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Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi, 20.12.2021, Rishikesh, India
Context:
~ Why an IITian loses focus - and what's the purpose of life
~ Why there is so much suffering in life?
~ Do we suffer by our own choice?
~ How to avoid pain and suffering?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi, 20.12.2021, Rishikesh, India
Context:
~ Why an IITian loses focus - and what's the purpose of life
~ Why there is so much suffering in life?
~ Do we suffer by our own choice?
~ How to avoid pain and suffering?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaskar Acharyaji. Namaste. My name is Rashi Goyal. I am a second year undergraduate student
00:08of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at IIT Kharagpur. So, my question to you is
00:15when we as an ITN, we had to pass through a phase where we have to be away from being
00:23socializing to in order to succeed, in order to clear our JEE advance, we need to be more
00:29focused towards our studies. But as soon as we enter college, we had a scenario in which
00:35we need to be a social person, we need friends, we need people to communicate or express our
00:40thoughts. But due to being a learner from a long time, it puts a lot of stress to adapt
00:47that habit of being a social person again. So, that affects our mental health. So, how
00:54to overcome this habit of not expressing oneself? So, Rashi, what you're saying is when you
01:01were preparing for the JEE, at that time, you didn't really socialize, you kept studying
01:10and now when you have entered, yes, like when during the JEE times, what actually happens
01:18is we avoid attending marriage and parties. We avoid talking like we spend most of the
01:27time studying. Like when we wake up, we study, we go to coaching class, we do have some exams
01:34or tests and then we came home, we study again, then we sleep. This is what our schedule is.
01:41But as soon as we enter college, we tend to have other things to do, like we need to
01:48make friends, we need to have someone to listen to our problems.
01:52Now, didn't you have problems when you were preparing for the JEE? What happened then?
01:58Who did you go to speak to? Like generally, we used to go to our teachers,
02:04because it was a competitive environment. So, we used to feel like to talk to a teacher is
02:12the best thing. But right now, we talk mostly to first towards with our friends and then we
02:20go to a teacher if it's a major issue. Okay, let me ask you something. How driven
02:26and focused did you feel at the time of JEE preparation? Now that you have cleared the JEE,
02:32you are in a good position to say. How driven were you?
02:36Like I mentioned, I was like completely into... Completely into studies, right?
02:44Yeah. And now after entering IIT?
02:48Like I am now bit relaxed that I had at least... Which semester, which semester are you from?
02:56Right now, I am in my second year. I will be having my fourth semester from January.
03:02If it's not very personal, may I ask your CGPA?
03:06Yeah, it's right now it's near about 8.5.
03:10And 8.5 means what? DR 5, 10, 15?
03:19Sir, I am not sure about that.
03:23You would have been very sure of your percentile and rank when you were preparing for the JEE,
03:32right? What do they call it in IIT Kharagpur? They don't call it DR, departmental rank. What
03:36is it called there? You call it DR.
03:38You call it DR, right? So, the tradition continues. See, the thing is you had a purpose then. So,
03:47you didn't need to socialize. And that purpose is bigger than the company of any of these
03:55friends and all. Now, you are in IIT and there are so many other things to do, we all know
04:03of them. So, you are saying, oh my God, I just kept studying, I didn't develop my so-called
04:09soft skills, I am not very good at communication, you know, I must talk a lot, I must be attractive
04:18to others, I must get the best company possible and by best what we mean is the most glamorous.
04:29What do you mean by social skills? You are a human being, right? You are a human being.
04:37If somebody is worth it, there would be a relationship. What do you mean by social skills?
04:45What do you, it is just the absence of a purpose now. Give yourself a purpose. You do not need
04:58to be great at socializing. Let the purpose decide the kind of company you are to get.
05:07And if you have a great purpose, you will get just the right company. What happens is
05:12once you enter IIT, placement is almost guaranteed. So, that bogie is off your mind. You do not
05:26have to clear the JEE once again. And because everybody gets into a relaxed mode, once
05:39you enter the campus, therefore, even with very modest kind of effort, you can have a
05:49decent CGPA and a decent rank. That has been happening since ages, that has been happening
05:56across all IITs. So, you will have to agree to what I am saying.
06:04What you lack now is the same fire that you had at the time of JEE preparation. At that
06:12time, it was like, I have to get in and if I do not get in, I am losing on something
06:17very, very important. In contrast, right now your statement is I already have what is important.
06:24Therefore, let me get into other things that offer pleasure and fun and excitement and
06:31the rest of it. No, you have not attained anything yet. Let that be very clear to you.
