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Video Information: 04.04.23, ITM-Mumbai (Online), Greater Noida
SQ and EQ: Spiritual wisdom vs Emotional fulfilment
Context:
~ What is spiritual quotient?
~ Is emotional fulfillment worth chasing?
~ What comes after emotional fulfillment?
~ What is the test for spiritual quotient?
~ How can we develop spiritual quotient?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~
Video Information: 04.04.23, ITM-Mumbai (Online), Greater Noida
SQ and EQ: Spiritual wisdom vs Emotional fulfilment
Context:
~ What is spiritual quotient?
~ Is emotional fulfillment worth chasing?
~ What comes after emotional fulfillment?
~ What is the test for spiritual quotient?
~ How can we develop spiritual quotient?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good evening, sir, because I remember something called spiritual quotient and that being discussed
00:14once.
00:15So, I think what you were just talking about was related to that.
00:18Could you expand please on what is spiritual quotient and how can one develop that?
00:27Spiritual quotient, I do not honestly remember how I had explained it or defined it the last
00:35time.
00:36So, what I will say now might be totally different or even at odds with the previous thing.
00:43But let's still go ahead because, you know, to me spiritual quotient is simply your intention
00:51to remain honest.
00:55Spiritual quotient is simply your courage to live your love.
01:06Spiritual quotient is your willingness to face ugliness when you look at yourself.
01:20There is no SQ without self-knowledge, right?
01:25And why is self-knowledge so difficult?
01:27One could say one does not have knowledge of psychology because one had no access to
01:31a university or a library.
01:35But why must self-knowledge be difficult?
01:40Self-knowledge means knowing oneself.
01:43You are not far off library.
01:49You don't have to seek admission in some external university to know yourself.
01:59You are available.
02:01You are accessible.
02:02Why do you still not know yourself?
02:05Because you will not bear to admit what you come across when you look at yourself.
02:19So that's SQ.
02:22The willingness to not to be dishonest to oneself, to the love towards truth.
02:36What is the price I am prepared to pay?
02:46That's your SQ.
02:48SQ is not about the number of scriptures you have read.
02:54It's not about the number of verses you have memorized.
03:01Nor is it about the number of rituals that you practice.
03:07It's not about how disciplined you are with your religious practices.
03:14No, SQ is none of these.
03:17SQ is love, honesty, courage.
03:25Love towards the truth, honesty in terms of acknowledging the truth and the courage to
03:38admit that you have been a liar, worse than a liar.
03:44You have been a lie all along.
03:51If you have that, then you have a high SQ.
03:56Love, honesty, courage.
04:06How does one progress or is it something that one can develop or increase or enhance in
04:15oneself?
04:19If one wants to.
04:22So how does one develop SQ?
04:27By having love, honesty and courage.
04:30It's a choice.
04:34When something is a matter of choice, it need not be developed.
04:39One does not develop when it comes to a choice.
04:43One exercises a choice.
04:49One exercises it.
04:52See, if you do not have muscles, you develop them.
04:58The problem with people is not that they do not have a spiritual muscle.
05:05The problem is that they do not exercise it.
05:08Now that's a choice.
05:13Having a muscle is one thing.
05:17Having it and still not exercising it is another thing.
05:21What's funny is that when you exercise it, you develop it.
05:27So how do you develop love, courage and honesty?
05:32By being loving, courageous and honest.
05:36How do you develop a muscle?
05:37By exercising it.
05:45As opposed to something like an intelligence quotient, which supposedly is...
05:51It's not a matter of practice.
05:55You could say it is a matter of practice, but much before the practice comes the choice.
06:03Developing the muscle by way of exercising it involves repetitions and practice, we agree.
06:12But all that is a choice.
06:16Because the muscle pains when you stretch it, when you pull it, when you lift that weight,
06:28it pains.
06:29There has to be a willingness to bear the pain.
06:33There has to be a love for strength.
06:39There has to be honesty to admit that you are responsible for your own weakness if you
06:48do not exercise it.
06:52If you do not exercise your muscles, then you are the one who's choosing to remain weak.
07:01So it's about just taking a decision.
07:06I decide to not to be afraid.
07:13A lot of people will say this is simplistic or utopian or impractical.
07:21But it's after a lot of consideration that I'm saying that this is the only practical
07:26and possible way.
07:28There has to be a decision.
07:29Nothing else works.
07:32A moment comes when you simply say, I drop all the nonsense.
