Eternal Self and the Nature of Existence Acharya Prashant (2024)
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Video Information: 29.07.2024, Vedant: Basics to Classics, Greater Noida
Context:
What is self?
Why do we exist?
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?...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
#acharyaprashant
Video Information: 29.07.2024, Vedant: Basics to Classics, Greater Noida
Context:
What is self?
Why do we exist?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00Life has carried on since the first cell uninterrupted.
00:00:26If someone asks you the name of your great-great ancestor, it is actually just the first cell
00:00:42that developed in some muddy water body.
00:00:51So there has been a direct line and each of us are direct descendants of that cell.
00:01:12It tells us that bodies keep falling but there is something that continues without interruption.
00:01:36That is Prakriti.
00:01:46What we call as human beings are just specific shapes, forms that come and go yet there is
00:02:06something that continues.
00:02:13In fact, it has been posited scientifically that death happens exactly so that life can
00:02:26continue.
00:02:32Death happens so that the ones who have been hanging around since too long, they make
00:02:39way for something new, something fresh.
00:02:46If the old foggies don't make space, then there will be a terrible competition for resources
00:03:01In this competition, the oldies will necessarily win precisely because they have been around
00:03:08for too long, they know the rules of the game and the tricks of the trade much better than
00:03:22a newborn or a young one does.
00:03:29The only way the young one can have a reasonable claim to resources is if the old ones first
00:03:40of all get weak and sick so that they can't compete, ultimately they must fall off so
00:03:50that the resources become available to the next generation.
00:03:57In this way, the disappearance of the old one is actually necessary for the continuity
00:04:06of life.
00:04:10Life continues.
00:04:16But this continuation is not something that one can easily see.
00:04:27One takes himself as the unit of life.
00:04:34In fact, one takes himself as life itself.
00:04:42Therefore, one believes in life not as a continuity but in life as discrete units.
00:04:58So death appears like the end of life, not the game of life.
00:05:08And when death appears like the end of life, then there is a lot of suffering.
00:05:18And that suffering is continuous, well physically a death might not be happening every moment.
00:05:27People might not be dropping down every moment but there is other stuff that is falling apart
00:05:36and disappearing and crumbling every moment.
00:05:41And if that falling apart or crumbling down is not taken as continuation of the game,
00:05:48then there is suffering.
00:05:50One feels something has been lost, one feels there has been a death.
00:06:00Shri Krishna wants to relieve Arjuna of his suffering in two ways.
00:06:09First of all by showing to him the eternity of Prakriti and the timelessness, secondly,
00:06:23of the Atma.
00:06:27Prakriti is eternal, Atma is timeless.
00:06:36Prakriti is time itself, therefore there is no way that it can begin at some point in
00:06:49time or end at some point in time.
00:06:53If Prakriti ends, so does time.
00:07:03Prakriti is eternal, Atma is timeless.
00:07:14Whether you take Prakriti or Atma, one thing is certain.
00:07:23There is nothing called a beginning or an end in time.
00:07:34And it is this misconception that accounts for a lot of our suffering.
00:07:48When Arjuna rose at a moment, when went away at a moment, the game has continued.
00:08:07It's like a train, a long distance train.
00:08:11Look at the people who boarded it at the starting point, hardly any of them reached
00:08:24the end point.
00:08:28Think of a train for example that runs from Jammu till Kanyakumari over a period of two
00:08:37full days.
00:08:42Think of those who boarded the train at Jammu.
00:08:45How many of them reach Kanyakumari?
00:08:48But the train does.
00:08:52People hop in, people hop out, the train keeps moving.
00:08:57And at all points, the train remains either fully or reasonably occupied.
00:09:08We do not envisage a scenario in which the train gets weakened, does it ever, no?
00:09:14Five people joined in, five people left, opted out.
00:09:23The train keeps moving, that's life.
00:09:28That's life.
00:09:31And when the train arrives, you do not say the passengers have arrived, you say?
00:09:36The train has arrived, it's the train that counts.
00:09:41Life is not to be seen in discrete units.
00:09:55If you are unattached to the train, you will say the train has arrived.
00:10:00But if papa is arriving, you will say, oh papa has arrived.
00:10:11Such a huge train and maybe 800 passengers or more.
00:10:23And the train arrives and what do you say?
00:10:27Papa has arrived.
00:10:29You're not concerned with the rest of the material.
00:10:37That's attachment.
