Breaking Free from Tradition: My Life, My Rules? || Acharya Prashant, BITS Goa (2024)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? 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...  ➖➖➖➖➖➖  #acharyaprashant  Video Information: 03.09.2024, BITS Pilani, Goa  Context: ~ Before you rebel against others, rebel against yourself first. ~ Do we truly understand the meaning of words like life, education, money, career, and love? ~ How are others affecting us and our decisions? ~ What is life itself, and how do I define it? ~ Do we truly understand what 'I' and 'me' mean?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~

Transcript

00:00Good evening sir, my name is Yashashree Divedi, I am currently pursuing chemical engineering.

00:07My question is, till what level it's fair to say it's my life, my rules and not going

00:12by social and generational norms to meet family's expectations?

00:18You can say that till the final level, you can say that even in an absolute sense, provided

00:28it's you who is authentically saying that, often the rebellion we raise against the society

00:38is itself a social thing.

00:44Often the rebellion we pose to a society is itself very social and has social objectives.

00:53It's like this, oh this is the society, this is the society, right?

01:00The hundred odd of you, you are the society and I am the rebel, I am the great rebel.

01:05So I rebel against you and I say you know all of you have been stupid from Newton till

01:11Einstein, all of you have been stupid, you know nothing.

01:18From Socrates till Sartre, all of you have been stupid, you know nothing and I am the

01:22only original one, I am the only genuine one, I am the young rebel and so I declare that

01:31I am not one of you and I am a renegade and I move over to this side here.

01:38I am not one of you and what do I do here?

01:46You know not just hide, I have one eye on the common phenomena, you know this, right?

01:58We all do this, I am not one of you, I am boycotting you, what am I doing?

02:11I am seeing who is impressed, I am seeing who is impressed and if someone is impressed,

02:20I would probably you know just pertinently beckon from here, oh that one is impressed.

02:30Come come join my kingdom, it's not that I am rebelling against the society.

02:41I am so much a fan of the society actually, that I want to create one more society with

02:48myself at the centre, with me as the king, have you not seen this happen?

02:57It's called the corner rebel, he rebels, he goes into a corner and sets up his shop there

03:05and then he can attract a few people there and you know the corner shop, from there came

03:10the word corner.

03:12In all these shops don't you find corner written?

03:15It's because corner shops work a lot, stationary corner, whatever.

03:32Authentic rebellion can happen only when first of all you know two things, one, what are

03:39you rebelling against and who is the one rebelling, we know neither of these, then

03:46what is this rebellion, it's a sham, it's not a rebellion against the society, it's

03:55very much a social phenomena, it is within the society.

04:06The one who disparages society the most becomes socially popular, does that happen or not?

04:15The angry young man used to say, two hoots to this world, tumhari yeh tumhi samhalo

04:25yeh duniya and then he finds that the world is carrying him on its shoulders, he looked

04:38like a world renouncer and suddenly he is a favorite of the world.

04:54My life, my rules, whose life, whose rules, even this phrase, my life, my rules is not

05:04coming from your own life.

05:07Even this rule that if it's my life, it has to be my rules, even this rule is not your

05:13own.

05:14So you are being ruled by someone else when you say my rules.

05:19Even in saying my rules, it is somebody else's rules that you are following, no?

05:25Did you coin this phrase, my life, my rules, you are still a slave, a slave by another

05:32name, a slave by another name.

05:37There are slaves who say, my life, somebody else's rules and there are slaves who say,

05:43my life, my rules, they are both equal slaves because neither of them has any originality.

05:58Immature rebellion takes you nowhere.

06:04Those of you who are fond of rebelling must pay heed, rebel against yourself first.

06:16Before you rebel against others, rebel against yourself.

06:22The others are not so much outside, the others are all inside of you.

06:31Your very sense of self is founded on others.

06:37So if you want to rebel against others, rebel simply against yourself.

06:45The usual framework is I versus the others, no?

06:52The real thing is that this I is a function of others.

06:57The others do not stand outside of you.

07:00The others all are seated inside of you.

07:05If you want to rebel against others, rebel against yourself.

07:08It is not about my life, my rules, it is about asking, is my life mine at all?

07:24What is life itself?

07:25How do I define life?

07:27Do I know what is I, me, life?

07:32What are these words?

07:35Just yesterday I said fooled by familiarity.

07:38We are so familiar with these words that we think that we know what they mean.

07:46But familiarity does not necessarily imply understanding.

07:51You are familiar with the word life, education, money, career, love.

07:55We are very familiar, we use these words 40 times a day, so we are extremely familiarized.

08:02But we don't know what they mean.

08:10To see that you do not know what they mean, I am not asking you to learn their real meaning.

08:19I am asking you to first of all clearly, honestly acknowledge that you do not know

08:25what is meant even by these basic words, the building blocks of existing itself.

08:42Some 15 years back when I used to actively teach, this was one of my favorite exercises.

08:52I would ask my students to write down the 15 words they most commonly, most frequently

08:59use in their everyday conversations and they would write down these words.

09:06Then I would say, now honestly check whether you know what these words mean and how horrible

09:12it is that it's not unknown words we do not know of.

09:19It's the very known words that we know nothing of.

09:25If you do not know the unknown, that's alright, the unknown is the unknown.

09:29It's not supposed to be already known.

09:33But what if something is being used, practiced 50 times a day and is still unknown, is that

09:42not horrible?

09:43Yeah, that's our life.

09:53But that can be very smoothly taken care of, especially when you are young, especially

10:02when you have time.

10:05I wish when I was your age, somebody came to me in a meeting like this and addressed

10:16me this way.

10:21Yours is the stage when you are just opening up to life.

10:30This is when you should and you can be the most vigilant, the most outgoing, risk-taking,

10:45adventurous and honest.

10:50Yes, they are constantly reminding me to not to come to the edge.

10:59It's interfering with the recording or the audio, it seems.

11:03I am being told to come here.

11:05This is where the limelight is.

11:10You know why I am coming to this place?

11:12Typically, I don't stand and talk, mostly it's in a seating posture these days.

11:19But when it comes to interacting with students, I prefer to stand.

11:22This is how it used to be for several years, from 2006 till around 2011-12.

11:33I want to be close when it comes to students.

11:37That's why I am standing right at the edge.

11:40They are telling me to retreat.

11:43Not only here, if this proceeds for long enough, I'll jump over.

11:50Which actually used to happen, if you dig out the old videos, that's what you will

11:53find there.

11:54Go there and then not only be here, there, there, there, into, yeah, anyway.

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