~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: BITS, Pilani - Goa, 28.01.2022, Greater Noida, India
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
¬ How can we become more conscious of and accountable for our choices?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: BITS, Pilani - Goa, 28.01.2022, Greater Noida, India
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
¬ How can we become more conscious of and accountable for our choices?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00My question is a personal problem of mine. Let's say, for example, I decide that I will
00:08stop eating junk food from today or rather minimize junk. I'll stop eating junk food
00:13or rather minimize my consumption of junk food. But what happens is that I go about
00:19doing it for, let's say, a month or maybe 45 days or something. But then I go back to
00:25my earlier schedule like eating whatever I want. This is not just related to that. Even
00:31if I decide that from today onwards, I will attend all the lectures that I have. But still,
00:38what happens is I have that commitment issues to my decisions. Even if I decide that I will
00:47attend all the lectures from today, but still it happens that after a week or after two
00:52weeks, I start skipping lectures. So how do I become more conscious or more aware and
01:01take ownership of my decisions?
01:04Why do you want to attend lectures?
01:11So that I will get the required information to do well in my classes. And so that I will
01:22learn enough to do well in my exams, do better than I used to.
01:26Make up your mind.
01:31I want to attend classes because that's what everyone says, attend classes you will get
01:40better grades.
01:41Because that's what everyone says. That's the way you are born. The entire population
01:50of this earth, that's the way we are born.
01:56Two people say that's what everyone says.
01:59Why do you want to attend lectures? Is there attendance requirement?
02:06No.
02:07Zero?
02:08No.
02:09What's the usual attendance in classrooms?
02:14Let's say if there are 100 students, there would be, in good classes there would be around
02:2160. And if the professor is not, if the professor is not that much liked by students, maybe
02:28around 15-20.
02:29Or is it so that 15-20 is anyway the upper limit, irrespective of how good the professor
02:36is?
02:37No, in some classes, there are students like 60, in some classes, there are around 60%
02:45attendance, 60% students are attending classes.
02:47Then you guys are a special lot.
02:50No, sir, that's basically lab classes and all.
02:55Where anyway if you don't go, you flunk, right? So, you have to go. I am talking of lectures
03:00because that's what you started off with.
03:03Yeah, in that way, yeah.
03:06And especially in online lectures, like people just put in, like what I do most of the time,
03:13I just, you know, just get into the class through Google Meet.
03:17We are going to publish this recording.
03:20So, I get into the Google Meet and then attend carefully.
03:36And make notes.
03:39No, my question was not just about attendance, about all the different things, about decision
03:46making.
03:47I mean, what are the things that I think will would make me my life better?
03:49Like, for example, in the whole, in the entire year 2021, I've been trying to go to gym.
03:55I go for three weeks, four weeks.
03:56And then...
03:57Why do you want to go to gym?
04:00Because there are multiple reasons.
04:02One is that I feel better when I go to gym, go to gym.
04:06I mean, I feel, I feel more energetic and all.
04:11And second is it is good for my health in the long term, right?
04:16And you still go to the gym, right?
04:18Yeah.
04:19So, there is something that pleases you more than being energetic.
04:24Yeah, being lazy.
04:28That's good.
04:29So, how do I overcome that?
04:34There has to be something bigger than laziness, because laziness is contained in the body
04:40itself.
04:41What do you mean by lazy?
04:43Define laziness.
04:45Laziness is basically, I don't want to waste my energy.
04:50I'll just be sitting here or just be laying down here and playing games.
04:55Son, laziness is an unnecessary pejorative.
05:01You are imposing morality on Prakriti and calling it as laziness.
05:07There's nothing called as laziness.
05:10In physical nature, there is a tendency towards work minimization.
05:20And it's a very logical thing.
05:24Try to get the maximum output from the minimum work possible.
05:30Now you are looking at it from moral lenses and calling it laziness.
05:38Would you please stay with me?
05:45If you have an idea that something is giving you more output with lesser work, you will
05:59do it.
06:01That option will be chosen.
06:05In the moral vocabulary, you can call that as laziness, but you will choose that option
06:10because you are perceiving good output from your action or lack of it.
06:20The output is pleasure.
06:23The output is pleasure.
06:25The activity is remaining lying down on your bed.
06:34And that's the net gain from it.
06:40I'll keep lying on my bed, I gain pleasure.
06:45So there is the thing within you that calculates the ratio.
06:49How much pleasure did I get and how much energy and effort did I have to invest?