00:10:39That's when you fail to see the complete picture.
00:10:49The moment there is attachment, you start thinking in terms of persons rather than life
00:10:58itself.
00:11:00You start thinking of persons rather than prakriti.
00:11:18And that amounts to suffering.
00:11:26It's not at all difficult to see that the train has arrived, right?
00:11:33Or is it?
00:11:38But attachment does not allow you to see the simple and obvious fact, the huge fact of
00:11:46the train.
00:11:48You miss the train because your eyes are looking for papa.
00:11:57You have missed the train and the train is huge.
00:12:02Similarly the facts of life are obvious but we miss them because we are attached to particulars.
00:12:09We are attached to small little petty things.
00:12:15So we miss the composite picture.
00:12:21You getting it?
00:12:31So within the flow of time there is actually no death if one stops being attached to particulars.
00:12:45And that will be possible only when you first of all stop thinking of yourself as a particular.
00:12:51You will have to look yourself as a wave in the ocean.
00:12:56Not as a particular one with an independent existence.
00:13:01The moment you see that, your body, your mind, your sense of self are all prakriti.
00:13:11It becomes very difficult to still believe in a separation from prakriti.
00:13:17For me to have an identity as a particular, it is very important to see myself as separate
00:13:25from prakriti, right?
00:13:28But if you can see that every bit of you is organically related, continuously related
00:13:35to the wider life itself, how will you take yourself as separate, as particular?
00:13:42Possible?
00:13:47Where is your skin color coming from?
00:13:50It's coming from appearance and it's coming from the sun, no?
00:14:00And it's coming from the food you eat.
00:14:05Is it yours?
00:14:08So how do you then believe in particulars?
00:14:11All is organically linked to something else.
00:14:14It's all arriving from somewhere, right?
00:14:20And when you start seeing by way of self-observation and self-knowledge, every bit of you, every
00:14:34single cell of yours is prakritic, conditioned, following an ancient logic which is not yours
00:14:49in particular.
00:14:50It is a general logic.
00:14:53It's a universal logic.
00:14:56Then it becomes very difficult to take yourself as a separate entity.
00:15:04If everything in me corresponds to something outside of me, does there exist anything called
00:15:12me at all?
00:15:15And when this knowledge arises, there is end of suffering, freedom from suffering.
00:15:27How is there freedom from suffering?
00:15:30Because this knowledge is about seeing that there is nobody who exists in particular even
00:15:39to suffer.
00:15:41So how will there be suffering now?
00:15:44There is nobody in particular who can suffer.
00:15:49So the sufferer is gone.
00:15:51How has he gone?
00:15:53The sufferer has realized his own non-existence.
00:15:57If the sufferer is gone, how can there be suffering?
00:16:01There will be processes, alright.
00:16:06The process of pain, the process of aging, the process of disease, the process of this,
00:16:10that, all the processes that are possible.
00:16:13But there will be nobody to be attached to those processes, raise expectations, hold
00:16:21desires, and then suffer.
00:16:24There will be nobody.
00:16:26You are seeing processes as processes, not something you can gain something from.
00:16:35So freedom from suffering is actually freedom from sufferer.
00:16:40It's not possible to retain the sufferer and yet not suffer.
00:16:50Once the sufferer is gone, what amounted to suffering hitherto becomes just pain.
00:17:02Just pain.
00:17:06Pain translated into suffering in the presence of sufferer.
00:17:12With the sufferer gone, the pain would remain.
00:17:17Pain is a physical thing.
00:17:19Pain is a thing in the material dimension.
00:17:24It remains.
00:17:27But there is nobody to identify with the pain and therefore suffer.
00:17:39You are getting it?
00:17:43How do I identify?
00:17:45I am not.
00:17:49How do I call myself as unique?
00:17:52Am I?
00:17:53What is unique about me?
00:17:55What is particular about me?
00:17:56The body, the mind, the thoughts, the feelings, the aspirations.
00:18:01What's unique about me?
00:18:02There is nothing unique about me at all.
00:18:10Change my food, my thoughts change.
00:18:17Change my clothes, my thoughts change.
00:18:20Go take a bath, thoughts change.
00:18:25Am I?
00:18:28Am I?
00:18:32I am not.
00:18:36If just standing in the shower can change my disposition, then surely I am not.
00:18:47I look at something, I smell something, thoughts change.
00:18:53Am I?
00:18:55Then who's there to die?
