Which is the best god to pray to? || Acharya Prashant (2020)
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Video Information: 26.12.2020, Shastra Kaumudi, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand
Context:
~ What is the meaning of prayer to the mind?
~ Does god and evil both reside in our mind?
~ Why mind is called it's own best friend and enemy?
~ Who is worthy of worship?
~ What is auspicious?
Music Credits: Milind Date
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Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00The mind is all and everything.
00:19The prayer is to nourish the right and auspicious parts of the mind.
00:40The mind is the highest and the lowest, and the mind can take you higher and higher, and
00:54the mind can take you, that is itself, lower and lower.
01:06The words refer to the forces inside the mind itself that offer it ascension and upward propulsion.
01:30And conversely, dānavs, or demons, refer to the forces within the mind itself that
01:46sink it into all kinds of depravities and perversions.
01:59Both these reside very much within the mind itself.
02:13There is a very famous verse in the Amrit Bindu Upanishad, it says, the mind is its
02:26own best friend and own worst enemy.
02:37Your best friend and your worst enemy are not at all outside of you.
02:47Since you are all and everything, therefore, your friend is within you, so is your enemy.
03:04Why do the gods have diverse names, as have the demons?
03:14Because there are various kinds of forces within that help you, and there are various
03:24kinds of forces within that drown you, sink you, depress you.
03:37There is no god out there somewhere.
03:41The prayer is to oneself.
03:44It's a kind of reminder to oneself.
03:48It's an encouragement to oneself.
03:56It's a monologue.
03:59You could even call it a pep-up talk to oneself.
04:06There is nobody anywhere else, it's a soliloquy.
04:16So the teacher and the disciple are together saying, may I hear what is auspicious.
04:28It's being said, oh gods, may we hear what is auspicious.
04:32How do you have to read it?
04:35May I hear what is auspicious because the gods are not outside of me.
04:40So if I'm praying to the gods, I'm actually praying to myself.
04:45So I'm telling myself, may I hear only that which is auspicious.
04:49I'm reminding myself.
04:53At one level, I'm reminding myself.
04:54At another level, I'm chastening myself, whatever you call it.
05:02But I know that I carry gods, but gods are not all that I carry, therefore I need to
05:13be cautious.
05:14There are gods within, but there are others as well, and they are not quite as godly.
05:26And hence the prayer is needed.
05:29And hence praying always contains power.
05:35Praying is not wish fulfillment.
05:40When you pray to someone else, it's not that someone else will come to help you.
05:44When you pray, you are actually preparing yourself to be a better friend to yourself.
05:55When you are praying, it's not that I'm praying to her and she will come over and lend her
06:00hand in some way and assist me.
06:03No.
06:04When I'm praying, I'm actually telling myself to be a better one, a wiser one.
06:11Because there is nobody anywhere to come and help me.
06:15If I am to be helped, the help has to come from within.
06:21And therefore all prayers are directed invariably to myself.
06:29And when you are praying, you are full of self-respect.
06:32Why?
06:33Because you are praying to that part of yourself which is godly.
06:37You're saying, oh gods, oh gods, may we hear that which is auspicious.
06:43Where are those gods?
06:46Within.
06:47So when you are praying, that's your highest perception of yourself.
06:55On the contrary, what we find is often when we pray, we think of ourselves as feeble and
07:01helpless.
07:02We prostrate.
07:04We say, because I cannot do anything, because I am helpless, so oh heavens, come over and
07:10do something about my condition.
07:14Nobody can do something about your condition because there is nobody except you.
07:25You are responsible for what you have become and you are responsible for what you will
07:34become.
07:39This responsibility is at the center of all genuine spirituality.
07:45Unfortunately, there has been a very popular version of religion that inculcates, breeds
08:04a very enfeebling kind of meekness.
08:10Genuine meekness is an entirely different thing.
08:14I'm talking of a decapacitating weakness, an enforced kind of helplessness.
08:29That helplessness we prefer because it helps us remain irresponsible.
08:34You know, I'm so helpless, what can I do?
08:37To be responsible, first of all, you have to accept that you are powerful enough to
08:41bring change.
08:44If you say I have no power, then you can have no responsibility.
08:49Responsibility and power go together, right?
08:53If a person has no power over anything, would you ever hold him responsible for anything?
08:58No.
09:00So when you say I'm powerless, do you see what you are basically inwardly doing?
09:09You are evading responsibility.
09:13It's an internal attempt to just evade responsibility.
09:19We are not powerless, not when it comes to the inner world.
09:25Obviously, when it comes to this, then your power is limited.