06:56And if that ratio is greater, then the ratio of the energization and whatever you get from
07:05the gym divided by the energy you put in the gym, something within you will always choose
07:13lying down on the bed, irrespective of whether you call it laziness or whatever.
07:21Effort minimization is required in prakriti, physical nature.
07:25It's a prerequisite for our physical survival.
07:30Every species, if you look at all the animals and other people, what are they doing?
07:36If they start expending energy left, right, center, they will die because energy comes
07:44from food and food requires a lot of effort in the jungle.
07:49So prakriti has trained our bodies to be effort efficient.
07:55That effort efficiency in the moral glossary is called laziness.
08:05It is just effort efficiency.
08:09Don't call lazy people lazy, they are just effort efficient, just effort efficient.
08:17Now it looks sorted at this point, but it is not, why?
08:23Because the output that you have calculated from your classes or gym or anything that's
08:30worthwhile has been grossly underestimated and that's why the ratio is not favorable.
08:41There is a particular pleasure that you get from sleeping and that's undisputed.
08:49I am sleeping and I am expending very little energy and so the ratio is very high because
08:53the denominator is very low.
08:57The denominator is the effort that you are putting in.
09:00The effort that you are putting in is so small that the ratio, that the output is very big.
09:09Now you go to the gym and the effort you put in is large, therefore the numerator has
09:17to be correspondingly very very large if you are to exceed the ratio that you get in sleeping.
09:28Unfortunately for you, the benefits that you see from attending classes or gyming or reading
09:35or all the great activities has not been properly calculated.
09:42Only when you will properly and insightfully know the benefits that you get that your decision
09:49will change.
09:51The moment that appreciation changes, that ratio changes, automatically the inner desire
09:58will change and if you try to change your decision while keeping the ratios adverse,
10:06you will find that you are again and again slipping back.
10:10Sleeping will always be more attractive than working if the ratio has not been properly
10:15calculated.
10:18There has to be a reason why somebody expends his energy, think of it, a lion expends all
10:24his energy, now what happens to him, he is tired.
10:28If he is tired, two problems, one he must immediately go for food, he must immediately
10:34hunt.
10:35Secondly if he is tired, then his ability to hunt decreases, therefore in Prakriti there
10:44is a strong urge towards conserving energy.
10:51If you don't understand that urge, you will just keep dismissing it as laziness and such
10:57things, it won't help.
11:01Therefore what is energy efficiency in Prakriti is laziness in morality and is unconsciousness
11:09in spirituality.
11:11If you call it laziness, you are not understanding it, so simply call it unconsciousness.
11:19You are unconscious, that's why you are lazy.
11:23You are unconscious, you do not know that's why you are lazy, let's say you are lying
11:41in a room and you are drunk as we all are, we are born drunkards and there is fire in
11:48the room and it's winters, not the Goa winters, the Delhi winters, there is a nice fire in
12:03the room and you are drunk and you are feeling in fact nice, pleasured and the room is burning
12:14and the fire is just getting big and big.
12:20You continue to enjoy your position, you are just lying down, you do not realize the room
12:31is about to be burned down and that you too will be gone.
12:37The moment that realization comes, you will be like a spring, up from the bed and out
12:46towards the door, all laziness will be gone.
12:56Those who are lazy lack not in energy but in understanding.
13:05You do not know that you need to work and that work will get you benefits, dividends,
13:13joys, therefore you are preferring inaction over action.
13:20Had you really known the sweetness, the ambrosia of right action, you would have chosen right
13:30action over laziness every moment because what's the fun in lying unconscious on the
13:37bed?
13:38What's the fun?
13:41Great fun lies in being awake, no?
13:44Will you ever miss a date because you just overslept and if you do that you will curse
13:51yourself your entire life?
13:55It's another matter that that might be the biggest blessing you ever got.
14:02But because you perceive the pleasures of the waking state as substantially big, therefore
14:09you will not miss the date due to oversleeping.
14:15Sleeping offers some pleasure, dating offers a higher pleasure, therefore you will not
14:22keep lying down there lazy.
14:28It's just that in the case of dating, the pleasure is very physical, very gross, very
14:34easy to see, appreciate and calculate.
14:39In the case of right work, the joy is internal and subtle and therefore difficult to quantitatively
14:45calculate and so we miss out on it.
14:49Because it cannot be easily quantified, therefore we quantify it as zero.
