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Video Information: 13.04.24, Vedanta Session, Greater Noida
Context:
What is the meaning of Death?
What happens after death?
What is the real price of fearlessness?
Why is wanting security an impediment to freedom?
How to realize the Truth?
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: 13.04.24, Vedanta Session, Greater Noida
Context:
What is the meaning of Death?
What happens after death?
What is the real price of fearlessness?
Why is wanting security an impediment to freedom?
How to realize the Truth?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00With the last three years, I was twice in the cremation ground.
00:08I was conducting the funeral of my mother and then my father after two years.
00:13So during that time, the gravity of the immortality of the soul and everything was definitely
00:19there and these verses and your teachings, they give me a different outlook.
00:25I did not continue to look at the concept as my father or my mother are immortal in
00:32the soul form.
00:33Now the conception changed.
00:36But as time has passed, there are two things that I see in my day to day life.
00:40Those of us who continue living, parts who are members of the family, we feel a very
00:46intense sense of everything being very mundane and very strong sense of apathy, indifference
00:54towards things.
00:58And I also feel it in my work, even though I changed my line of work, try to align it
01:03more with a good work or right work.
01:09It's in the field of disaster resilient infrastructure these days.
01:13But I'm not able to charge the work itself with a sense of, with a very strong sense
01:17of purpose.
01:18That's one and I seek psychotherapy also.
01:22But there they treat it as a very normal thing in the aftermath of bereavement.
01:27So they're like, this is very natural.
01:29This happens to most of us.
01:31And the second thing was, as I pay more attention to your teachings, I also feel that in day
01:37to day dealings, especially in work, in the outside world, we have to challenge our learned
01:41ways of dealing with things.
01:45And there are a lot of disruptions start coming and it seems like if we are disturbing
01:49the patterns too much or lessons that we learned about what the right personality should be,
01:55what is considered impressive, effective, efficient, all those things.
02:00So is this also expected on this path?
02:04Please see, we said that the way you want to know the fact of the world is by observing
02:26things as they are.
02:32And whenever it would happen that the fact would expose itself, announce itself, hit
02:51you, it would be an instance of disruption of assumption.
03:03Whenever facts meet assumptions, it is the assumption that stands to face disruption.
03:18Death is a very stark fact.
03:23It disturbs us exactly because it challenges the assumption on which we base our day to
03:35day life.
03:40We live, we act in forgetfulness of death.
03:51The ego wants to think that it is indestructible, that it is the self.
04:00As we say, aham wants to believe that it is atma.
04:06And atma does not die, therefore the ego wants to live in forgetfulness of death.
04:19That's how we conduct our day to day routine.
04:26Assuming our self to be the truth and therefore assuming our self to be immortal.
04:33Faced with the fact of death, that assumption is shattered.
04:45So there can be two options then.
04:56Behave as if the assumption still stands unhurt, as if you have seen nothing and carry on with
05:10life as it always has been.
05:16Or you could see that death, grief, bereavement, they have come as fact checks, as teachers
05:32to tell you that you have been living in some gross, unfounded belief, as we all do.
05:47Most people want to turn back to normalcy as soon as possible, after a brief period
05:56of bereavement.
05:59And that's what they go to psychotherapy for.
06:03They say, we want to get back to normal.
06:09That's like saying, we want to quickly forget the hint of the truth that came to us.
06:19Can you help us go back to our dreams, to our stupor, to our inebriated normal consciousness?
06:32And that's what is called, as we said, as normalcy.
06:37You can choose to reclaim your normalcy or you can choose truth.
06:49Death came to tell that whatsoever we have founded our lives on is very fragile.
07:01We can accept the lesson or just discard it.
07:09It depends on us.
07:13Your normal work, your relationships, your worldview, all these will obviously appear
07:21hollow after you are struck with the fragility of everything.
07:33To me, that's an opportunity to move into something else, something higher.
07:43After a lesson has been taught, an expensive lesson, why would one not want to use the
07:51lesson?
07:53Why would one want to continue as the uneducated student one previously was?
08:10Sorrow comes to teach.
08:17Losses are suffered so that we may see that whatever we cling to can be lost very easily.
08:40In Mahabharata, there is an instance of the Yudhishthira Yaksha Sambhav.
08:49So the Yaksha is a mythical creature and it is said that when the Pandavas were passing
08:59through the period of exile in the forest, once they went to fetch some water, one after
09:08the other and none of them returned.
09:14So Yudhishthira went after them and found all of them lying unconscious by a water body,
09:22a lake and then the guardian of the lake, he said, you either answer all my questions
09:31or you too will drop dead like your brothers.
