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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: 22.12.21, University Talk, Rishikesh
Context:
~ How to deal with emotionality?
~ How to be free from emotions?
~ Why do we behave in this way based on our emotions?
~ How should we behave in a logical or emotive manner?
~ What distinguishes being logical from being emotional?
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: 22.12.21, University Talk, Rishikesh
Context:
~ How to deal with emotionality?
~ How to be free from emotions?
~ Why do we behave in this way based on our emotions?
~ How should we behave in a logical or emotive manner?
~ What distinguishes being logical from being emotional?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaskar Acharya Prashanth ji. Namaskar. Namaskar Acharya ji. It gives me immense pleasure
00:11to introduce Acharya Prashanth. Acharya Prashanth is a powerful voice of socio-spiritual awakening
00:20in today's world. He is an acclaimed Vedanta exegete and author of over 70 books including
00:29the national bestseller Karma. An alumnus of IIT Delhi, I am Ahmedabad and a former
00:38civil services officer, he is an exponent of pure Vedantic wisdom, a vocal warrior against
00:47superstition and inner weaknesses, a promulgator of pure spiritual veganism and an expounder of
00:56essential human freedom. So, we are very fortunate to have arranged this session of Acharya Prashanth.
01:04Over to you Swamiji. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much sir. We warmly welcome you Acharya
01:13Prashanth ji to our family. Thank you. So, I request Ms. Rupali Mishra from Vadodara to ask
01:21her question. Very good evening Prashanth ji. Namaskar. So, my question is that I feel that I am
01:34very emotional. So, why I let my emotions puppeteer me when I know that I should act more logically
01:43in most of the situation.
01:52See, we all are
01:58deeply conditioned beings. Your situation is the situation of entire mankind.
02:10You might say you are emotional and you see the solution as turning more logical.
02:23Equally, there might be a fellow who might be seeing a problem in being too logical
02:34and rather seeks to activate his emotional side.
02:43Irrespective of whether you are logical or emotional, you are acting as per the
02:51constitution of your body and to some extent the training and education
03:03imparted to you by the society, family and all those things.
03:10So, it's not about being emotional versus being logical.
03:15Being more logical might help you to an extent, but it is not really the solution to
03:31being identified with one's emotions.
03:34Additionally, if you are someone who has, let's say, a biological tendency towards emotions,
03:46you might find it difficult to simply junk your emotions
03:57difficult to simply junk your emotions, discard them. You might just end up fighting with them
04:09and suppressing them which may give you the delusion of victory over emotions,
04:17but actually does not amount to much.
04:22So, what do we do?
04:23We offer whatever we have to the right cause in life.
04:40You have emotions and that implies, let's say, attachment,
04:47and a tendency to care or probably volatility and anger.
05:00All these things, that's what you usually mean by emotionality.
05:06Dedicate all these things to something high, important, powerful, worthy.
05:13What that thing is, is determined by your own station in your life, right?
05:26There is nobody who does not know of anything that's important and deserves to be taken up.
05:36You too would be in knowledge of many such causes.
05:44Dedicate your emotions, your resources, your energy, your laughter, your tear, your jealousy,
05:52your possessiveness, whatever you call as emotionality, to something beyond yourself.
05:59I hope I'm being at least a little lucid here.
06:10See, we cannot just get rid of our bodily constitution, right?
06:17Men have one particular bodily scheme, women have another.
06:23If somebody is just too hard-hearted, somebody just keeps thinking, somebody just keeps emoting,
06:31somebody has a tendency to think over things, somebody is instinctive, impulsive,
06:40and these differences are found even in little kids.
06:44The kid might be just two weeks or two months old, but you observe her and you would find
06:56certain important characteristics already present.
07:00So, they are there.
07:01They are there because there is the body and the body is carrying them and since the body
07:06is carrying them, we said we cannot just junk them, right?
07:11So, we dedicate them, we offer them, like one offers sacrifice in a pure religious ceremony.
07:23I am giving, dedicating, marshalling whatever I have to something
07:34that deserves the sacrifice, right?
07:39So, think of something important.
07:45Think of a cause, not so much a person.
07:51Think of something worth living for.
07:55Think of something that you would respect in another person.