00:19:01Who's there to die?
00:19:07Who's there to die?
00:19:11So on one hand there is life.
00:19:14And life in its totality, which in the absence of knowledge is seen in a fragmented way.
00:19:21And then there is the realization that there is just life and I am not.
00:19:29This is the second thing that does not die.
00:19:33Because this realization is independent of all corporal elements.
00:19:41You are looking at the body.
00:19:44So this realization is not bodily.
00:19:46This does not die.
00:19:49This realization is also what has been called as the true self, Atma.
00:19:54Bodho aham.
00:19:56Who am I?
00:19:57The one who realizes.
00:19:58This realization is not thought.
00:20:03Thought does not remain.
00:20:05Thought depends on the brain.
00:20:06You smash the brain, thought is gone.
00:20:11What is this realization then?
00:20:13It has to be a cessation.
00:20:17Because what has ceased cannot be seized anymore.
00:20:22Thought is activity, right?
00:20:24Neural activity here.
00:20:26Without that neural activity there can be no thought.
00:20:30It has become basic science now to connect stuff to your brain, electrodes and all.
00:20:44And just see on a screen how different areas light up on different kinds of thoughts and emotions.
00:20:52You are excited, one area of your brain starts showing activity.
00:21:05You are depressed, some other area starts showing up.
00:21:13You are angry, some other part lights up.
00:21:17You are angry, some other part lights up.
00:21:22All that is activity.
00:21:25If realization too is activity, then realization is dependent on?
00:21:30And then realization can be seen on?
00:21:35You know they have tried that for long.
00:21:39They wanted to know which part of the brain is responsible for Buddhahood.
00:21:46Because they believe in the material so deeply,
00:21:48they said whatever this thing called realization or enlightenment or Buddhahood is,
00:21:53it must be residing somewhere in the brain.
00:21:59So they actually went for something called the neuroscience of enlightenment.
00:22:07That what happens in the brain when you get enlightened.
00:22:09Obviously, they could make no progress with that.
00:22:17If you read up on that, it's quite interesting.
00:22:21I think they are still continuing with this.
00:22:23The information I might be having is around at least a decade old.
00:22:27So it might be dated.
00:22:30Find people who are so called enlightened.
00:22:33Then they put their thoughts on it and try to measure.
00:23:00So I don't really know what has happened over the last one decade and what is the latest.
00:23:08But you must read up.
00:23:13I don't even remember all the terms.
00:23:17There is also a field of study that studies supernatural experiences.
00:23:30So what happens for example when you claim that you are hearing divine bells in a spell of meditation.
00:23:38What exactly happens in the brain at that time?
00:23:42They are trying to study all that.
00:23:44This divine bell thing can be studied because it is something.
00:23:50Because it is something and whatsoever is something in Prakriti can be scientifically studied.
00:23:55No problems with that.
00:23:58Realization is not something.
00:23:59It is a cessation of something.
00:24:04Something exists.
00:24:05You can study it.
00:24:07How can you study the non-existence of something?
00:24:17This is a pen.
00:24:20Find out its weight.
00:24:22You can.
00:24:24There is no pen.
00:24:25Find out the weight.
00:24:28How will you find out the weight?
00:24:36Can you?
00:24:41There is something on his eyes.
00:24:43Find out the power of the lens.
00:24:46You can.
00:24:47Find out the power of her lens.
00:24:50Can you?
00:24:51Why?
00:24:54So your lenses are working.
00:24:58This much you can clearly see.
00:25:05You get this.
00:25:10When the thing is gone, how can you suffer for its disappearance anymore?
00:25:19It has been seen as anyway non-existent.
00:25:28Beautifully does Krishna put it to Arjuna.
00:25:32You are grieving over those who never existed at all.
00:25:40How can you kill in the first place when they never existed?
00:25:46You are trying to take credit for their death.
00:25:54Such a huge ego you have.
00:25:58As a super warrior, as the mighty archer, I killed them.
00:26:04You cannot kill them.
00:26:06You cannot kill them because they don't exist.
00:26:12No problem.
00:26:13And what exists cannot be killed.
00:26:15The bacteria, the viruses for example, they were here long before we came.
00:26:30And after World War 3 or after the climate catastrophe, the 6th mass extinction when human beings will be all gone.
00:26:45Would that mean that life itself is gone?
00:26:48Life would still continue.
00:26:55You cannot kill life, Arjuna.