09:36So Yudhishthira said fine, beautiful set of questions, we all deserve to read them.
09:43One of the questions is, what is the most intriguing thing about humanity?
09:57That's the Yaksha question and Yudhishthira responds that men encounter death and yet
10:07carry on as if they have seen nothing.
10:16They know they will die and yet they behave as if they are immortal.
10:25So we could continue to behave as if we are immortal.
10:32The admission of vulnerability does not lie in mere words.
10:40If you really know something, it has to show up in your actions, thoughts, deeds.
10:49Only then can you claim that you really know something.
10:57We want to live as the body and yet we want to be immortal.
11:07Now this is a gulf that can't be bridged.
11:12On one hand, we have a great stake and a great temptation in behaving as the body.
11:23On the other hand, even as we want to live as the body, we want to be deathless.
11:31These two cannot go together.
11:37Death comes to tell that if you will live as the body, this is what you will end as,
11:45ashes.
11:46Do you like that?
11:48If you like that, carry on with your usual business.
11:53If you do not like that, then you need to ascend your life to a higher dimension.
12:05It's an incongruent mass, the ego, split by inner contradictions, wants to proclaim to
12:23everybody and itself, I am immortal.
12:27And yet every day it encounters proofs of its mortality.
12:34So it is continuously afraid.
12:39Proclaims I am afraid of nobody because I am truth itself, I am Atma.
12:44What can happen to me?
12:46And yet everything it does, every little piece of fact proves to it that you are extremely
12:56vulnerable, totally fragile.
13:03Your life is that of a clambering mosquito, but gone.
13:14And that bundle of contradictions is what the life of the average human being is.
13:30Claiming immortality, yet afraid of mortality, so striving to be immortal in all kinds of
13:39distorted ways possible.
13:47Death comes to educate us.
13:52Let's learn the lesson.
14:04One thing I can kind of assure you of, it will be very difficult for you to return to
14:15your old ways.
14:21It requires a very deep kind of dishonesty to unsee after you have seen, to unrealize
14:35after you have realized.
14:39If you have seen something, realized something, now you are condemned to, burdened to live
14:57what you have realized.
15:02You cannot be the same ignorant mind again.
15:09Something has been seen.
15:19Maybe you were enjoying the bowl of soup till now.
15:24Since you have seen the fly in it, you may still continue to sip.
15:37But can you continue to enjoy?
15:42It will require, as we said, deep-seated dishonesty and a very perverted sense of taste to still
15:56enjoy the soup.
16:00You won't be able to.
16:03So you better get yourself a fresh bowl.
16:18Great changes have known to come after one has witnessed death.
16:28There would have been no Buddhism in the world.
16:32Had the young Siddhartha not chanced upon death one day.
16:40Death is a liberator.
16:44Not so much to the one who has died, but to the one who is still alive.
16:52Yes.
16:53So if I may add just two more thoughts.
17:04One came much before this session about the contradiction.
17:08I think Pitripaksha were going on and a lot of effort was being made by some family members
17:16for the liberation of the departed souls.
17:19And at that time, I had written in one of my reflections that while people were alive,
17:25there was no talk of Mukti and not even a single discussion ever happened.
17:31The only Mukti that was ever imagined was death.
17:34But after the death has happened, some Mukti is being talked about for which crows will
17:38come and you know, pundits have to be fed and visits to Gaya are required.
17:42That was the first contradiction.
17:43The second one on which I would definitely like your teachings on was or is the last
17:52sentence that you said.
17:54Because it constantly feels that death is a liberation to those who have died.
17:59It feels like that.
18:00Because my mother died at 55-56 and struggled a lot with very deep mental health issues
18:07all her life.
18:08And my father was a very hard worker and everything and died at 64 right after retirement.
18:13So it feels as if they have been liberated while we are condemned to go on living.
18:19While what you have said is the exact opposite.
18:22So why does that feeling not arise?
18:24Why does it feel like, why should it not come to all of us?
18:29Because liberation is not an absence of consciousness.
18:37Liberation is the joy of consciousness.
18:44Liberation is not consciousness bludgeoned into coma.
18:52Liberation is the effervescence of consciousness.
18:56What joy is possible to the dead?
19:01So it is not possible that liberation comes through death.
19:07If you are gone, what joy is there to you?
19:11In fact, all the possibility of joy has also gone.
19:19Therefore Vedanta is unique in talking about Videha Mukti and Jeevan Mukti and saying Jeevan
19:24Mukti is the real thing.
