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Video Information: 21.11.2022, Cummins College, Nagpur

Context:
~ How to control my emotions?
~ How to be less reactive?
~ How to not feel easily hurt?
~ Why are women easily fooled?
~ How to be a better human being?

Music Credits: Milind Date
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Category

📚
Learning
Transcript
00:00Good afternoon, sir. I am Nikki Singh. Sir, my question is, how can I be a more responsive
00:08person rather than a reactive one?
00:11Good one. Thank you, DC.
00:14Thank you, sir.
00:18Responsive rather than reactive. First of all, do we see that there is a difference
00:23between these two? What is the difference? Response and reaction. Is there a difference?
00:40How do you know when you have reacted rather than responded? How do you know? Yes? Reaction
00:55is a? Good one. Nice. That is something we can begin with. So, she says reaction is something
01:06like reflex action. So, where do these reflexes come from? Does a little baby have reflexes?
01:22Yes or no? Yes. So, where do these reflexes come from? They come from Mother Nature. They
01:30come from the mother's womb. You don't have to be taught reflexes. They exist right in
01:38your body. You bring a finger towards a little baby, just let's say a month old, you bring
01:48a little finger gently towards his eyes. And what will he do? Nobody taught the baby
02:00to do this. Instinctively, the baby knows that, you know, some foreign object is coming
02:06towards the eye, so the eyelids have to be shut. Right? Similarly, heat or cold or wetness,
02:24the baby knows how to deal with it. At least the baby knows that these are not nice things,
02:29so I need to cry. The temperature is 35, not pleasant, so the baby will cry. Or the temperature
02:38is 15, again not pleasant. Or the little bed is wet, again it will cry. How does it know all these
02:48things? How does the baby know how, for example, to take feed from the mother's body? The baby
02:56knows, you don't have to educate it. These are reflexes. What do these reflexes exist for? All
03:07these things that we just talked of, do they turn the baby into a better human being? Do they? Do
03:17they? No. Still they serve a purpose. What's the purpose? The purpose is physical security.
03:27Physical security. Now, the hand that is coming towards the baby might be of a well-meaning
03:38relative and yet the baby might resist it and cry out or turn her face away because all that
03:51is needed for physical security. All that is needed for physical security. And nature through
04:03its very very long process of evolution instilled these reflexes within us. They now sit in our DNA
04:13and once upon a time they had an important function to perform. The function was physical
04:22security. Now what has happened is that over the last 3-4 thousand years, mankind has progressed
04:35remarkably and very speedily. But evolution is a very very slow process. In the dimension of
04:45evolution, 4,000 years mean nothing at all. So, our body and the conditioning embedded in the
04:55body has remained just the same as it was 10 lakh years ago. Now compared to 10 lakh years, how much
05:02is 4,000 years? Nothing. But all that which you call as your knowledge, your development, your
05:08civilization has come in the last 4,000 maximum 6,000 years, not more than that. But the instincts
05:17that you carry in your body, they are millions of years old. Because they are so old, so they
05:23will take time to change. Not that they cannot change, but they will take time. So, internally
05:29we are still as we said that caveman, that old caveman with his cave-like instincts. Our instincts
05:37belong to the jungle. Because all our life we have lived just in the jungle, right? How old are
05:43we? We are millions of years old. And where were we living all this while? Where were we living all
05:51this while? In the jungle. Only recently, very very recently have we moved out of the jungle
05:57into the village or the city. So, our body still belongs to the jungle. And that's where our
06:05reflexes come from. You could say our reflexes are very jungly. That's what is reaction. A wild
06:16thing. An uneducated thing. A very animalistic thing. But something very powerful because you
06:26don't even need to think about it. It sits in your body. Let's say your arm touches something hot.
06:35Do you have to think whether or not to jerk away? No. You immediately flinch, don't you? Why is that
06:44needed? Because mother nature said that if you think, thinking will take time. And in that time,
06:51your skin, your arm will be damaged. So, let me give you something that bypasses thought. That's
07:00what reaction does. It gives you no time to think. It just happens. It's like switching on an electric
07:10bulb. Instantaneous reaction, right? It's like pouring water over sodium. Instantaneous reaction.
07:17No time to think. Just happens. Something very chemical, very biological. That's what reactiveness
07:23is. There is no thought, no consciousness involved in this. Mind this word, consciousness. Reflex
07:31action does not involve consciousness. Reflex action does not involve thought. Reactiveness
07:38does not involve consciousness. It only involves your wild, wild cave-like instincts. Are you
07:48getting? Now, those instincts we said are useful because they help the animal survive. We were an
07:54animal, right? Living in the jungle, we were just like animals. And those instincts have surely been
07:59beneficial because they have helped us survive over all these millions of years. So, definitely
08:05they have, at least they had a good use. Are you getting it? You must ask yourself, do you still
08:15need to live by the code of the animal, by the rules and the constitution of the animal,
08:23or as evolved human beings? You need to live more by thought and even more by understanding.
