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Video Information: 07.06.23, with IIT-Kanpur (Online-talk), Greater Noida
Context:
Where do Dos and Don'ts come from?
What is more important to know?
What is the most Important Question of our Life?
What are the Dos and Don'ts?
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?...
Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...
~~~~~
Video Information: 07.06.23, with IIT-Kanpur (Online-talk), Greater Noida
Context:
Where do Dos and Don'ts come from?
What is more important to know?
What is the most Important Question of our Life?
What are the Dos and Don'ts?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I am a final year undergraduate from Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur.
00:07My question is, what is more important in life, to know what to do or to know what we
00:12must not do?
00:15I'm unable to look at your face.
00:17There's something that, there's a gap and also probably the light is a bit dim.
00:23Can we do something about it?
00:26I'll try to use my phone's flash.
00:30Yeah, better.
00:32Now I can look into your eyes.
00:38Yes.
00:41Come again, please.
00:43Just that one line of the question.
00:46So my question is, what is more important in life, to know what to do or to know what
00:50not to do?
00:53See doing or not doing, both are functions of the doer, right?
01:06The doer is the one making the choice.
01:10The doer is the one making the choice.
01:15You are asking, do I trust the output of a certain instrument, a certain gadget?
01:35And if I trust the output, if the gadget says go left, is that more important than the instruction
01:45to go right?
01:46Let's say you have an instrument with you and the instrument, let's say it's on your
01:51dashboard, on the dashboard of your car or bike or something.
01:56It can instruct you to go left or it can instruct you to go right.
02:02It's a positioning system, LPS, life positioning system.
02:07It can tell you go left or it can tell you go right.
02:10You are asking me, what's more important, going left or going right?
02:17What's more important, to know what to do or to know what not to do?
02:23My question is, is your LPS trustworthy first of all?
02:29Because doing or not doing, I repeat, are functions of the doer.
02:36The doer is the instrument.
02:38Is the instrument first of all reliable?
02:42Who's the one making choice within?
02:44Who's setting these options in front of you?
02:49Who's coming to you and saying, oh, these are the options.
02:52If you do something, these are the options in favor of not doing something.
03:01Have you gone into the inner machine?
03:04That's the job of the engineer, right, to go into the machine.
03:07If the machine is all right, it will perform rightly.
03:10If the internal fundamentals are not in place, then we do not bother too much about the output.
03:19The output we know will be wrong.
03:24And if sometimes the output appears to be correct, that's just a fluke.
03:28It cannot last long, it's not repeatable.
03:34How do most people know what to do?
03:38And you'll surely be finding people around you.
03:44I'm sure you are an intelligent and observant fellow.
03:47Have you not seen people who are very sure about themselves?
03:53And you wonder, from where do they gather such confidence?
03:57How do they exactly know what to do?
04:03Because they have never bothered to investigate from where is their doership arising.
04:09They have instincts, and those are all conditioned instincts.
04:17I know I needed to get into IIT, but why exactly?
04:24And very few people will have any kind of depth in their response to this question.
04:33I very well know I need to write my GRE and then fly off to the US.
04:41How do you know this?
04:43How do you know that this is the right thing to do?
04:45Very few people will know.
04:50A lot of Muslims know that all others are infidels, and therefore do not deserve to
05:03be liked.
05:05A lot of Muslims know, a lot of Hindus know, that their religion is the best one.
05:14And with great confidence they will say all these things, the Hindus, the Muslims, the
05:18Christians, the Buddhists.
05:23How do they know with such surety?
05:28Well at the age of 24 I will pass out and I suppose I must have a BMW by 30.
05:40How do you know?
05:41Who told you?
05:47I think I'll have just two kids.
05:52One by the time I'm 30 or something, another before I'm 35.
05:58How do you know?
06:03How do you know?
06:08Let's celebrate.
06:12And if we are celebrating, nobody is going to keep quiet.
06:15It's a party, let there be noise.
06:21Nobody should be silent in a celebration.
06:28It's a don't, right?
06:29Don't.
06:30Don't be quiet in the middle of a party or a celebration.
06:34How do you know that this is something to never be done?
06:41And where did this come to you?
06:45Do you see that we are trying to take your attention to the inner machine that generates
06:51the list of do's and don'ts?
06:56Do you see that practically everybody has that inner list of do's and don'ts?
