Menstruation and Mind || Acharya Prashant, Vedant Mahotsav at IIT Delhi (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?  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: 27.08.2022, IIT-Delhi, Delhi, India   Context:  ¬ Does impurity have anything to do with hygiene?  ¬ Why is the menstrual cycle viewed as dirty?  ¬ Why is there still a stigma associated with the menstrual cycle today?  ¬ What is the brain?  ¬ What is the mind?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Namaste Acharya ji. Firstly, thank you so much. You have helped me in ways in which

00:09I cannot explain. So, I am basically a student. My age is 26 and I am a student of philosophy.

00:18I have completed my MPhil sometime back. My problem is that I have a lot of fear and anxiety

00:24and generally I am able to manage it. I indulge myself in spiritual videos. From last two

00:29years I have been following Osho and I have been listening to you also from past 10 months.

00:36I indulge in journaling or self-talk and I am able to manage it. But there are certain

00:41times wherein it just aggravates in a way wherein I am not able to control it. Specifically

00:48before and during the time of menstruation, I am not able to handle it. And it gets so

00:55difficult that I am not able to work also. Not even the day-to-day activities, I don't

01:00feel like doing anything. So, in that case, what should I do?

01:05See, you have kind of opened a window into your own situation. You know it is physical,

01:14right? It's just that at the time of menstruation, it becomes very visibly obvious that the mental

01:25thing is from a physical place. At other times, the physical origins remain hidden. So, one

01:37is led to believe as if the thoughts, feelings and fears and anxieties are just of the mind.

01:48The thing is that they are never of the mind. The reason is very simple. The mind is two

01:58things concurrently, the body and the pure self. You could call as the truth or the Atma.

02:12The mind is a sandwich. The bodily component is definitely invariably present right since

02:23birth. But whether or not the mind will be occupied by or devoted to the pure self is

02:36a choice. Most of us never make the right choice. As a result, what we call as the mind

02:46is hardly anything beyond the brain. Ideally, the mind should exceed the brain in the sense

02:58that consciousness should exceed the body. Mind is consciousness, brain is body. In an

03:07ideal situation, the mind should be way beyond the brain. What is brain? A mere physical

03:16organ just like arms and feet and eyes and the uterus. That's what the brain is. If the

03:29mind is nothing more than the brain, then the mind too will be nothing more than the

03:37feet and the arms and the uterus. Once I said, there is an entire chapter devoted to that in

03:48one of the books, Gynecology, Psychology, that what you call as the mind is nothing more than

03:58your genitals. Potentially, one can transcend the body, but most of us do not exercise that

04:08choice. So, what are our feelings then? Our feelings are just hormonal. Our thoughts are

04:16just glandular. Our decisions, our choices, our likes, dislikes, relationships, our sorrows,

04:24our relations, what are they? All very chemical, very biological. Getting it? And that is what

04:41is to be realized. It's all chemistry, nothing beyond that. It's chemicals, polymers in movement.

04:53What do I have to do with it? It's so chemical, it is predictable. If something is predictable,

05:04is it conscious or mechanical? And what is mechanical must be left to its own mechanics.

05:15Why must you worry so much? Why must you worry? Why must you take it as something

05:26extraordinary happening to you? It is not happening to you. It is a thing of the body.

05:31And let it stay there in the body. Let the mind be unencumbered. Mind should be free,

05:42untouched by the bodily vagaries. And the body can do anything. The female body does a lot of

05:51things. The male body too does a few things. Why let that become too much for you? You know

06:00very well that time of the month is approaching and you know in advance what is now going to

06:06happen to the mind. And since you know that you are free, you are already free. It's like setting

06:15an alarm. The alarm has been set. The alarm will ring. You are not the alarm. How does it feel to

06:24be called the alarm? Hilarious, no? Who am I? The alarm. And the alarm has been set at let's say 6 a.m.

06:35I am the alarm. It will start ringing. The body starts ringing. That's how Prakriti Ma has made

06:46it. It starts ringing at a particular day in the month and then it keeps ringing, keeps ringing.

06:50That's how evolution has made it. What can you do about it? You are not the evolved one. You are

06:58the one who is, was, would be always perfect and perfection has no relationship with evolution.

07:09You are so perfect that you are beyond the stream of time in which all evolution takes place. So,

07:21what do you have to do with things that are evolutionary such as the body? Let it be there,

07:28let it be there, let it be there. It's happening but it's not happening to you. It's just happening.

07:34There is somebody who is feeling the pain, somebody feeling the anxiety, somebody is feeling that and

07:40the more intimately and clearly you keep realizing it's chemical, it's bodily, it's evolutionary,

07:51it's not me, the more you will find that things have not changed but their relationship with you

07:58definitely has. It's a relationship that matters. Not that your knowledge of the body's mechanical

08:08nature will change things bodily but your relationship with body will change and that's

08:14all that matters. Are you getting it? The body has to die one day, it will die. Not that if you

08:22are self-realized the body becomes immortal. No, the body will go its own way. You will not go the

08:30body's way. Isn't that nice? Just realize it's not happening to me. It's not personal, it's not

08:43happening to me. I'm not a body, I'm not a woman. Something is happening to the woman's body,

08:49to the woman's brain. I'm not that, I'm not that, I'm not that. Who am I then? I do not know whether

08:58I am the pure self but at least I am the observer of the happening. This much I can say with

09:05certainty. Something is happening, I am the observer and I am the observer. I cannot be

09:09the observed phenomena. So keep yourself at some distance from the observed phenomena.

09:16The primitive tendencies will keep on pulling you back to the happening. Extricate yourself,

09:28pull yourself away again. But the happening is just so attractive, you feel like becoming one

09:38with it again and again. So every two minutes you will have to again and again redeem yourself,

09:44take yourself away, tear yourself apart. That will be needed. With time it will become easier,

09:52it will become something of a habit. You will see what is happening and you will know it is

09:59just happening. It is not happening to me. It comes with practice.

Category

Transcript

Recommended