09:33But you have infinite power when it comes to how you are within.
09:41Your internal world is entirely your own sovereign territory.
09:50And if you do not acknowledge that, then you have some vested interest in remaining helpless.
10:00So kindly don't distort these verses.
10:05Kindly don't upend the entire purpose of the Shantipat.
10:13All these gods are there, yes, in the Vedic pantheon, there are hundreds of them.
10:22But it has to be understood what all of them essentially represent, right?
10:30They represent the goodness within us.
10:36Will you remember this?
10:38What do all of them and what does each of them represent?
10:45Some power within us.
10:50Some power that is worthy of admiration, even worthy of worship.
10:58And if you will pray to Varun and hope for rain, it's not happening, or is it?
11:10No, it's not happening.
11:13Because you have just not understood who Varun is.
11:17If you worship Agni and hope that your room will get heated, that's not happening.
11:31Agni represents something within you, right?
11:42Something that has energy, something that has brilliance and illumination, and something
11:48that purifies, and something that reduces to ash everything that is vulnerable to destruction.
12:01That's what Agni represents.
12:03No point worshipping Agni as some other worldly entity or person or embodiment
12:20of some, I don't know, hallucination.
12:27Oh, God, may we hear with our ears what is auspicious.
12:38You see the choice involved here.
12:42I have the choice to lend my ear to all kinds of garbage.
12:49And I have the choice to lend my ear only to that which is auspicious.
12:56No, I'm praying to myself.
12:59I'm begging, please, please be careful because I know your tendencies.
13:05I know.
13:06While you have the power to live rightly, you also have the demons lurking within.
13:16So please be careful.
13:18Listen only to that which is auspicious.
13:20Do not listen to anything else, please.
13:23Now this does not mean that if you have made this prayer, then the gods will send only
13:29auspicious words down to you, no.
13:34The world will remain full of everything as it always has been.
13:40Stuff auspicious and stuff grossly inauspicious as well.
13:48But if you have made this prayer, then you'll probably be careful to let in only the auspicious
13:56part.
13:59I want only the right things to enter me.
14:04Now is this too complicated a thing?
14:09Isn't it something extremely straightforward?
14:13It's like you have those notes to the self, those sticky things you put on the wall or
14:20your desk or somewhere.
14:25It's a note to oneself.
14:29Listen rightly.
14:32Listen rightly.
14:35And Gautam Buddha repeated this a few centuries later.
14:40Eat rightly.
14:41Listen rightly.
14:42Walk rightly.
14:43Speak rightly.
14:44Think rightly.
14:45Remember his Eightfold Path?
14:49What else is that?
14:51Earn rightly.
14:53Write livelihood.
14:55So here, listen rightly.
15:01Listen rightly.
15:03And gods will not help you in that.
15:04Only you can help yourself.
15:08Therefore, you are the god who would help you.
15:17That's nice.
15:19I am the god.
15:22I'm the only god.
15:28And therefore, I'll pray to myself.
15:31And when I say I'm the only god who can help me, I'll not forget that it's not only god
15:40that I am.
15:42Yes, yes, yes.
15:47That's the thing about the ego.
15:50Potentially it is the sky.
15:57And potentially it is the deepest, darkest hell as well.
16:12When you therefore look at yourself as the highest, never in your enthusiasm must you
16:23forget that in a split second you can fall down to be the lowest.
16:34That's human predicament.
16:39Potentially the highest, mostly the lowest.
16:49While it is true that great potential beckons us, it is equally true that most of us are
16:59not equal to that potential.
17:05That potential remains merely that, a potential, not our actuality.
17:13Are we together?
17:19Oh, there was worthy of worship.
17:27Oh, that's a beautiful, worthy of worship.
17:32You don't indiscriminately worship anybody, please.
17:39Oh, you, the ones worthy of worship, do you see the beauty here?
17:47Do you see the rigor here?
17:51You're not profligate in offering yourself.
17:57Because when you bow the head down, it has to be something immensely significant.
18:10Your head must respond only to worth.
18:16What do I mean by the head?
18:18The ego, the sense of self.
18:26Don't just prostrate anywhere.
18:29Be firm.
18:34The man of scriptures, the man of wisdom, and when I say man, that means mankind.
18:39I'm not excluding women.
18:41It's a bit old school, I know, but please.
18:46The man of wisdom is not weak or supine or spineless.
19:10He's a firm fellow.
19:15Because he does not surrender easily, therefore his surrender carries meaning.
19:24If you keep surrendering everywhere, does your surrender have any significance?
19:31That's what.