00:26:58And the ones you are killing are just waves in the ocean.
00:27:03Why do you hold yourself accountable and responsible for that?
00:27:07Something as silly as that.
00:27:10And mind you, you have no power to kill life itself.
00:27:13Even if you wipe out that entire army in front of you, still life would continue.
00:27:27Things roll on.
00:27:29What are you grieving for?
00:27:32Just that you take yourself as too important.
00:27:35So you take others too as important.
00:27:38So you think there would be a mighty dent.
00:27:44If you are gone, nothing changes.
00:27:52There is this one thing that doesn't change.
00:27:55And the other thing that you cannot kill is the realisation that there is nothing to be killed.
00:28:06What can you do to zero to reduce it to zero?
00:28:14Life in one sense is eternal.
00:28:19So you cannot kill it.
00:28:23And when it comes to the truth,
00:28:28it is not approachable, not touchable.
00:28:32So what can you do to it to kill it?
00:28:34Not possible.
00:28:35So you are needlessly grieving.
00:28:45Your grief is born out of your ignorance.
00:28:53Once you start seeing the nature of things,
00:28:57it becomes more and more difficult to grieve over anything.
00:29:02How does one live then?
00:29:06Why does one live?
00:29:10What to live for?
00:29:16There is nothing in the conventional sense that one then lives for.
00:29:27To have a purpose is to first of all presume a suffering self.
00:29:34Only the sufferer can have a purpose.
00:29:38So there is no personal purpose possible for someone who has started seeing through the wheel.
00:29:50But yes, one purpose can possibly remain.
00:29:53Not necessarily.
00:29:56There are these other bodies around you.
00:30:03Who are needlessly suffering.
00:30:08They too have the potential to come to the stage of joyful, light, freedom.
00:30:20But they are needlessly suffering.
00:30:25So that can translate into a possible purpose.
00:30:28A purpose that some people have espoused.
00:30:41And there have been others who have refused to take up even that purpose.
00:30:48Krishna here is in a role in a particular avatar.
00:30:54In which he says, yes, an impersonal purpose is what I choose to have.
00:31:07Why does he do that?
00:31:09No reason.
00:31:11No reason.
00:31:12Why does he do that?
00:31:13No reason.
00:31:15No reason.
00:31:17Just like suffering.
00:31:19Reason is a word applicable only to those who still are carrying a personal ego, the sufferer.
00:31:32So if you ask, why doesn't Krishna just see all this as a mirage, as a bubble?
00:31:43And simply let the game continue as it would.
00:31:49Why can't he just say, Arjun, let me turn the chariot towards the forest.
00:31:57And leave the fools to quarrel among themselves.
00:32:01Let the two of us go and have fun in the forest.
00:32:05He could have done that.
00:32:06He could have done that and still remained Krishna.
00:32:16Nothing would have been diminished in him.
00:32:21He wouldn't have reduced to a lower figure had he chosen to do that.
00:32:30He could have said, no, no, forget it.
00:32:33No Gita.
00:32:34Let's just go and play in the jungle.
00:32:39Let the fool have all the property and everything.
00:32:42It anyway does not mean anything.
00:32:45So let him walk away with all the goodies.
00:32:49Krishna could have said that.
00:32:52Why does he not say that?
00:32:53Depends.
00:32:55Depends on what?
00:32:56Depends on Krishna.
00:33:00Depends on Krishna.
00:33:02This time he is in a mood
00:33:08to just help out the little ones.
00:33:16At other points in other avatars,
00:33:20the mood might be to leave things to their fate.
00:33:28Here he wants to help.
00:33:29He says, all these are suffering and I want to help.
00:33:37That's the only purpose that can possibly remain
00:33:41with the one who is not existent for himself.
00:33:50Possibly this purpose can remain.
00:33:52I do not exist for myself.
00:33:55But since there is this body
00:33:56and the body would run its course
00:34:0210, 20, 40 years, whatever.
00:34:08So just to have a good time,
00:34:14I have decided to help others out.
00:34:18For no other fancy or noble reason,
00:34:27no divine purpose,
00:34:39just as a good pastime.
00:34:45Because you see, just as I am not going
00:34:52to clamber for a long life,
00:34:56similarly I am not going to commit suicide.
00:35:04The body is there and the body will
00:35:07keep rolling as long as it has to.
00:35:11Which means that I am probably going to have
00:35:15some years.
00:35:18What to do with those years?
