Video Information: 03.09.2024, BITS Pilani Goa
Context:
~ What is real interest?
~ What is our job, purpose?
~ Are our choices liberating us or rather confining us?
~ Where are our choices coming from?
~ How did you discover what to do in life?
~ How to discover our calling?
~ How to meet our highest potential?
~ How to be successful in life and achieve excellence?
It is very difficult to see clearly when the mind is clouded with desires and ambitions.
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Context:
~ What is real interest?
~ What is our job, purpose?
~ Are our choices liberating us or rather confining us?
~ Where are our choices coming from?
~ How did you discover what to do in life?
~ How to discover our calling?
~ How to meet our highest potential?
~ How to be successful in life and achieve excellence?
It is very difficult to see clearly when the mind is clouded with desires and ambitions.
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00My question was regarding Vastavik Ruchi which means relevant interest.
00:12Now I find it very abstract to put in my head what does Vastavik Ruchi mean.
00:21More so you've also explained that Ruchi stems from the ego and you should choose something
00:26that is beneficial to all of humankind or this world.
00:32How do you submit yourself to a task that is beneficial to all of mankind or something
00:39that is indifferent to your interests?
00:45See, we'll have to get the framework right.
00:52What we call as our interests or the usual quick unconscious choices, where do they come
01:02from?
01:07In a macro sense, they come from our bodily composition, in a very macro sense.
01:17For example, you can choose to have this kind of food or that kind of food or that kind
01:29of food.
01:31In that you can have a choice, but you will never choose to have 500 kilograms of food.
01:40You can choose whichever type of food you want, but you will never choose 500 kilograms
01:46of it.
01:47Would you?
01:48Because that's not something that your body will allow.
01:52Similarly, you can choose red, blue, yellow, orange, any color from the spectrum, but you
02:02will never, if I ask you here, what's your favorite color, please?
02:10You will never respond with a color that stands at 2000 angstrom or 20,000 angstrom.
02:20You would always respond with some color that stands between 4000 and 8000 angstrom, the visible spectrum.
02:28Now within this very very narrow spectrum lies the infinite diversity of human choice.
02:37Does it not?
02:38So, we keep saying, you know, I like that, I like that, I like that, you know, I like that, no, no, no, I don't like that.
02:43I hate him because he likes that.
02:46I hate him because he likes that.
02:48I love him because his likes are similar to mine.
02:51But the point remains that all these likes and dislikes are between 4000 and 8000 angstrom.
02:59We have never had a human being who likes a color that stands at 2000 angstroms of wavelength.
03:12So, at a very macro level, our choices are confined by our physical constitution itself.
03:20That we rarely see.
03:27If I ask you, you know, alright, which finger do you like?
03:32Which finger do you like?
03:33So, you will say, you know, somebody will say this one, this one, this one.
03:38Being students, a lot of us will like the middle finger.
03:43But there would be hardly anybody who would say that I like the 22nd finger.
03:50Because your body itself does not support that.
03:52So, it sounds, in fact, so absurd, 22nd finger.
03:58What does he mean by that?
03:59Nobody is going to choose that, right, the 22nd finger.
04:04So, in the macro sense, choices are delimited by the body itself.
04:11What I said about the visible spectrum is also true about the aural spectrum, right,
04:1820 hertz to 20000 hertz.
04:23If you are hearing something, you are listening to something very, very attentively.
04:30What I can immediately know is that the frequency would be between 20 and 20000 hertz.
04:38No choice of yours will take you beyond these two boundaries, or would it?
04:45Then you come to the social impact on choices.
04:48First of all, as you are born, the body has already decided that from zero till infinity,
04:59you will choose only between 4000 and 8000.
05:03Do you see what kind of constriction it is of choices?
05:064000 to 8000, what percentage is it of the total electromagnetic spectrum?
05:15Please tell me.
05:18Please tell me.
05:2110%?
05:231%?
05:250.1%?
05:27Not even that.
05:29So, do you see that you are born into limits?
05:34Even as you are born, the birth itself has dictated your choices and we keep jumping
05:43and shouting, oh no, I need to have free choice, free choice, what free choice?
05:47All freedom is between 4000 and 8000.
05:51All freedom lies only between 4000 and 8000.
05:56The very event of birth has taken away choice, so to say.
06:04Do you get this?