08:02Think of something that would make you respect another person had he or she dedicated himself
08:10or herself to it.
08:14I respect ABC because he lived in this particular way.
08:22He lived in this particular way.
08:28I respect XYZ because she dedicated herself to this particular cause.
08:37Something of that nature, nature that liberates, nature that sublimates.
08:44Think of something and plunge yourself wholeheartedly into that.
08:49There is no other way unless your entire constitution, the sum total of all your resources
09:01is dedicated to something beyond yourself, something beyond your little self-interest,
09:09something beyond your little personal world, your likes and dislikes, your pleasures, your hurts.
09:17Life will remain a series of petty occurrences and there is no fun in that, let alone joy.
09:31So, please do not take emotions as a liability.
09:36They are not, right?
09:39Whatever they are, they are something you are saddled with.
09:44Alternately, you could say they are something you're gifted with.
09:49So, you have them.
09:50When you have something, you better not curse it or look down upon it.
09:56You have to learn to live with it.
09:59Better still, you have to learn to excel with it.
10:04You have to excel with your emotions.
10:07It's just that you don't need to allow your emotions to run berserk and that happens
10:16when emotions do not have any worthy subject to attach themselves to.
10:25So, look for a worthy subject, a worthy cause.
10:29Look for something that can consume you fully, right?
10:35And then give yourself to it your own way.
10:43The truth is one, but we all must travel towards it using our own territories, our own paths,
10:55charts, contours and those paths are determined by the point we are already standing at.
11:05If you're standing at the point of emotionality, then that's where you travel to your liberation
11:13from.
11:16One cannot be dismissive of or contemptuous of or apologetic of her current locus.
11:27Wherever I stand, that's the place I have to start from.
11:31No point feeling bad about my current station.
11:37It is a fact.
11:39One cannot fight with facts.
11:42One can just put facts to the best use possible.
11:49All right?
11:49So, do not allow the voices that tell you that emotions are a problem, etc.
11:58to mean too much to you.
12:04All that you will get by looking down on your emotions is a suppressed kind of state,
12:15amounting to nothing.
12:17Suppression is good only if it is leading to a great channelization towards a higher thing, right?
12:25You suppress something small because you want to send it to something larger.
12:32If you cannot send it towards something larger and just keep suppressing it,
12:38then what comes out of it?
12:39Nothing.
12:41You know, it's like this water is trying to flow in 40 different directions, right?
12:50And there is a lot of water.
12:51You want to send the water to a place where it would amount to growth and greenery and output.
13:04So, there needs to be a channelization.
13:07Now, instead of channelization,
13:10if you just keep blocking the water from all sides,
13:15if you just keep blocking the water from all sides,
13:21then all that you will get is a deluge at some point because the water will keep accumulating
13:27and then at some point it will break all the walls, the barriers and flow away in random directions.
13:38That kind of explosive state is no good.
13:42So, even if you have to block the flow of your emotions, you must know where to channelize it.
13:52That channelization is extremely important.
13:57You don't want, for example, to be attached to one thing.
14:03Fine, you don't want to be attached to one thing.
14:05So, you put that one thing aside because that one thing is not good for you.
14:12But equally, you must remember that the tendency to be attached will exist for a very, very long time.
14:22So, no point being sorry for yourself.
14:28Better still, divert your attachment towards something higher.
14:33And if that something, that object of attachment is indeed higher,
14:41then it would weaken your tendency to be attached.
14:51That's the way to gain freedom from emotions, attachment, passiveness, vulnerability
15:00and all the things that we label under the umbrella of emotionality.
15:13One gets teary-eyed very quickly, one gets hurt very quickly.
15:17Right? It's all right.
15:20You cannot say, I'll not be hurt at anything.
15:23Just say, now there is something extremely important in my consideration, in my lap.
15:28It has to be protected.
15:30So, if I'll be hurt, I'll be hurt at this one thing.
15:35If I'll be protective, I'll be protective about this one thing.
15:38I'll be so concerned about this one thing that there will be no space to be concerned
15:46about other things, to be vulnerable about other things.
15:50That protects you from needless vulnerability.
15:56Vulnerability will still remain, but in a channelized way.
16:02Right? So, that's my little advice.
16:10Thank you so much.