#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita
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Video Information: 16.02.23, International Psychology Summit Conference
For those who want freedom
Context:
~ How to deal with emotionality?
~ How to be free from emotions?
~ How to be free?
~ How to break our comfort zone?
~ What gives power to change life?
~ What is love?
~ Who dare to take risk in life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
➖➖➖
Video Information: 16.02.23, International Psychology Summit Conference
For those who want freedom
Context:
~ How to deal with emotionality?
~ How to be free from emotions?
~ How to be free?
~ How to break our comfort zone?
~ What gives power to change life?
~ What is love?
~ Who dare to take risk in life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaskar Acharyaji, and you've talked of mukti, so I would like to know is it a mukti from
00:17life and birth or I mean more if you can elaborate.
00:24Mukti from internal compulsions, the goal of life can be talked of as mukti which is
00:34liberation which is also called freedom.
00:40So if freedom is the goal of life, surely we are presupposing bondage, without bondage
00:47there can be no question of freedom, liberation, mukti.
00:52So that's what the freedom is from, all kinds of compulsions.
00:59Yeah, but that is again a superficial way of mukti, the deeper level as you say or where
01:09we read that mukti from to be desireless, to be detached and finally like it's mentioned
01:24in the scriptures, I mean like you know, through I mean how to express it, I mean to be the
01:39final ultimate goal of every human being, though we have been given birth is to free
01:45from the cycle of birth and rebirth and that is the ultimate goal, that's what is my query.
01:54It is not your next birth that troubles you, it is the bondages that you experience in
02:01this birth.
02:02Let the mic be there, she is communicating.
02:05It is the bondages that you experience in this birth right here, that's what troubles
02:11you.
02:12Who is experiencing troubles related to the next birth, please tell me and all of us indeed
02:20do have troubles, what are your troubles about, here this, so that's the compulsion we carry
02:32to entertain troubles, to not to drop them, to think that we are helpless in the matter
02:43of troubles, that's what liberation is.
02:48Liberation is not about the previous birth or the next birth.
02:53Liberation is freedom from the bondages that you experience right now and the experiencer
03:03of the bondage is herself the bondage, there is no objective bondage, the one who experiences
03:14bondages is herself in illusion, so you could also put it as freedom from illusion or ignorance.
03:27We do not know who we are, therefore we feel obliged to keep suffering trouble.
03:37Once you put on some random dubious fake identity, you will have to do everything that
03:46the identity demands of you, correct?
03:50None of these identities is real and therefore the compulsions attached to those identities
03:57are not obligatory, that's liberation.
04:10When the desire is finished, there is nothing left.
04:13The question is how is life with desires, you know it, you are asking how would be life
04:23without desires, that's too much of speculation, shouldn't the question be how is life with
04:32desires, how is life with desires and when you see that, then you say whatsoever is the
04:40alternative is acceptable, anything but this.
04:48Also a state of desirousness is a state of ignorance, we do not know who we are, therefore
04:58we desire for the wrong entity.
05:02See our desires never fulfill us, what does that mean?
05:06That means our desires are for somebody else, metaphorically put.
05:14You are doing something that does not fulfill you, so surely the fruits of your action are
05:19benefiting somebody else, they are not benefiting you.
05:24So you do not want to rush after these desires, you say fine, stop these and I am in a state
05:40of ignorance when I am desirous, in this state of ignorance if I try to speculate how life
05:50would be without desire, what would be the quality of my speculation?
05:58I am drunk, let's say, I am drunk, I am drunk, I am drunk.
06:06In this state I cannot make head or tail of anything, correct?
06:11And you come to me and preach the virtues of abstinence, you say don't drink and in
06:19my drunken state I say, but I want to understand what would be the benefits of not drinking?
06:26What is the problem with this question?
06:30What is the problem with this question?
06:33It comes from a drunken state.
06:37In a drunken state I am asking what would be the benefits I will get if I do not drink?
06:44You will know, but please get sober.
06:50So in a desirous state I ask what would be the benefits of dropping desire, no answer
06:58would be relevant.
06:59How do we navigate through?
07:00What?
07:01Okay, so basically I will expand it on your example.
07:20I am drunk and instead of asking what are the benefits of not drinking, I am asking
07:27how do I navigate it?
07:30You just stumbled, look at your knee, that's how you navigate, you are drunk, so what happens
07:37to you?
07:39What happens to you when you are drunk?
07:41You are not walking straight.
07:43And then you?
07:44Fall.
07:45And you?
07:46Fall.
07:47And you bleed?
07:48Yeah.
07:49Yeah, look at your knee, that's how you navigate, look at your pain, acknowledge your suffering.
07:55So like suffering is, like you said, fulfilling life, so what if suffering is fulfilling?
08:02Acknowledge, don't inflict, acknowledge, there is a difference between creating suffering
08:12and acknowledging that you are already suffering and that's hard, right?
08:21And that's the reason most people prefer to rather live false lives because if they
08:28acknowledge their real state, it pains, it's like being out of sedation, when you are sedated,
08:39you don't feel pain, right, or when you are anesthetized, you don't feel pain.
08:43So people choose to remain on sedation, on tranquilizers, on such things.
08:49So if I, you know, I acknowledge the pain, what do I do then?
08:55Then there is a natural thing within you that seeks joy and will drop pain.
09:04We are not born to live in pain, our nature is joy.
09:11And that's the reason why we all rush towards that poor proxy called happiness.
09:17Because happiness to an extent seems like joy.
09:23In both joy and happiness, there is an absence of sorrow.
09:29So we rush towards happiness because it appears a bit like joy, though happiness is not at
09:33all joy.
