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Video Information: 27.06.2020, IIT-Kanpur - Webinar, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Context:
~ Why should one read scripture, if one can learn from life itself?
~ Are reading scriptures just an acknowledgment of knowledge?
~ What is scripture?
~ How one can gain from Scriptures?
~ What are Scriptures?
~ Do scriptures heal?
~ How to read the Scriptures?
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?...
Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: 27.06.2020, IIT-Kanpur - Webinar, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Context:
~ Why should one read scripture, if one can learn from life itself?
~ Are reading scriptures just an acknowledgment of knowledge?
~ What is scripture?
~ How one can gain from Scriptures?
~ What are Scriptures?
~ Do scriptures heal?
~ How to read the Scriptures?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The next question is from Avinash, 24 years from civil engineering department.
00:17He is asking, don't Vedanta and Upanishad too contain words and information?
00:29And the mind is prone to forget any information.
00:37How is remembering the information contained in the Upanishads useful for self-realization?
00:45Avinash, you seem worried that the mind will forget the information that comes to you via
01:05the Upanishads.
01:08You probably want to memorize it and keep it with you forever.
01:19On the contrary, that's not at all the objective of the Upanishads.
01:36The Upanishads do not want you to carry them in your mind by way of memory for too long.
01:50Let's understand.
01:55You see, why does one require Vedanta or Upanishads at all?
02:01There has to be a reason.
02:05If you're otherwise and already perfectly fine, then why do you require anything additional?
02:16You're living your life in your particular way and all is well with you.
02:22Then you do not need to read anything, or do you?
02:28The Upanishads are not a thing of fashion or a thing of compulsion.
02:42You do not go to them just because a lot of people do, neither must you go to them because
02:51religion or tradition demands so.
02:56There has to be a substantial reason if you are to go to the Upanishads.
03:04The reason is your worried mind.
03:09The reason is your taxed and loaded mind.
03:21You're anxious, you're stressed, you're confused, you're agitated or you're depressed.
03:32In either case, your mind is not healthy.
03:43Sometimes you find yourself excited, sometimes you are dejected and desolate.
03:50Sometimes you are extremely hopeful and sometimes you are the epitome of nihilism.
04:07And with this and due to this diseased and centerless mind, one goes to the Upanishads.
04:27And the Upanishads themselves make it amply clear right at the outset.
04:34They say you are diseased in many ways, that's why you have come to us.
04:41There are many Shanti parts associated with the various Upanishads and if you read them,
04:49you'll get a fair idea of why the Upanishads were composed in the first place.
04:57They want to help you in matters of the mind.
05:03They address your fear, they address your insecurity, they address your inner conflicts,
05:11they address your ignorance.
05:14That's why you go to them and which means that when you go through the Upanishads, you
05:22are already carrying a lot.
05:25What is it that you are carrying?
05:27Ignorance, conflict, fear, agitation and all else.
05:37And all this that you are carrying is actually sitting in the mind as information.
05:44So it is with a lot of information that you are going to the Upanishads.
05:52You are looking at the Upanishads as a body of information, whereas first of all you should
05:59be talking about your own body that is carrying so much information.
06:04And it is with this body and body centricity that you are approaching the Upanishads.
06:10It's a bundle of, it's a mountain of information that's coming to the Upanishads.
06:16And this information is very concretely set in your being.
06:23It is not merely a thing of the mind.
06:26It is running in your veins.
06:29It has become your life matter.
06:37Your face has become a depiction of all this knowledge that you are carrying in your mind.
06:48Every cell of your body is feeling the burden of this that you are carrying in your mind.
06:58In fact, the mind is not much except the informational load that it carries.
07:11And we are people with bloated, inflated minds.
07:17If some kind of a diagram of our subtle body could be drawn, it would be 99% just the top story.
07:39In your day to day living, tell me, how much do your knees matter to you?
07:51Does the word knee even occur to you usually?
08:03It's the brain that the ego identifies with and lives in.
08:10Are you getting it?
08:15And human beings are especially identified with their brain, with their intellect, with
08:21memory and all else.
08:26So look at this person who's going to the Upanishads.
08:29He is just a huge truckload of information that he calls his knowledge, though it is
08:37not.
08:43And he's going to the Upanishads and here are the Upanishads, very sleek bodies of subtle
08:52numbers, very, very sleek bodies, even if they contain information, their information
09:02is not too much.
09:06They're not really encyclopedic, very pithy, very terse.
09:16Nevertheless, when you read them, you do get some information and a lot of information
09:23you already have.
09:24So, what's really happening, the information contained in Upanishads is of a special type.
09:32It does not really sit well with the information you already have.
09:43The knowledge that the Upanishads give you and here I am using information and knowledge
09:48interchangeably, just for the purpose of this discussion.
09:54The knowledge that Upanishads give you does not get co-opted into your existing structure
10:03of knowledge.
10:05It's a very special and exquisite type of knowledge that the Upanishads contain.
10:10You will not be able to absorb it nicely into your existing system.
10:17See you take in some food and what happens to that food?