00:35:21Earn money, do this, do that.
00:35:24Now the problem is, for whom?
00:35:27I am not, so earn money for whom?
00:35:31Something has to be done with this time.
00:35:35Just as, you know,
00:35:39to avoid boredom.
00:35:45Why does Krishna instruct Arjuna in the Gita?
00:35:51To avoid boredom?
00:35:55No other reason really.
00:36:00Krishna would have remained Krishna.
00:36:02He could have continued to sit as the charioteer
00:36:06and sweat the flies.
00:36:10He would still have remained Krishna.
00:36:14Nothing would have changed within him.
00:36:21When the chooser is sublime,
00:36:30all choices are equal to each other, no?
00:36:33Are they not?
00:36:35Will we compare one choice with the other
00:36:38and say, you know, this action of yours
00:36:40was good but that was not?
00:36:43Such statements apply only to people
00:36:46with fragmented egos.
00:36:48When you are crystallized within,
00:36:51then whatever you do comes from the same center.
00:36:55Therefore, whatever you do has the same level.
00:36:59How can one action be better than the other?
00:37:02So Krishna could have chosen to sweat flies.
00:37:06That action would have been
00:37:09exactly comparable
00:37:13in its nobility.
00:37:18To the discourse of Gita.
00:37:21But he says, fine, let me.
00:37:25With no personal interest involved.
00:37:30With no real disappointment involved
00:37:34if Arjuna refuses to listen or understand.
00:37:39So Krishna is giving it everything that he has
00:37:45without having any stake
00:37:51in what happens as a result of his efforts.
00:37:59Pitiable position.
00:38:01Most beautiful position.
00:38:04Pitiable position.
00:38:07Most beautiful position.
00:38:10Pitiable because he is giving everything
00:38:15in spite of having no stake in the game.
00:38:18As they say, no skin in the game.
00:38:24From the worldly perspective,
00:38:27this is so pitiable.
00:38:30You are putting in so much, investing so much
00:38:34whereas you can get nothing
00:38:39because there is nobody to receive anything.
00:38:43The worldly man will say, oh, pathetic.
00:38:48A pathetic state.
00:38:50He is investing so much
00:38:53when possibly he can get no returns from it.
00:38:57No benefit can accrue
00:39:01to Krishna from the Gita.
00:39:06Do you see that?
00:39:09The Gita can at most help Arjuna.
00:39:15And after Arjuna, millions like us, billions like us.
00:39:19But can the Gita help Krishna?
00:39:23Krishna has no stakes.
00:39:25Yet he is putting in everything.
00:39:32Seen from one place,
00:39:37this is horrible.
00:39:41So much efforts you are putting in.
00:39:44And you very well know the rule of the game is such that
00:39:48you can get nothing for yourself from this.
00:39:51Yet you are trying so hard.
00:39:56But this is also the most beautiful way of living.
00:40:07Not a measured way
00:40:10where you give with an eye on the returns.
00:40:14If you operate in a measured way, you will never get the immeasurable.
00:40:21And therefore, this way is the way of beauty.
00:40:31You fling yourself 100% into the action.
00:40:40When it has been ascertained in advance
00:40:45that no personal benefit can accrue to it from any of it.
00:40:51Accrue to you from any of it.
00:40:58Are you getting it?
00:41:08The Gita touches upon the core anxiety of human beings.
00:41:16And that's why it has been such an important document.
00:41:21The Gita touches upon death.
00:41:24Whatever we do, in some sense,
00:41:28is driven by the fear of death.
00:41:34The ego center can also be called as the fear center.
00:41:40And there is no fear that is not rooted in death.
00:41:45The ego center can also be called as the death center.
00:41:51Whatever we do, it finds motivation and energy from death.
00:42:01We function to somehow avoid death in some way or the other.
00:42:06Gross way, subtle way, this way, that way, whatever.
00:42:10You will be amazed to know how much is being invested
00:42:15in prolonging the maximum life span of human beings.
00:42:20Not the average life expectancy
00:42:23that has already probably come close to the point of saturation.
00:42:29But the maximum life span of human beings.
00:42:32That has already probably come close to the point of saturation.
00:42:39From antiquity till around 100-150 years back,
00:42:48the average life span of human beings hovered around the 30 years mark.
00:42:58And then boom!
00:43:00With advances in medical technology,
00:43:05certain areas of the world have already exceeded 80.