07:04And the generator of that list is an alien one masquerading as you.
07:15Okay, that's, that's a bit too complex.
07:19The generator of that list has been corrupted by alien influences.
07:30If I'm born as an Indian, I have an Indian list of do's and don'ts.
07:36If I'm born as a Chinese, I have a Chinese list.
07:42Born as a North Indian male, you have one list of do's and don'ts.
07:52Born as a female in the Northeast, you will have a very different list of do's and don'ts.
08:04They're not yours.
08:05The generator itself is not authentically you.
08:12Then how can these do's and don'ts matter?
08:16And then it becomes rather bewildering and quite amusing.
08:23A lot of people spend their entire lives just following this list of do's and don'ts.
08:31They do not bother to question where these commandments are coming from.
08:36Do you understand?
08:42Now that you are an IITian, how can you be a dancer?
08:46So don't be a dancer given that you are an IITian.
08:52Who decided that exactly?
08:58I'm not encouraging you to be a dancer.
09:00I'm just, I'm just pointing to the fact that there are certain things that become inconceivable.
09:09And we do not ask ourselves how, when did they become prohibited?
09:18What was the inner agency making the decisions?
09:27I must have a fat job.
09:31But brother, you were never quite greedy.
09:38I know you.
09:40There are so many other things in life that have mattered to you.
09:45You are somebody with taste for fun, enjoyment.
09:51You like hanging out with friends.
09:57You like being with your girlfriend.
10:01You like trekking, hiking, those things.
10:06And you feel so wonderful when you are immersed in a great book, Sartre Mopasa or Indian literature.
10:20But now that you're an IIT, you feel a great pressure.
10:25I must have a fat job.
10:28From where did this commandment come to you?
10:32Who is the inner decision maker?
10:35Is that you or is that someone greatly influenced by the surroundings?
10:46Don't do this.
10:47Don't do this.
10:48We often say, oh, there is that little voice inside us.
10:50We call it conscience.
10:53Wisdom is to realize that your conscience is all artificial, 100% influenced.
11:01And that's why the so-called inner conscience is totally outer.
11:08And varies from person to person.
11:13People have done horrible deeds based on the advice of their conscience.
11:22Sartre too, in his own eyes, must have been a man of conscience.
11:34So who is the doer?
11:39Who is the doer?
11:45What does he want to achieve through the deed?
11:51If he says do something, he has eyes on the result probably.
11:55If he says do not do something, he wants to save something probably.
12:05What is it that he wants to gain?
12:07What is it that he wants to save?
12:11From where do his thoughts and emotions arise?
12:16Because action is an instinct, right?
12:18You say, I'll act.
12:20You act because you want to change something.
12:26Desireless action is not something we know of.
12:30We act because we want something from the action, the deed.
12:35What is it that we want?
12:38How do we know that the thing that we want from the deed is indeed useful to us?
12:46It's alright to have a target.
12:51It's alright to demand something from your action.
12:54I'm acting to reach that place.
12:58I'm walking.
12:59That's the deed.
13:00I'm walking.
13:01I want to reach that point.
13:03How do I know that that point really holds something meaningful for me?
13:10Who told me that that particular point indeed has a thing of importance?
13:21These are the questions that a young intelligent man must ask himself.
13:27Otherwise life is a short affair.
13:32You can very easily squander it away in meaningless kind of motion, random motion.
13:38Oh, Brownian motion you know of, right?
13:42Think of the molecules, think of the atoms all the time, their entire duration.
13:51They are just moving, moving, moving and colliding and changing their path and moving with great
13:56velocities, don't they?
14:03If they were humans, we would really felicitate them, we'll say look at these little things,
14:14the molecules, they are all karma yogis.
14:19They are constantly in action, they are constantly doing something.
14:25It's not about just doing something.
14:29It's about knowing the doer, know why there must be movement at all, know who you are,
14:41know what is it that you lack, know what is it that you need to shed and then the deed
14:49is right.
14:55When you know the one right direction for you, unambiguously, choicelessly, again makes
15:09me wonder if I have been able to communicate, am I through to you?
15:15Yes, sir, that was actually an insightful answer, I expected not such a deeper insights.
15:23You and each one of you on the other side of the screen are most welcome to ask for
15:30clarification or pose a counter, I welcome that.
15:35Yes.