06:40Clearing the JEE is nothing. Clearing the JEE at best guarantees you bread and butter
06:47and an upper middle class kind of life. It does not mean much. There is a long distance
06:54to cover. And especially as a woman in Indian conditions, you have to keep sprinting. You
07:03cannot reduce your pace, you cannot let your guard down. You cannot start seeking company
07:10and socialization and relationships. Because all of this ultimately leads to that one thing
07:20that we can call as the final bondage. Why do you want to go towards that? Be a scholar
07:30rather than the sensation on the campus. But that is what we want to be called, right?
07:38Master campus or Miss campus rather than the best scholar out there.
07:44And if you have to do something apart from your studies, there are so many co-curriculars
07:51to choose from. I am sure KGP campus offers at least 10 different kinds of sports and
08:03great infrastructure, debating, dramatics. That is one good thing about being in an IIT
08:12campus. You get exposure to so many things that are usually not available to the common
08:19student. Excel in them, socialization, etc., carry next to zero value. And as I said, if
08:30what you are doing carries value and importance, socialization, the right kind of socialization
08:36will happen on its own. You will get the right kind of company, be totally devoted to your
08:42work and to your purpose. And some person or a group of persons cannot be the purpose
08:50in your life. I say that to everybody. And when I am addressing a girl, I say that with
08:58heightened emphasis. Forget all this, please. I have seen what now, an entire generation
09:15of IITians pass through in front of my eyes. Do not get into that same old kind of trap.
09:27It firstly leads to mediocrity and then it leads to bondages. Learn to excel. Keep the
09:33fire burning. If you are in IIT, I am pretty sure your rank would have been in the top
09:421 percentile. Obviously, it has to be top 1 percentile or 1.5 or 0.5, whatever. So,
09:50that benchmark has to be maintained. Tell me, since the last 2 years, what is it that
10:01you belong to the top 1 percentile of? J was the last thing you excelled at. Tell me, what
10:11is it that you have added to your kitty post the J? Are you 1 percent, top 1 percent in
10:21swimming, 1 percent in debating, in dramatics, in tennis? In what? And that which you are
10:35seeking now will push you, I said, deeper into mediocrity. Do you want to be among those
10:45students of your class who used to obtain 50, 60, 70 percent or 75, 80 percent and were
10:53satisfied with that? Do you want to be counted among them, please? No, sir. Yes. So, maintain
11:03the J like spirit throughout your life. You have to excel. Relationships and such thing,
11:12let the mediocre ones count them as their priority. Read, read a lot. You would have
11:25poured into the books and burned the midnight oil. And since entering the campus, how much
11:39have you really read? And even if you have read, I am sure it mostly belongs to the technical
11:45genre, right? Yes, sir. The entire world's literature is waiting for you. When will you
11:54read that? When will you read that? And if you do not read that, don't you see you will
12:02be missing out on so much? What can the company of a common second or third year student give
12:14you? Don't you want to learn from the great philosophers, the great writers? Don't you
12:24want to be with them? But you see it is the body, we want a living being. The warmth of
12:30another living body, that is what this body craves for. So, even if you must have that,
12:42then let that be secondary to your purpose, goal and work. Choose the company of those
12:52who assist in your work. Choose the company of those who are aligned with your work.
12:59Persons must be way down in your priority. Remember who you are. You are someone who
13:16must excel. You are someone who must know, learn, realize and ultimately be liberated.
13:22And this fact of central identity of yours must govern all your life decisions.
13:33Acharya ji, as you said that we have to explore more on other fronts. I went through one of your
13:51videos wherein you mentioned that the two years of IIM achievement is you did not let the system
13:57get inside your head. How did you go about doing that? Because as you shared right now,
14:06as you answered Rashi's question, you mentioned that we have to keep the fire burning. We have
14:12to move forward in our 20s and the rest of our life. We should just keep learning. But the core
14:19idea or the core basis that we have got is the capitalistic basis that everything has to have
14:26a capitalistic purpose and not just out of curiosity. Very well said. See, most people excel,
14:35yes, most people excel only when that excellence leads to capital gains. Only when that excellence
14:45leads to monetary benefits. You are right. And that is why so many people stop studying the
14:51moment they enter NIT or NIM or they at least are not at their best. That is because it is not
15:06studies fundamentally or books fundamentally or knowledge fundamentally that attracted them.
15:11What attracted them was the prospect of plumb placements. The moment that placement is assured
15:19or obtained, the fire dies down. That should not be there. Remain the same person throughout your
15:28life. The same person that had not yet cleared the JEE, but was raring to clear the JEE. The
15:39same person who was sprinting and putting in 10, 12, 16 hours a day. That you cannot do if
15:49you are studying for the sake of money, because money will come. And once money comes, then you
15:57will be easily satisfied. Therefore, you must have a very, very high purpose in life. The kind of
16:06purpose that can never actually be fully attained. If it can never be fully attained, you will be
16:12working towards it all your life without ever having a final satisfaction that you have arrived.