00:43:11Others are approaching 80.
00:43:14We are close to saturation.
00:43:17So now we are trying to figure out
00:43:21how to increase that denominator itself,
00:43:25which is the maximum number possible that can be attained
00:43:31if you are not crushed under a truck.
00:43:44Death has been the driver, the motivator.
00:43:47And that's why Gita is so important.
00:43:49Gita takes the central issue of death head on.
00:43:56What is death?
00:43:59To whom does death occur?
00:44:03It's a beautiful thing to explore.
00:44:07We don't even know for sure the precise moment of death.
00:44:15The precise moment of death.
00:44:20We have not been able to come to a sharp definition.
00:44:27You can never precisely tell whether a person is dead.
00:44:33I read of a curious case.
00:44:36There was one woman
00:44:39who was declared dead in one province of the US.
00:44:44Because there the laws probably said that you are dead
00:44:48if your heart stops functioning.
00:44:51So the doctors declared her dead.
00:44:56Her parents or others who were around her
00:45:00found a way out.
00:45:03They said there is another province
00:45:06that says you are dead only when your brain is dead.
00:45:11Even though the doctors there had declared her dead,
00:45:16they brought her to the other place
00:45:20and she managed to live for a few years.
00:45:23Not sure of the details.
00:45:25Probably if you search for this in the internet,
00:45:27not sure of the details.
00:45:29Probably if you search for this case, you will get something.
00:45:33We don't even know when a fellow has actually died.
00:45:37Just as we don't know when a fellow
00:45:40actually becomes conscious
00:45:43and therefore can be called as born.
00:45:47We very well know that birth is not something that happens
00:45:51when you emerge from the mother's body.
00:45:54If you can be called as living only
00:45:58after you emerge from the mother's body,
00:46:01then abortion would not be a crime in so many countries.
00:46:06You are obviously taken as alive
00:46:09even when you are in the mother's womb.
00:46:12But there is no way to exactly know
00:46:15when you can be called as alive in the mother's womb.
00:46:24So, death and birth, both are fuzzy affairs.
00:46:29We don't know when we are born,
00:46:32we don't know when we die.
00:46:34And that can never be known because actually
00:46:37we never take birth and actually we never die.
00:46:45It will never be possible to exactly say this.
00:46:494 hours, 28 minutes, 37.3 seconds.
00:46:56That's the moment of death.
00:46:58You will never be able to say that.
00:47:03It's a movement, it's a process.
00:47:08It's a process.
00:47:13It's a continuous function, not a discrete one.
00:47:18What is a continuous function?
00:47:20Like a ramp, slope.
00:47:23What's a discrete function?
00:47:25Like a stair.
00:47:31Life and death are related in a continuity.
00:47:37You are never fully dead and you are never fully alive.
00:47:40Which means life and death are actually one.
00:47:44It's a matter of ignorance to think of someone as alive
00:47:54and think of the other as dead.
00:47:56It's just an apparent change in state.
00:47:59And that's the reason why things that appear alive
00:48:03are able to come forth from things that appear dead.
00:48:09And that's why things that appear alive,
00:48:11sooner or later become things that appear dead.
00:48:19So Arjun, what are you grieving over?
00:48:22Who's going to die?
00:48:27Who's going to die?
00:48:32For death there must be somebody to die.
00:48:35For death there must be somebody who took birth.
00:48:42The one who is alive is not going to die.
00:48:47Who is alive?
00:48:49Whatever you want to call it, the DNA, the genes, the genome.
00:48:54That's the thing doing the journey.
00:48:57And that has been doing the journey since eternity.
00:49:00And the journey will continue.
00:49:02If not through one organism or one species,
00:49:05then through other species, other organisms.
00:49:08And even if all the organisms and all the species vanish,
00:49:12the soil would still remain, right?
00:49:15And just as the first organism arose from the soil itself,
00:49:21not from parents, but from soil.
00:49:24Just as the first organism arose from the soil,
00:49:27similarly if all the apparent life is gone,
00:49:31life would again spring from soil.
00:49:38We have seen five mass extinctions till now.
00:49:41Have we not?
00:49:43Life returns.
00:49:46And we are only talking of our tiny planet.
00:49:52There is just no reason to assume
00:49:55that in this almost infinitely vast universe,
00:50:01there won't be other places where
00:50:04sentience of some kind would be existing.
00:50:11Life keeps returning.
00:50:13Arjun, what are you wailing over?