07:38And that moment, it is very possible, might not come after thousands of years of practice.
07:46Practice does not lead you there.
07:50You can keep practicing and yet never decide to drop it.
07:57And you can drop it right now.
08:02So all things kept aside, it's a matter of choice.
08:05SQ is choice.
08:18Sir, has grace got anything to do with spiritual quotient?
08:23Even grace is choice, you see.
08:27And that choice is not made by grace.
08:33The sun is shining bright.
08:37One chooses to crawl under a rock.
08:42Grace will not rain on you.
08:47It's a choice to come out to the sun.
08:56It's a choice to receive the brightness right in your eye.
09:03It's a choice.
09:04Grace is not conditional.
09:08The condition is imposed by the recipient of the grace, not by grace.
09:16The sun is not saying I do not want to illuminate everybody.
09:22The sun is equally available to everybody.
09:24If you are still in the dark, it's your choice.
09:34So grace is not something you can blame situations for.
09:39Else grace sounds so much like luck.
09:45And the entire discussion becomes fatalistic.
09:48You say, oh, you know, grace shone so abundantly over him.
09:54That's the reason he could develop his IQ.
09:58And grace was a little partial in my case.
10:05I didn't have a good measure of favor from grace.
10:15And that's the reason why I am spiritually underdeveloped.
10:18I think I could say things like that, right?
10:21No, no, no.
10:23Grace is unconditional.
10:25The condition is from our side.
10:27And that's the choice I'm talking of.
10:33Thank you, sir.
10:41Hello, sir.
10:45If one is trying to learn something, but is not getting emotional fulfillment, it becomes
10:52difficult to learn how to tackle that.
10:57It's not a very difficult thing to learn.
11:01What if it's about fighting cancer and you have third stage cancer, survival chances
11:16are slim, you don't want to give up one round of chemotherapy, one kind of treatment, then
11:24another round, another kind, this, that, a thousand things you are trying.
11:29And it's not as if you are seeing very visible progress.
11:33But you still continue to fight, right?
11:38So it's not necessarily progress that keeps you going.
11:50It's an appreciation of the importance of the project that keeps you going.
11:58Or at least does not let you buckle down.
12:03What I'm doing is very, very important.
12:06And because it is important, so it has to be done, irrespective of whether there is
12:13clear progress or not.
12:15That does not mean that I do not bother for success.
12:19Obviously, if I see success, that's wonderful.
12:25But even if I do not see success, now I cannot retreat.
12:31The option to drop the project has been dropped.
12:37Are you getting it?
12:41And that's how one proceeds in life, not on the basis of emotional fulfillment, but on
12:49the basis of an appreciation and an acknowledgement of the importance of what you are doing.
12:59These are two very different things, emotion versus importance.
13:05You can be emotional about something very unimportant, right?
13:08If you look at emotional people, mostly they are emotional about very trivial things, are
13:14they not?
13:16Somebody is emotional about his handkerchief.
13:21And that happens.
13:24People argue and then they get emotional.
13:27And the argument was over something very flimsy.
13:33So it's not your emotion that can really take you through the travails of life.
13:42You must know what is really, really important.
13:47And for that, you need attention.
13:51You need to have an honesty, a love that does not allow self delusion.
14:03You cannot tolerate to keep yourself in the dark.
14:08You say, fine, even if I lie to others, even if I misrepresent to others, at least let
14:17me know for myself what the reality is like.
14:23And when you know that, then you come upon the real importance of something, anything.
14:30And that's when your commitment and your real energy is activated.
14:39Emotional attachment or emotional fulfillment, all this is all right, but it cannot take
14:47you far.
14:51You cannot spend an entire life on an emotional upsurge.
15:01If you want to unflinchingly remain with something, then you must know who you are and why that
15:11thing is important to you.
15:14Emotion mostly arises from blind physical tendencies.
15:22It's an upsurge.
15:23It's a balloon.
15:25It's a tide.
15:29And the tide has both ebb and flow.
15:35There is nobody who remains or can remain in an aroused emotional state for too long.
15:43Can you?
15:45So even if emotion does unleash energy, it is short lived.
15:51Anger, for example, opens up a lot of energy within, adrenaline.
16:02But how long can you afford to remain angry?
16:05You will die of high BP.
16:08You will get a cardiac arrest.
16:09If you are continuously angry for a week, a week is probably too much.
16:16Two days, maybe six hours, you are gone.
16:27People want sexual arousal, they consume aphrodisiacs and then they die.