16:18That dissatisfaction is extremely important. What is that final purpose I am referring to? It is
16:26called realization or liberation. It is called annihilation of the ego. Now, annihilation of
16:31the ego just cannot happen directly. It has to happen through your life work. You have to choose
16:38your work in a way that it keeps diminishing your ego. And because the ego can never be fully,
16:46absolutely diminished, reduced to zero, therefore, you will have to keep the fire burning throughout
16:52your life. That is the method. Choose such a mammoth goal that you always have to be on your
17:01toes, that you never fall complacent, that you can never give yourself the liberty to say, now I am
17:09done and I can retire. Getting it? This must be sounding a bit different from the usual things
17:21you hear. I understand that but we are trying to keep it as lucid as possible. Keep coming, keep
17:29coming. You said that we have to take up a goal that we may never achieve. Yes. Isn't that something
17:43which, if we are not here for, if we are not there to see our life's work, how will that keep the
17:54fire burning? Because ultimately we are a species that looks towards feedbacks. That's what your
18:03body does. And that's why I said it's important to not to listen too much to your body. The body
18:10wants attainable goals. The consciousness is in need of a goal that is extremely worthy, extremely
18:20lovable, even though unattainable. Consciousness has a deep need. Therefore, this is where love
18:33comes in. You must fall in love with what you do. More accurately, you must do something worth
18:44falling in love with. Getting it? The final goal is within. The final goal is annihilation of the
18:59darkness and bondage within. But because it is within, it cannot happen directly, we said. So,
19:07you have to choose a series of projects so challenging that they keep resulting in your
19:18betterment. Externally, obviously, you cannot just choose a project that will never be finished. So,
19:28external projects, they will keep coming and going. And may you be successful at all the
19:34external challenges you pick up. But once a challenge is overcome, pick the next one. And
19:44what will be the next one? It will be decided by the previous one that you have just overcome.
19:50So, may you have a great series of successes in the external world and all those successes lead
20:01to your final victory within. What is that final victory within? You must be just preparing to ask
20:08your next question. Sir, but you said that the internal goal can never be fully achieved. The
20:13internal victory is about continuously having worked in the right direction, in the inward
20:23direction. If you can manage to do that your entire life, you are a winner. And the direction
20:32is towards liberation of consciousness. Towards liberation of consciousness. Being hell-bent,
20:39I want to see what all remains as a bondage in my life. I want to identify my hidden masters
20:48one after the other and keep negating them continuously. And there are just so many of
20:55them. There are just so many of them because internally there sits someone who is very
21:02prepared to be a slave. Because here somebody is prepared to be a slave, so masters come in
21:13great abundance. I will keep negating all those masters. I will keep negating the slavery within.
21:21I will keep reducing my tendency to be dependent, to be lazy, to be hungry, to be afraid, to be
21:31greedy. I will keep identifying where my weaknesses lie. I will keep challenging overcoming them.
21:36That's the great purpose one must have in life. Acharya ji, I have a follow-up question. Our
21:47great purpose is liberation. Yes. But how do we choose our own path or we can say how to not be
21:56influenced by our surrounding, the bonds, our relationship with others, not just family,
22:04friends, the society we live in, our surrounding. How to identify who I am without getting influenced
22:14by others, external factors? When you say you want to identify who you are, if you are honest,
22:21you will realize you are the one who is already influenced by everybody, influenced by everybody
22:28and driven by the body. So, enslaved doubly, driven by the body and influenced by all and
22:36sundry, that's who we are. So, identifying who we are is not very difficult. We are social creatures,
22:43we are physical creatures and being either of them is no good at all, that's what. Now,
22:50you said how do we identify the right work? You have to start from where you are. Your goal is
22:56liberation, but you are where you are and whatever the destination might be, the first step has to
23:05be taken from your current location. Knowing your current location honestly, accurately is very
23:12important. Do not keep yourself in delusion and there will be a tendency to self-delude because
23:20it hurts to know where you really are. We might think that we are in an amusement park, enjoying
23:32ourselves and when you want to be a bit honest for a change, you realize you are in a prison cell.
23:44So, knowing where you really are is the first thing and a very difficult thing, not because
23:57it is difficult to know where you are, but because it is difficult to acknowledge where you are.
24:02It hurts. So, acknowledge where you are, you will see how badly enslaved you might be and
24:12then immediately you will know what to do, that is your work. If I know I am sitting on this sofa
24:21and my leg has been chained to the leg of the sofa, do not I know what to do? So,
24:38my situation decides my immediate work and the situation is invariably of bondage,
24:47we all are in bondage. So, that answers my question very rightly.