06:05Now, having taken birth, if you are a Hindu, if you are a Muslim, if you come from an urban
06:16background, if you come from a rural place, if you come from India, if you come from China,
06:20if you come from Africa, again, even within this small spectrum that is given to you,
06:274000 to 8000, boundaries are set for you.
06:32Are they not?
06:36Now, whatever you choose is now narrowed down to a smaller domain and yet we talk of choices
06:48as if choices were something so fundamental, so great and so liberating.
06:56Are our choices liberating us or rather confining us, please tell me.
07:03You have been taught, for example, to some of us, let's say, some of us, the sound of
07:12the Azan, the tolling of the temple bell and there are different frequencies.
07:19Are they not?
07:20Different amplitudes, everything, the whole waveform is different and you say that's my
07:25choice.
07:26That's the sound of my choice.
07:31Very difficult if you are born in Germany that you would know of Tansen.
07:36Difficult you would have heard of Meghmalhar and not too many Indians would know of Beethoven
07:43and Mozart.
07:45Maybe the names are heard, but there would not be a taste into them.
07:49Think of choice, as a German, what do you say, I love, I love Mozart.
08:00You say that's my choice.
08:01Is that a choice or is that a fallout of your being a German, please tell me.
08:11You are born in India, hardly anyone does not play cricket.
08:16What if you go to Brazil or Argentina?
08:21So is cricket a choice or is it rather an imposition of the circumstances?
08:30I am asking you, you say you love cricket, do you really love cricket?
08:35Love involves a very very conscious choice.
08:38If cricket has come to you only because you are born in a particular country, how is cricket
08:43a choice?
08:45Now cricket is some kind of helplessness, choicelessness.
08:54What do I do?
08:55Being born in India, I'll have to love cricket.
08:59Is it choice then?
09:03Are you getting?
09:04So the first thing is not about asking, what do I choose?
09:09It's about seeing that all our choices are very conditioned things.
09:18That what we call as choices come right from our conditioning.
09:23They are not indicators of our freedom at all.
09:28In general, you say I need to have the freedom to choose.
09:32The fact might be totally different.
09:35The fact might be that your choices do not indicate your freedom, rather they indicate
09:43your lack of freedom.
09:44When you choose cricket, for example, in India, does it indicate freedom or lack of freedom?
09:50Please tell me.
09:53Lack of freedom.
09:58You couldn't have chosen otherwise.
10:00You had no option.
10:01Are you getting?
10:02So we are very interested in asking what to choose next.
10:12But is the question arising in a vacuum?
10:16Are we not constantly, every moment already choosing a lot?
10:21Is not the whole thing of choice a process?
10:26And if you are already choosing and choosing from a particular center, using particular
10:31criteria, from a particular state of consciousness, is it not more important to ask, why am I
10:37choosing this that I am choosing right now?
10:41Or must I ask what do I choose next?
10:47If I stand still here, please understand.
10:50If I stand still here, probably it makes sense to ask which way to go.
10:56Probably it makes sense to ask which way to go.
10:59But who am I?
11:00I am the mover, I am the runner.
11:03I am all the time, not just running, actually sprinting towards my desires, my goals and
11:10my goals are ostensibly my choices.
11:12I chose my goal.
11:13I choose that thing.
11:14I want that thing.
11:16I am already running towards something and that which I am running towards, I am quite
11:22convinced of it.
11:23Am I not?
11:24I want that thing.
11:27I want that trophy.
11:28I want those marks.
11:30I want that job.
11:32I want him to respect me.
11:34I want that boy or girl.
11:36I am already very confident of the direction in which I am running.
11:40And then this speaker comes in and you ask, sir, what should I move towards?
11:45My answer will be, but you aren't standing still.
11:51What should I move towards is a question that behoves someone who is standing still.
11:59Only he can ask.
12:00I do not know.
12:01Since I do not know, so I am standing still.
12:04So please tell me which way to go.
12:08If you do not know which way to go, what do you do first thing?
12:12You stop, don't you?
12:15Now is the time of the GPS, but let's say you are in the year 2000 and you needed to
12:22stop for instructions.
12:26Students won't know.
12:27They are not born then, but the elder ones would.
12:32So what do I do?
12:34If I am rushing towards a particular direction on a road, how do I ask anybody for instructions
12:40or help?