14:54That's our inner trick.
14:59Because we cannot easily quantify it, so we have a software that returns the default answer
15:05as zero.
15:08It does not accept that the answer exists and the answer is huge, it's just that I
15:12am incapable of calculating it, identifying it.
15:19Instead it says, I have calculated because I am a superstar, I am so knowledgeable as
15:22we all are, especially when young and it says the answer is zero.
15:29And so we say, what's the point in working when the return will be zero?
15:33And therefore we keep lying lazily.
15:39What we need is sharpness, what we need is insight.
15:46Two things, I gave you two examples and you would have probably not missed the contrast
15:52there.
15:53I gave you the example of being enclosed in a burning room and I gave you the example
16:00of meeting a nice girl.
16:05So only these two things can relieve you from your laziness, either the fear of missing
16:14out on life or great love for something tremendously beautiful.
16:20When you have either of these two in your life, then you no more remain lazy and if
16:25you are lazy, it means you have neither fear nor love.
16:29And both are great things to have, fear and love.
16:31I'm talking of the right kind of fear, not your ordinary fears, the right fear, the right
16:36fear that I have one precious life and I'll just squander it, that's the right fear to
16:42have.
16:43Or you could have a great love, I have one precious life and there is so much to realize,
16:50so much to know and I'll miss out on all of that.
16:53I want all of that, if I say miss out, that's fear.
16:57I want all of that, I love all of that, therefore I want to remain awake.
17:01I don't want to miss the sunrise, therefore I want to remain awake.
17:05I cannot keep lying on bed, I cannot afford to close my eyes.
17:10The sunrise is just, I've fallen in love with the dawn.
17:16So that's what you require as a young man, lots of love.
17:20You require to have a big heart.
17:23Are you clear with the first part, first of all?
17:37Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand that either we should be motivated by fear or love for
17:46the activity, only then we will be willing enough to do it on a regular basis.
17:56It's not exactly what I said, but okay for them to proceed, yes.
18:02So I've been working on an entrepreneurial project, so currently this is motivated by
18:11a vision and a passion towards the project, but what I fear is that what if one day it
18:21becomes motivated by money, the project gets motivated instead of the vision and the passion,
18:28it gets motivated by money and then we derail.
18:31So how do I keep a check on that?
18:34What's wrong with money?
18:35If I focus on money, then the vision will be left behind.
18:41What if money is there for the vision?
18:44Yeah, then it is fine, I mean, I saw one of your videos…
18:49Can you have a vision without money?
18:52What kind of vision are you talking of?
18:53No, no, no.
18:56So vision and money go hand in hand, otherwise in the name of vision all you'll have is
19:04dreams, they don't require money.
19:12Money is not a problem, the mind that does not know, even obsession is not a problem.
19:20Just trying to jump the gun all the time.
19:25Even obsession is not a problem, the problem is the wrong center, what are you obsessed
19:33with?
19:34What are you obsessed with?
19:36Be obsessed with the right thing and obsession is beautiful.
19:42Want money for the right purpose and earn trillions if you need to.
19:56Similarly, a vision can be devastating if it's coming from an unconscious point.
20:02You can keep saying, oh, I have a great vision, I have a great vision, but that vision will
20:07actually be a nightmare.
20:10Lots of people have visions, everybody is a visionary and the earth is a mess.
20:20That's a vision.
20:26Money is not a problem, nothing is a problem.
20:31An unconscious mind is the problem.
20:36If you are unconscious and if you don't have money, how is that a great state to be in?
20:47It's like a drunkard with no money in the pockets and heavily drunk, lying in the gutter
20:55and saying, oh, look at me, I'm a farishta, I don't care for money.
21:02I've given up all my materialistic possessions, no money at all.
21:08And why is there no money?
21:09Because all the money was blown up in drinking and the fellow was too lazy to earn anything.
21:17So no money.
21:20How is not having money a virtue?
21:22Kindly educate me.
21:23I was not saying not having money.
21:27But then that's the way you said, what if instead of vision, I'm thinking of money.
21:34What I meant was, now in the center, there is vision.
21:40Now that's the new word in your vocabulary, center, but it's a good word to have, great,
21:47well done.
21:49Know what to keep at the center.
21:51If you keep consciousness at the center, if you keep wisdom at the center, then money
21:56is a great tool to have.
21:59But never keep money itself in the center.
22:04Yeah, that is what I was talking about.
22:09Yes.
22:10Wonderful.