16:36Because the body cannot tolerate that level of arousal for too long.
16:44That's emotion.
16:47But consciousness, not only can it tolerate a heightened state, it actually craves for
16:55the continuity of a heightened state.
16:58That's the difference.
17:00Heightened emotion is drain of energy.
17:04Emotion is temporal.
17:07Heightened consciousness is the best use of energy.
17:15Heightened consciousness is the discipline of energy.
17:23So you require understanding rather than emotion.
17:27And when you understand, a beautiful thing happens.
17:34Emotion toes the line.
17:37If you really understand, you will find a great change in your life.
17:42Your emotion will become a follower of your understanding.
17:47And there is no better state you can aspire for as a conscious being.
17:54Now emotion is not your enemy.
17:57Now emotion is not a blind lead.
18:02Now emotion is not even a blind master leading you into dark forests.
18:10Now you are indeed still emotional.
18:18You do experience emotion, but the quality of experience has changed.
18:24The quality has sublimated.
18:28It's the experience of a scientist.
18:31It's the emotion of a scientist when he sees something extraordinary in his laboratory
18:39for the first time.
18:42It is the emotion of a saint when he looks at all the suffering and ignorance widespread
18:49in the world.
18:52The scientist, you can find his face laced with tears.
19:00The saint too is crying.
19:01Obviously there is emotion.
19:06But this emotion has a totally different quality because it is arising from your understanding.
19:17Are you getting it?
19:21And when you stay put, skill is something that you gradually or sometimes rapidly do
19:33learn.
19:36Sooner than later skill is inevitable if you have given your heart to something.
19:45And even if the project that you have taken up is so difficult that it's a tedious thing
19:58to be skilled at it, you still don't give up, you say fine, fine.
20:06I might not be an expert at this thing skill wise.
20:11I might not be very proficient.
20:14But the thing is so important.
20:16I cannot give up on it.
20:17So I'll continue to be at it.
20:21So my question is, how we can find balance between these two, social and spiritual life?
20:31How we can find the balance between social and spiritual life?
20:36Social and?
20:37Spiritual life.
20:38Yeah.
20:39The time that I spend socializing, I find myself moving away from my spiritual interest.
20:50Socialize with spiritual people, that's the answer.
20:55Then there will be then there will be no division, no exclusivity.
21:00Right now it is spiritual or social.
21:04Let it be social and spiritual.
21:13But sir, you cannot find like-minded people whenever you want, means you have to be in
21:20this situation.
21:21Are you so unique and special, seriously?
21:23No, no, no.
21:25So there are others.
21:27There are others.
21:28It's just that we are slave to our past and habits.
21:32So we carry some friends from the past or from coincidence and then we stick to those
21:40people.
21:41There is no need.
21:42Find out the right people you can socialize with.
21:47And if you cannot find them in college, find them online.
21:49If you can't find them online, find them in books.
21:52If you cannot find them anywhere, then stay with yourself.
21:56But for sure you can find them.
21:58It's not that the world is so so bereft of spiritual people, you will find them right
22:03in your college.
22:04Thank you.
22:05First of all, I would like to thank my institute ITM for giving this wonderful opportunity
22:17to all of us to have this interactive session with Acharyaji.
22:21Indeed, Acharyaji, this was a great session and I was like me, the other, I mean closely
22:28engrossed in the discussion that we were having.
22:31I would like to, you know, throw some light on what are the topics that was discussed
22:36by you.
22:37You gave a beautiful example of how women empowerment needs to be framed by different
22:43bodies and what is the role of government, legal, society and the books that we read.
22:53I would like to beautifully explain how the mind has made different shapes and name and
22:59because of which we are caged amongst the doubt of what we want to do with the relationship.
23:07There was a beautiful question asked by few students on Vikago, which was beautifully
23:16explained that it keeps repeating and it is not just by you, it has happened in past by
23:21many and when we experience it again, we say something new has happened with us.
23:27Beautifully told by you that yes, the importance has not to be given to the shortcuts of learning
23:32but we need to read our religious texts.
23:35We need to get back to the habit of reading and learning through it so that we have an
23:41in-depth knowledge and when we have an in-depth knowledge, the way to spirituality is going
23:47to be high.
23:49Thank you so much Acharya ji for giving your precious time, your input on the session.
23:54Thank you so much Acharya ji for this insightful session.
23:57Thank you.
23:58I thoroughly enjoyed.
23:59Even we thoroughly.
24:00Thank you, sir.