12:42And if I want to know the way, what is the first thing I do?
12:47I stop and I say, I have to go to Jaipur, how do I go?
12:53Or I have to go anywhere.
12:55Is there a restaurant here?
12:58You stop and ask, right?
13:00The first thing is to stop.
13:03Without stopping, you are just a slave of the unconscious choices that you are pursuing
13:10and if you don't stop and you ask that fellow, Bhaiya, kaha jaana hai?
13:14He won't respond or would he?
13:17Even if he responds, would you get his response?
13:22You would be gone by the time his response comes.
13:27Is that not so?
13:29So we are not sitting at the origin zero zero.
13:32We are not standing still.
13:37In a great unconscious momentum, we are flowing.
13:43The first thing is to stop flowing.
13:46The first thing is to drop out of the flow.
13:52A great stream is carrying you along.
13:57The first thing is to somehow manage to come ashore and then you sit there for a while.
14:05Let your mind be settled and then ask yourself, here, this is me, this is life.
14:10What do I do with it?
14:13But that question cannot be asked when you are already hurrying towards a particular
14:17direction.
14:18Are we not already hurrying?
14:19Please tell me.
14:20So, when you are already hurrying, how to get an answer, forget about an answer, how
14:28even to ask a question?
14:32First thing is to have the courage to stop and if you cannot stop permanently, stop at
14:38least for a while, it's called taking stock.
14:42Just to take stock, stop and then say, okay, this is what I have been doing.
14:48I am 18, 20, 25, 35, whatever.
14:52What is going on?
14:53What is really going on?
14:57It is very difficult to think on the go.
15:02It is very difficult to see clearly when the mind is clouded with desires and ambitions.
15:11The more you are desirous, the more you are goal-oriented, the more ambitious you are,
15:16the less you will know what you are actually doing.
15:21Desire will simply obfuscate your vision.
15:26Is that making sense?
15:29The thing is, we stick to our choices, we hold on to them like dear life, like the monkey
15:40does to her little one and sometimes the little one is dead and yet the mother monkey
15:51is holding it to her chest, thinking that there is some danger out there somewhere and
15:59she is looking suspiciously.
16:02She is not even looking at herself to see that the baby is already gone.
16:18I invite you to look impartially at your choices.
16:23This impartial looking is at the foundation, at the center of all wisdom.
16:35Otherwise life is just about being blindly attracted to something and then investing
16:42all your time, money, energy into chasing that thing.
16:47Is that not how it happens?
16:48Please tell me.
16:50You get attracted by something and then you just run after it, you just run after it.
17:00Money goes into it, time goes into it, energy goes into it, life goes into it and if you
17:06get that thing, you rarely find it satisfactory enough and what next?
17:12The next thing and life is limited.
17:20Soon enough you find that you have no energy, no time to chase things anymore.
17:28What is already going on must be reviewed.
17:34But we are more interested in asking what next to do?
17:37Dump that question.
17:40What next to do is not important at all.
17:43What is important is what am I currently doing?
17:49What next to do is not important at all.
17:54What is much more important is what am I currently doing?
17:58What exactly is going on right now?
18:01What is it that I am busy with day beginning till day end?
18:07That's the important question and if you can go into that question, what next to do emerges
18:15on its own.
18:18You don't have to answer that, you don't have to plan that up.
18:21It happens, happens on its own.
18:23If you understand what is going on right now, the future will organically spring from this.
18:31You won't have to plan out a future.
18:34So following up with that, you've said that what next is to be done will organically start
18:43spring up from whatever we are doing now.
18:45So again, the interest of the collective people.
18:51Is it automatically going to happen that what we, is it going to happen on its own?
18:58That was all my question.
18:59It's like this question, where is this particular question coming from?
19:06It's coming from the previous one.
19:10Was this question possible had the questioner not attended to the response to the previous question?
19:20So where is this question coming from?
19:22Had you planned it out?
19:25It just came.
19:27It just came.
19:28It just came out of attention.
19:30He paid attention to what was happening to the previous question and from there came
19:38the next question and this particular question has a certain authenticity.
19:44A planned, well-thought-out, cultivated question would never had this authenticity.
19:51It happens spontaneously, trust it.
19:56Your job is not to plan out a future.
19:58Your job is to lovingly attend to the present.
20:03The future will take care of itself.