10:20That food becomes your body, right?
10:22That food gets co-opted, that food gets absorbed.
10:27Upanishads are not that kind of food that your body can absorb.
10:35When Upanishads go in, forget about the body being able to absorb them, they go in and
10:43they start destroying all that is false within.
10:51Of course, your antibodies spring into action and do whatever they can.
10:56But then the Upanishads and their knowledge is too much for the antibodies.
11:02Soon your resistances all fail and fall.
11:08However, you can still deny the Upanishadic knowledge an outright victory.
11:15How do you do that?
11:17You do that by playing the biased referee.
11:23Remember that ultimately it's you who has to declare the winner.
11:31And in spite of the Upanishadic knowledge demonstrating its trueness and superiority,
11:39you may still choose to side with your old conditioned knowledge.
11:46That can happen.
11:48That can still happen.
11:49It is not really automatic that you will read the Upanishad and the knowledge will
11:53go in and the knowledge will destroy all the falseness within and the next morning you
11:57will wake up enlightened.
11:59That doesn't really happen.
12:08If the Upanishads are allowed to work, then it's a big ask.
12:16To allow the Upanishads to work upon oneself requires great commitment towards truth and
12:22liberation.
12:23Otherwise, the Upanishads are too much to handle.
12:28You will just not be able to tolerate their rigor, their vigor, their cut, they cut through
12:40everything.
12:43If the Upanishads are somehow allowed to operate within, then their action is thus.
12:51They would destroy the false patterns of knowledge that you are carrying within and having destroyed
12:58your false patterns, they themselves would then evaporate or sublimate like camphor without
13:10leaving any residue behind.
13:17Something that has come to you just to cleanse and once the cleansed object is gone, the
13:27cleaning agent too is not to be found.
13:32Otherwise, it would be a very absurd situation.
13:39The old dirt is gone and some other new thing has occupied its place.
13:47That is no relief or is it?
13:50Because those who have known the mind, they have categorically said that anything that
13:53starts occupying the mind too much and for too long is just a burden and a disease.
14:03So, even if it is an apparently holy verse, but if it becomes a permanent fixture upon
14:11the mind, if it gets situated very stubbornly upon the mind, then it is not good for you.
14:26Upanishads are like medicines.
14:32Medicine cannot become food.
14:34Medicine cannot become your staple diet.
14:38Medicine comes just to fight the disease and once the disease is gone, the medicine too
14:42is gone.
14:43So, you need not be worried that you need to memorize the Upanishads.
14:50Obviously, India has had a rich and a very practically useful tradition of memorization.
15:01We call our bodies of sacred literature as Shruti, then as Smriti for a reason.
15:11We hear, we memorize and that is how the knowledge was transferred generation after generation.
15:21All those things were there.
15:23But remember that memorization is not what spirituality is about.
15:30And the Upanishads, the real challenge does not pertain to memorization.
15:37The real challenge is about not playing the biased referee.
15:44We talked of him, right?
15:46When the Upanishadic knowledge comes in, you will find yourself greatly impelled to declare
15:56it as false.
15:57You will want to side with your pre-existing knowledge.
16:01Why?
16:02Because it is your knowledge.
16:06Before coming to the Upanishad, you are already carrying it.
16:08So it is yours.
16:11So there are two teams vying against each other and one of the teams belongs to the
16:18referee.
16:19The referee is saying this is my team.
16:22When the other team is winning, it requires great truthfulness and discipline on behalf
16:28of the referee to remain unbiased.
16:31You are that referee.
16:32Remember, it is your knowledge versus the Upanishadic knowledge.
16:36Upanishadic knowledge would prevail provided you provide it with a fair and level playing
16:42field.
16:44Mostly we don't and that's why the Upanishads remain ignored.
16:49We say how can all my patterns and beliefs and knowledge systems be proven so false and
16:58so absurd and that too so easily.
17:03Upanishads don't take long, you see.
17:07Five verses are enough to destroy five generations of your traditional knowledge system.
17:20Sometimes just five words of one verse, gone.
17:25Entire personality is gone.
17:29Entire history is gone.
17:33So they'll win but we don't allow them to win.
17:36That's where real discipline is required, not in memorization.
17:40We think, oh, we have not been fair to the Upanishads if we have not memorized them.
17:46No, no, no.
17:48You have not been fair to the Upanishads if you have not really considered them.
17:54If you have not really been just to them.
17:58If you have not given them a level playing field.
18:02If you have not been unbiased, that's the real challenge.
18:06Memorization is not the challenge.
18:08Remaining unbiased is the challenge.
18:12So let the Upanishads come to you and receive them in a neutral way.
18:18There is no need to be biased towards them.
18:20There is no need to be inclined towards them.
18:23And there are some people who do that as well.
18:24They say, oh, these are holy words.
18:27So surely they are right.
18:29So I declare them winners in advance.
18:33No, you don't need to do that.
18:36Just in a neutral way, in a fair way, receive them, consider them.
18:43Let them work upon you.
18:44Meditate on them.
18:47And that would suffice.