00:50:20And take my cue.
00:50:24Just as I have nothing to be concerned about,
00:50:30yet I am working.
00:50:32Yet, I am working to relieve your suffering.
00:50:36Similarly, fight the war to relieve your population of its suffering.
00:50:44Having seen that life is purposeless for you because you are selfless,
00:50:51selfless not in the opposite of selfish,
00:50:56selfless, not existent.
00:50:59Once your selfless life is purposeless,
00:51:03then the only purpose that can voluntarily remain
00:51:08is the purpose to bring others to purposelessness.
00:51:13And you see me exercising that option, Arjun, right? With you.
00:51:17I have no stakes in educating you. Have I?
00:51:21No, nothing.
00:51:23Personally, I get nothing from teaching you all these things.
00:51:27Yet, I am striving for your sake.
00:51:31Similarly, you fight for the sake of the people of Hastinapur.
00:51:37I get nothing by teaching you.
00:51:39Similarly, you fight even though you must know that you will get nothing by fighting.
00:51:45And then there is beauty in the fight.
00:51:47You very well know in advance you will get nothing from that fight.
00:51:50And still you fight with all that you have.
00:51:54And in the most intense way you can.
00:52:00So beautiful.
00:52:06Are you getting it?
00:52:08Think of it. What is death?
00:52:10You are gone.
00:52:16And you have opted for organ donation.
00:52:19How is it that you have gone?
00:52:21And your organs continue to live.
00:52:26What kind of death is this?
00:52:30And so many of your organs are still alive.
00:52:33You know even skin can be transplanted.
00:52:36Skin, eyes, everything.
00:52:41As science advances, probably every bit of your body can be put into some other body.
00:52:47Now tell me who has died?
00:52:49Tell me who has died?
00:52:52Every part of you is still alive.
00:52:55Then who has died?
00:52:58Your teeth?
00:53:02My teeth have gone to him.
00:53:05My hair, whatever I have of them, have gone to her.
00:53:08My nose has gone to him.
00:53:11My eyes have come to you.
00:53:14Liver to him, kidneys to him, heart to him.
00:53:18He is roaming around with my intestines.
00:53:23If everything is still alive, who has died? Please tell me.
00:53:29Ship of Theseus?
00:53:34Who has died?
00:53:38So that's what death is.
00:53:40Just an appearance.
00:53:42You know what, when they take you for cremation,
00:53:48even several hours after death, so much of you is still alive.
00:53:58It's actually some kind of wastage, just putting that body to ashes.
00:54:04Because a lot of you is potentially still usable.
00:54:12But we just incinerate that and everything is reduced to ashes.
00:54:18Who has died?
00:54:34Sandeep is now 100% sure.
00:54:38The way he is looking at me.
00:54:42Nobody in that sense ever dies because there is nobody.
00:54:48There is no particular one.
00:54:53How can then any particular one die?
00:54:56Sandeep, your nose has been the nose of 40,500 other creatures before you.
00:55:08You know what?
00:55:09This is a thing that others have been wearing for long.
00:55:13And from them it has come to you and now you have put it on.
00:55:40Raghav is generally trying to be curious.
00:55:44He is saying all those things will go to these people.
00:55:47He will get the teeth, she will get the hair.
00:55:50You will get what you desperately lack.
00:55:53My brain belongs to him.
00:56:01Or is there other stuff that you would rather have?
00:56:05But not quite mentionable?
00:56:09It's a beautiful discourse in evolution.
00:56:14It has survived time. It has survived the march of science.
00:56:22Because it is absolutely scientific.
00:56:25Else, the march of science would have trampled over the Gita.
00:56:34Just as so many other beliefs and documents and scriptures have been reduced to obscurity
00:56:44by the advancement of science and technology,
00:56:48Gita too would have been thrown into oblivion.
00:56:51It has managed to not just survive but thrive.
00:56:56Why?
00:56:58Because what is being said here is not some religious injunction.
00:57:02It is the core of science. All science.
00:57:08This is eugenics, this is genetics.
00:57:13Okay, figure out what is gerontology?
00:57:24This is all that.
00:57:26Without obviously a mention of those fancy terms.
00:57:31And this is all that.
00:57:36If you do not understand all this,
00:57:39in fact, you have to understand molecular biology as well.
00:57:43If you do not understand all this, you cannot say what Krishna is saying.