19:29When we talk of Mukti, it has to be specifically Jeevan Mukti.
19:43Liberation while alive as the body.
19:50The body is there and the joy of knowing that you are not the body is there.
19:58If the body is no more there, where is the joy of knowing that you are not the body?
20:08If the toy is gone, what joy is there in witnessing it?
20:18Organized religion is just an elaborate conspiracy to keep you away from Mukti.
20:27And you put it very nicely, nobody talks of Mukti when they are alive.
20:34Now after they are gone, their kith and kin are supposed to be worried about their Mukti,
20:44which is all quite nonsensical.
20:47Once you are gone, the opportunity is gone.
20:51There is no liberation for the dead, no liberation at all for the dead.
20:57And that is why the opportunity called life is so precious.
21:03Liberation is not for the true self, Atma.
21:09Is there liberation for Atma?
21:13And there is no ego sans the body.
21:16You very well know when the ego is born.
21:20And the child gains consciousness.
21:24Liberation is not for Atma.
21:25Liberation is only for the ego.
21:27And the ego exists only with the body.
21:31Therefore liberation is possible only when you are bodied.
21:38There is nothing called a disembodied ego.
21:43But organized religion has come up with this ugly hoax, the disembodied ego, which it calls
21:50as the Jeevatma.
21:53Vedanta totally dismisses that, the disembodied self.
21:58There is nothing called the disembodied self or ghosts or Jeevatma or wandering soul or
22:06any other nonsense of that kind.
22:13Will you please remember that Vedanta arises out of deep compassion for the living being.
22:20Vedanta is not about compassion for ghosts.
22:27No Rishi is coming and saying, I need to liberate ghosts.
22:32For that you can refer to the pandits of organized religion.
22:37They are interested in liberating ghosts.
22:40Vedanta is about living, eating, breathing, talking, walking, human beings.
22:46Vedanta is about us, not the Bhootprets.
22:52Otherwise the Rishis would have been talking all the time to the ghosts.
23:02Upanishad would mean the Rishi talking to ghosts because the ghosts are to be liberated.
23:10Krishna should have been addressing ghosts.
23:17Who is being addressed in Vedanta?
23:21Give me one instance where a dead one is being addressed.
23:25Who is being addressed?
23:27Somebody alive because we are the ones who suffer.
23:31Ghosts don't suffer.
23:32Even if they suffer, their suffering is the imaginative outcome of our suffering.
23:40The more we suffer, the more we imagine suffering ghosts also.
23:44And if you look at ghost stories, their sufferings are mirror reflections of our suffering.
23:52So some male ghost has lost a female ghost and he is absolutely heartbroken.
24:02That looks more like a human story.
24:05That is a human story imposed upon the ghost or the ghost is envious or the ghost wants
24:19to extort some money or the ghost wants to have some wicked fun by entering somebody's
24:27body.
24:29These are things that we do.
24:31You find a vacant plot and you occupy it.
24:36So you have concocted a similar story saying the ghost found a vacant body and entered
24:42it.
24:48The Rishis were talking to living people, not souls.
25:00Ever found a sermon being addressed even to a dead body, let alone a ghost?
25:08That a fellow is lying dead or that the fellow is sleeping or that the fellow is unconscious
25:13and he is being sermoned.
25:17Any such instance?
25:18No such instance.
25:22In fact, the listener has to be fully attentive.
25:25Only then the seer would speak, which means you need a living, attentive consciousness.
25:41Standing in front as a listener or a student.
25:51The concept of liberation has to be clarified.
25:56No liberation after death.
26:01No bondage after death.
26:04No liberation before birth.
26:06No bondage before birth.
26:08Nothing before birth, nothing after death.
26:12Because all sorrow is there only as you are alive.
26:17Is there sorrow before your birth?
26:19No, sir.
26:20Is there sorrow after your death?
26:23No, sir.
26:26All the hodgepodge and the drama is while when we are alive, therefore all the teachings
26:33are addressed to living people.
26:40Shri Krishna is not choosing to talk to Arjuna's father, the diseased father, is he?
26:58When someone is gone, it's time to turn to the welfare of those who are still alive.
27:06No welfare is possible of the one who is gone now.
27:10Gone means gone.
27:13The window is closed.
27:14However, the window is still open in the form of several other people who are still alive.
27:21Take care of them.
27:23That's empathy.
27:24That's genuine compassion.
27:27In fact, the more you try to take care of the departed ones, in some way, the more cruel
27:34you are.