08:33Someone comes and says something unpleasant to you. Do you need to just immediately,
08:42unthinkingly explode as most of us do? Or can you tell yourself, I'm not an animal. I can wait,
08:51I can be patient. Let me at least think over it. And if I think deeply, the thought will
08:57sublimate into understanding. Even if I can't go to that depth of thought, let me at least try to
09:05think. Let me at least postpone the reaction. Because the reaction belongs to the jungle,
09:11to the animal, to the caveman. Am I jungly? In the jungle, we didn't have haircut to begin with.
09:26And there was no social media. We weren't brushing our tooth either. No one was wearing specs. No one
09:36wore clothes in the first place. When you have dropped all that, think of all that happens in
09:45the jungle. Someone is just pouncing upon someone else and tearing the body apart and eating the
09:52flesh. When you have dropped all that, why can't you drop your reactiveness? And particularly women,
10:04you see, because the biological role of women has a lot to do with the body. Right? The woman carries
10:14the baby for nine months and then also raises the baby for several years. Therefore, Prakriti,
10:23mother nature, made her even more reactive. Now that was all okay in the cave times. That is not
10:31okay today. Do you want to live as a body coming from the jungle? Or do you want to live as a free
10:39consciousness? Answer this please. And if you want to live as a free consciousness, then stop being
10:45emotionally reactive. That's the worst thing girls can do to themselves. Living from their emotional
10:52center. But you know, the force of emotion is so strong that when it rises, it feels like just the
10:59right thing. That's the problem. You can resist something if first of all it appears bad.
11:08If something appears bad, then you will even begin to resist it. But when emotion arises,
11:15it does not even appear bad. It appears just the right thing to happen.
11:19And you feel like supporting it. And the more you support it, the more you will remain enslaved.
11:26The animal, you know, what do you call animal in Hindi? In Sanskrit? Pashu.
11:36That which is in Pash. Pash means slavery. That which is in Pash is Pashu.
11:45If you live by the code of the animal, you will live the life of a slave.
11:49The more reactive and the more emotional you are, the more easily you will be enslaved.
11:58Because emotion is like a button. And everybody knows where your buttons are.
12:04Anybody can come and press that button and get the desired output from you. Suppose I want to
12:08make you angry. And I know that if I utter a particular word to you, you get angry.
12:13Now it is so easy for me to control you. Is it not?
12:17If I want to upset you, I just have to utter that word. You have become a machine.
12:23And I know the trigger. Equally, let's say I want to make you happy. I want to please you.
12:29And that is something very frequently used, especially with women.
12:32I want to please you. I know what pleases you. I can come and say, oh, you're looking gorgeous.
12:36The button has been. And immediately you will be prepared to do me a favor.
12:47It's not so simplistic, but you get the drift, right?
12:52If I know what pleases you, I can enslave you.
12:57If I know what displeases you, I can again enslave you. And that is the great danger in
13:07being emotionally reactive. You are predictable. And if you are predictable, you are controllable.
13:15Do you get this? Don't you see how even little kids try to fool their mothers?
13:20Mama, the food is great today. Mama, can I have 500 rupees?
13:28Now, the father had refused even 100 rupees. But this rascal manages to squeeze 500 from
13:34the mother. Mama, the food is great. And the mama says, okay, you take 500.
13:40Those who have known what womanhood means have had tremendous respect for women.
13:58The topmost Hindi author Premchand, he used to say that when men evolve beyond a point,
14:09then they acquire some feminine qualities. Otherwise, men remain inferior to women.
14:18And therefore, it is an even bigger tragedy that such a fine creature, the woman,
14:26such a fine specimen of evolution has lived life of continuous deprivation and slavery
14:38just because she has been too emotional and too reactive.
14:50Ready to shed tears at the drop of a hat. Why must you weep so often? Not that tears are a
14:56problem. I too weep quite frequently and there's nothing problematic in that. But
15:04there has to be some discretion. You must know where those tears are coming from.
15:16No? Remember, if there is an animal sitting in the woman, there is a bigger animal sitting in the
15:28sitting in the man. And that animal is bloodthirsty and bigger. And he'll eat you up.
15:41He'll tear you apart. And that's what he has been doing since centuries.
15:46If you remain an animal, the male, remember, is a bigger and more powerful animal.
15:53The only way you can beat the male animal is by
15:59not remaining an animal, become a human being. And a human being is not characterized by her
16:05reactiveness or emotionality. The mark of a human being is consciousness, understanding, depth,
16:13freedom of thought.
16:15Animals are supposed to react. Human beings are supposed to understand and then respond.
16:27That's the difference between reaction and response. Response involves understanding.
16:34Reaction is just chemical. One molecule meets another and there is an explosion. That's
16:43reaction. You don't want to be chemical. You don't want to be animal.
16:51Whenever you find emotions taking control of yourself, resist, fight. That's the one battle
17:00worthy to be fought. The external battles can wait a little.
17:11If you can fight the internal battle well,
17:14you will find the external battles are far easier to win.
17:22Be a master of your own mind.

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