00:57:47And the beautiful part is that all this knowledge has come to him not through a research lab
00:58:03but just through observation of life.
00:58:06That is the power of observation.
00:58:08And that is also the basis of the scientific method, observation.
00:58:18Observation can yield to you tremendous insights,
00:58:25sometimes even without the use of cutting-edge equipment.
00:58:29This is the equipment.
00:58:32This is the cutting-edge equipment.
00:58:36Sometimes this can reveal to you just detached observation, dispassionate observation.
00:58:44This can reveal to you what would otherwise come through after decades of research in an advanced lab.
00:58:54The difference is, in the lab, when the conclusions would be drawn,
00:59:02they would be supported by ample verifiable proof.
00:59:07But when you get it through observation,
00:59:11it is very subjective and you are the only proof.
00:59:16So, there is a huge risk.
00:59:18Nevertheless, in spite of the risk, it is possible to come to those observations, those conclusions, insights.
00:59:27Another insight about death.
00:59:30Is it possible for a single human being to exist?
00:59:34Just one.
00:59:37Impossible.
00:59:39How easy is it for just two human beings to exist?
00:59:45Next to impossible now.
00:59:47Let's say a man and a woman.
00:59:49Next to impossible.
00:59:51But still they can somehow make it.
00:59:55Now let's assume there are just ten people on the planet.
00:59:58How difficult would it be for them to survive?
01:00:02Very difficult.
01:00:07Similarly, it is difficult for a single cell to survive.
01:00:13That's why the entire body exists as an aggregation of cells.
01:00:21And within this aggregation, death is always happening.
01:00:24Just as in a city or in a country or in a locality, death is always happening.
01:00:31Just as in a city or in a country or in a locality, death is always happening.
01:00:38But we never say, oh, the city has died.
01:00:41Do we say that?
01:00:43Similarly, in your body, cells are all the time dying.
01:00:46All the time dying.
01:00:51But you do not say, you have died.
01:00:55Similarly, you are a cell in the body of the wider organism called Prakriti.
01:01:06If you die, has anybody died?
01:01:12You just brush your hair.
01:01:14At least a hundred cells, if not more, die.
01:01:21Nobody has died.
01:01:23Will you say you have died?
01:01:26Similarly, you are just one cell in the bigger body of Prakriti.
01:01:32When you die, nobody has died.
01:01:44There are many ways to approach the situation.
01:01:46You have been sitting here.
01:01:47Do you realize how many cells within you have died in the duration of this session itself?
01:01:57Now one of those cells starts weeping like Arjun.
01:02:02What would you tell her?
01:02:06Go on. I am alive.
01:02:09I am alive. Who has died?
01:02:11You anyway don't matter.
01:02:13You have no individuality.
01:02:18Does a cell have individuality? No.
01:02:21But the cell might get deluded and start thinking that it has.
01:02:26And then the cell would suffer.
01:02:29Suffer.
01:02:42In the scheme of life, in the wider scheme of life,
01:02:46death is not just inevitable, but actually necessary.
01:02:59Death means progress.
01:03:01Evolution happens through death.
01:03:13It's a great disease if your old cells refuse to die.
01:03:22You will be finished off.
01:03:29Cycle advances.
01:03:37Cycle advances.
01:03:42It's the way of Prakriti.
01:03:45Are you carrying even a single cell that you had at the time of your so called birth?
01:03:56Next to none.
01:03:59Then who are you?
01:04:02The one who took birth is no more there.
01:04:05Who are you?
01:04:12You are born with X cells.
01:04:16Right?
01:04:18None of those X cells exist today.
01:04:20None of those X cells exist today.
01:04:28Two things.
01:04:30One, who is alive?
01:04:32Because the one who was born is already long gone.
01:04:37None of those X cells exist today.
01:04:39Second, you couldn't have become this big had those cells not gone.
01:04:45It was necessary for them to go so that you could become this.
01:04:51Had those cells remained, the ones that you were born with as a baby,
01:04:58you wouldn't have reached this position.
01:05:00They had to go so that you could become this.
01:05:03That is one thing.
01:05:04Secondly, if all those cells are gone, who are you?
01:05:10And the cells that you are having today,
01:05:14just a few weeks from today, most of them will be gone.
01:05:17A few months from today,
01:05:21maybe 95% of them will be gone.
01:05:23And a few years from today,
01:05:26probably all of them will be gone.
01:05:28So, who are you?
01:05:47Who are you?