27:36It's like feeding a dead one at the cost of starving the living ones.
27:48Concentrate on the living ones.
27:50They are the ones who can still be uplifted or saved or liberated.
28:04You know, in India, one of the reasons behind the high rate of suicides in rural areas is
28:18this.
28:23The prevalence of expensive religious customs, especially the customs spanning 13 days after
28:39death.
28:42Now, you can somehow cut corners when it comes to customs on other occasions.
28:55But a great scare grips you when it comes to the departed soul.
29:03And the priest is there to drill the fear deep down.
29:10He will say, if you do not spend so much money, if you do not gift so many items, if
29:15you do not feed so many Brahmins, then your departed father will burn in hell.
29:25Now this is something no son, no daughter, no wife, no family member can tolerate.
29:35So the poor people actually borrow for the sake of these rituals.
29:42And then the loan cannot be repaid because micro financing is very expensive still in
29:48rural India.
29:50People borrow from local money lenders at high monthly rates of interest.
29:58And then one death becomes the reason for a couple of suicides within next 2-3 years.
30:07Why?
30:08Because people were trying to ingratiate a departed soul.
30:18And it is not something that halts just after 13 days.
30:24The entire cycle of rituals continues.
30:28Initially month after month and then year after year.
30:33You even have to make expensive journeys.
30:39How will a poor man afford all that?
30:47Now I said all this can very rightfully be called as an elaborate conspiracy.
30:57Let's not fall to it.
31:08It's a parallel economy.
31:14It's just that it's a very wasteful kind of economy in which no value is created.
31:22Just that millions of people draw their sustenance from this by scaring, rather looting other people.
31:40You have to donate 13 sets of vessels which the Pandit goes back to the market, sells
31:44it off, then it comes back to him.
31:49Not just that much.
31:52You actually have to accept one particular priest as your departed father.
32:03There is the concept of Mahabaman and you have to gift everything that you would probably
32:09want to gift your father.
32:12Because your father is supposed to be undertaking a long and arduous journey towards heaven
32:17now.
32:18And he would need a lot of things.
32:19He also needs a vehicle.
32:22So this particular priest would come and say, why don't you give me a vehicle because I
32:25am your father.
32:26I am your deceased father standing in front of you.
32:30Bed, mattress, clothes, utensils, money, these are small things.
32:40Even a vehicle has to be gifted.
32:45And you cannot deny because that fellow actually behaves as your father.
32:52The concept of Jeevatma has been economically a very rewarding one.
32:57Do you see why it has stood the sands of time?
33:02Economics.
33:04Very very fruitful economics.
33:07If a concept proves economically rewarding to a particular section, will that concept
33:13be ever allowed to die down?
33:17So the concept stands.
33:20As they say, it's the money, honey.
33:29Wherever you find the prevalence of superstition, look sharply, you will also find a parallel
33:40economy.
33:42No superstition stands on its own.
33:46Money is changing hands somewhere.
33:49Money is filling his pockets.
33:53And that's why the superstition keeps breathing.
34:05Dirty economics.
34:11We talk of black money.
34:13This is blackest kind of money.
34:21In my corporate life, I was once a consultant to one of the top vehicle manufacturers of
34:30our country.
34:33And you know, in the small and mid-size segment, models are especially made to cater to the
34:53dowry market.
35:01So that you can claim that you gifted this kind of car to your daughter without mentioning
35:12the exact model.
35:15So the difference between the base model and the highest one can even run into 2x.
35:27I am talking of 2004-05.
35:33The base model could be priced at 4.
35:35The top model could be priced at 8 or 9.
35:38But still you could claim that I have gifted this particular car, let's say a Santro at
35:43that time.
35:48So I enquired and they said it's a dowry thing.
35:54However, retailers are trained to ask a customer, the moment you learn that the fellow is buying
36:03it for shaadi, you know the particular model to direct him to.
36:10It's economics.
36:16What else is the ego all about?
36:19An incompleteness that is bound to be greedy.
36:24If I am incomplete, I will be greedy.
36:27So all superstition is actually just greed.
36:32Somebody is benefiting from it.
36:40If you read upon this, you will be surprised.
36:45More than 50% of what you call as religious tourism is actually just superstition tourism.
36:54People travelling to world of bad evil influences.
37:02People rushing to some great temple because they believe that they have been possessed
37:07And if they go to that particular place, then the Baba there will shoo away the ghost
37:16possessing your head.
37:18And all that is accounted for as religious tourism.
37:22That is not religious tourism.
37:27Thank you, sir.
37:33Welcome.