19:34Worse still, if you keep surrendering everywhere, what is left with you to surrender?
19:46Morning till evening, you kept surrendering.
19:53At your home, at five places in your office, at the market, in front of the television.
20:04Forty times you surrendered, most of us do.
20:09And then in the evening you rush to the temple and you say, oh God, here I am full of Samarpan.
20:16But then there is nothing left in you to surrender.
20:19What will you offer now? Whatever you had to offer has already been offered.
20:27The glass has nothing. What will you offer the gods now?
20:36Therefore, for surrender to have any meaning, you should firstly be very resistant to surrendering.
20:47Mostly we do not appreciate this.
20:57We think of the man of wisdom as someone who just goes with the flow.
21:05And this phrase has gained a lot of momentum in recent times, no? Going with the flow.
21:11Just go with the flow. No, he doesn't go with the flow. Never.
21:21Or you could say, yes, he does go with the flow, but only with the right flow.
21:28Because there are several kinds of flows, all flows are in the mind.
21:32Which particular flow is carrying you away? Ask.
21:38And there is a flow of hormones. Go with the flow.
21:44And there is that weekend party. And there is a flow of booze. Go with the flow.
21:53Anger has a certain flow. Fear has a great flow.
21:58Prakritic tendencies have a tremendous flow. Will you go with the flow?
22:05Therefore, firstly learn to be resistant to all these flows.
22:13Resistance is negation. Neti neti.
22:21That's the method of the Upanishads.
22:26Negation is another name for resistance. Say no.
22:32Before you start saying yes to God and Brahm and truth and this and that, learn to say no.
22:41If you can't spell no, what's the value in your yes? Is there any?
22:53And yes is so beautiful when it comes after a long series of no's.
23:03And then yes is beautiful. Because now this yes really means something.
23:12It's been something really precious that you have kept close to your chest.
23:18You have offered it only when the right time, the right person, the worthy occasion has arrived.
23:26You're not spilling it all around.
23:32You just keep throwing away things precious.
23:39Your yes has to be something very precious.
23:52Oh, God's worthy of worship, may we see with our eyes what is auspicious.
24:00May we hear what is auspicious, may we see what is auspicious.
24:08And what is auspicious? That which is God-like.
24:15I'm praying for auspiciousness to God and what is auspicious?
24:20That is contained in my prayer to the Gods.
24:25What is auspicious? That which makes me look upwards to the Gods.
24:31I could have looked downwards as well.
24:38That upward glance is auspiciousness.
24:43And I have the choice to look that way or look this way.
24:48Mostly we prefer to look this way.
24:55Looking this way is inauspicious.
24:59You have one life and it's meant to be lived in love with the sky.
25:13And then you don't fall in love.
25:17If you're in love with the sky, you will rise in love.
25:23We fall in love because our love is just this glance, looking downwards.
25:35What does this downward glance really mean?
25:39It's a symbol.
25:42The earth is there. What does the earth represent?
25:46Your biology. The soil you come from.
25:52Mostly our love is biological.
25:58And therefore, it only drags us down.
26:06In most cases, love is not an enabler.
26:11Love is rather the biggest load and disabling influence on one's life.
26:25It need not be.
26:28The saints have sung of love.
26:31Therefore, love potentially can pull you up.
26:37Why does it not?
26:41Because we are indiscriminate in loving.
26:48Because in the moment of love, we just go with the flow.
26:58We get so carried away that we don't bother to pause and ask,
27:01What really is this? What is happening? What am I saying yes to?
27:07The question is rarely asked.
27:11And then to justify our foolishness, we say,
27:14You don't think in love. And if you are thinking, then it is not love.
27:20A madman does not think because he cannot think.
27:24Neither does a drunkard.
27:28A person that lends goodness or auspiciousness or credence to his actions and utterances,
27:42He does not think, does he?
27:52Remember the upward glance.
27:54Can you look up to the one you love?
28:01Equally, you must be able to look up to the one you worship.
28:08Don't just randomly start worshipping anything.
28:15If somebody indoctrinated you into a formal religion,
28:22What we call as a faith, which is not faith at all,
28:29A way of thinking, certain set of beliefs,
28:35Then you start worshipping.
28:40Be it love, be it worship, they deserve to be offered only to the highest.
28:48In fact, there must be no difference between the two.
28:54The one you love must be worthy of worship.
28:58And the one you worship, you must be in love with.
29:03If there is a difference between the two, then there is a problem, big problem.
29:13If you can't worship your lover, then drop him or her, whatever, I don't know.
29:25And if you can't love your gods, those gods must be thrown away.