09:36Happiness is just a shady cousin of sorrow.
09:40But we rush towards it because it looks like joy.
09:43So your nature is joy.
09:44The moment you acknowledge pain, you'll find yourself dropping it.
09:53And in that lies your freedom.
09:55In that lies the power of choice.
09:58You can drop your pain and pain is not compulsory.
10:06You are not mandated to live a life of suffering.
10:11If you suffer, that's a choice you have inflicted on yourself.
10:16And you can reverse that choice.
10:19We all have the liberty, rather an internal obligation to bring ourselves to a joyous
10:31state, a state of complete bloom.
10:36That's what we are born for, right?
10:38You look at a flower.
10:40How do you feel about a flower that remained a bud or got nipped in the bud or flowered
10:48but incompletely?
10:49You don't feel good, right?
10:51You want it to bloom fully.
10:55That's what is the purpose of life, full bloom.
11:00And it's therefore quite tragic if we pass away without expressing ourselves blooming
11:10fully, actually living, reaching your utmost potential, dropping your last bondages.
11:23I have another question.
11:26I'm really sorry about this, but...
11:29It's okay.
11:30It's related to this.
11:31So, you know, we were talking about desires and like, you know, how it should, like we
11:37should live without desires and like, my love, my desire can be like, I want to be the most
11:44excellent person, the best person in this field.
11:48So it is a desire and, you know, it kind of contradicts it because my life won't have
11:54any meaning without it.
11:57Having desire is not the objective.
12:01When you are an unfulfilled person to begin with, how can you not have desire?
12:08The thing is to have a sane desire.
12:12I'm sick, my desire should be for a doctor, not a dancer, not a joker.
12:22Desire the right thing.
12:26Desire the right thing and have an intense desire for the right thing.
12:33Wisdom is not about being desireless in the first go itself.
12:36No, we all rather need desire.
12:40But we need desire that proves good.
12:44That's of some utility.
12:47If your desire ends up troubling you all the more, what good is the desire?
12:55You can be a slave to the desire.
12:57If it's the right desire.
12:58In fact, you must be a slave to the right desire.
13:02Desire rightly and immerse yourself totally in your desire.
13:07Give yourself up, surrender.
13:09Sir, my question is how we control our emotions in a difficult situation and we maintain our
13:16life peacefully?
13:19Ma'am, mostly our emotions are not our own.
13:23They are so pattern based.
13:25So pattern based.
13:27If you just recall what made you angry the last time, just the recall will make you angry
13:33again.
13:38Just try to recall what embarrassed you the last time.
13:44Just the recall will embarrass you again.
13:48There is nothing but a pattern.
13:51So they are not your emotions.
13:53It's like having a button that somebody, anybody randomly can come and just push.
14:02Is there any spiritual practice to control our emotions?
14:07Just tell yourself, that's not me.
14:10That's not my emotion.
14:13Address yourself not as I, but as let's say Manju.
14:24What's your name please?
14:26My name is Shoma Lahiri Mallik.
14:29So Shoma, address yourself by your name and say, Shoma, you are at it again.
14:35It's happening again.
14:37And it's not you, it's automatic.
14:41Let it happen.
14:42You don't need to participate.
14:45You don't need to participate.
14:48Let it happen.
14:49You don't need to be a part of it.
14:51If it's prakritic, if it's hormonal, if it's bodily, it will happen.
14:57What can I do?
14:58It's bound to happen.
14:59It's a part of my physical constitution.
15:01But I need not participate in the happening.
15:05I'll stay at an arm's length and just see what is happening.
15:12Sometimes other stimulus are disturbed us, outside stimulus.
15:17Yes, there is disturbance, but not to you.
15:21And in this situation, how we control our emotion, it is also my question.
15:28How can it be difficult to see that it's all so mechanical?
15:45There is a word that you despise.
15:49There's a word that you despise.
15:50Let's say, I abhor being called ugly.
15:56Consider the 10th time I am called ugly.
16:01I should become impervious to the word ugly.
16:06I should become totally non-reactive, indifferent.
16:09Because now I know what's happening.
16:11Okay, ugly, thank you.
16:15I mean, I have seen how the whole thing operates like an electric circuit.
16:21Right, there is the switch, this is so obvious and so foolhardy.
16:29How long can I participate in this?
16:32So after a point, one just drops out and says, I don't see any point being a part of all
16:37this.
16:40In fact, if you want to play a game with yourself, predict yourself, predict yourself.
16:48For example, you know, somebody you are totally mad on is going to come to you.
17:00And you are already steaming hot, very angry.
17:05And now the doorbell rings and you tell yourself, now you know what will happen, I'll open the
17:11gate and shout.
17:13Predict yourself.
17:14The more you see how predictable you are, the more you see how mechanical you are, because
17:19only machines can be predicted, only machines can be programmed.
17:24If you can predict your behavior, your reactions in advance, then you know that you are just
17:29a lump of chemicals, hormones, circuits.
17:35And that's not what consciousness is.
17:37Consciousness is supposed to be free, right?
17:40An electric circuit is not free.
17:43Chemical reactions are not free.
17:47Sodium and potassium cannot decide whether to react with water.
17:52They are constrained to react.
17:56Do you want to be just a chemical?
17:58A chemical that is obliged to act in certain ways, there is freedom then.
18:06Predict yourself.
18:09Predict yourself and then defy the prediction.
18:13So I was supposed to be angry.
18:15I didn't get angry.
18:181-0.
18:19Self 1, hormones 0.
18:25So keep the score.
18:33So the hormones are imbalanced.
18:35I am not imbalanced.
18:40I am not my body, so how can I be the hormones?