Is your suffering helping you or pushing you deeper into

09:19itself? Is it too abstract? No, no, I am getting it. Choose the right suffering. I repeat, just

09:34just take this home. Choose the right suffering. So, Acharyaji, in one of your lectures, I had

09:43heard this sentence that, bad action will come from a bad doer always. So, but I want to know,

09:53the bad action, is it in cycle, that like, that action even impacts the doer again and again,

10:00like, it will make him more worse? Yes, yes, yes, true. So, bad choices reinforce your tendency to

10:14make bad choices. Equally, right choices strengthen your resolve to make right choices. That's why

10:26Abhyas or practice is so important. The more you are accustomed to making wrong choices, the more

10:37difficult it would be for you to just suddenly make a right choice. The entire momentum of the

10:44past will militate against rightness. That's why it's important to not to be casual with even

10:56little choices. They begin in a casual way and very soon become a habit. The ego is nothing

11:09but a habit, you know. What else is life? A battle between clarity and habit. On one

11:21hand, there is clarity regarding what you must do. On the other hand, there is the physical and

11:29social habit telling you to do something else and these are always in conflict. Unfortunately,

11:40mostly habit prevails and if the force of habit is so powerful, you better be cautious of it. Do

11:49not allow yourself to be habituated towards the wrong things. Shri Krishna talks of two central

12:07tenets of spirituality in the Bhagavad Gita – Vairagya and Abhyas. Be dissociated, be detached to

12:24make the right choice because you are attached to the wrong one. Therefore, detachment is needed

12:29to make the right choice and then do it again and again. He says be Nirmam, be hard-hearted

12:41towards yourself. Don't be in your own favor. Don't patronize yourself too much. Be Nirmam.

12:51What does Nirmam mean? Not identified with the self and then keep practicing this thing

13:01because it's a very old habit, you know, evolutionary habit.

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