Video Information: 09.12.22, Sir J.J. College, Mumbai
Context:
~ Why do we hurt people?
~ Is hurting people always a bad thing?
~ How to decide what is right?
~ How to not hurt loved ones?
~ Is shielding loves ones hurting them?
~ Why do we always defend our friend?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #lovedones #hurt #relationship #support #love #friends
Context:
~ Why do we hurt people?
~ Is hurting people always a bad thing?
~ How to decide what is right?
~ How to not hurt loved ones?
~ Is shielding loves ones hurting them?
~ Why do we always defend our friend?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #lovedones #hurt #relationship #support #love #friends
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good afternoon, sir. My name is Sanjeevani Patil. I am from second year. I always have
00:09a struggle, I have a war between my heart and my mind while deciding anything. Like
00:14there are some situations in which I have to listen to the society in which I have my
00:20loved ones, including my parents and family. So in such situations, sometimes if I agree
00:26them, then I disappoint myself. If I agree myself, I kind of disappoint them. In both
00:34scenarios, eventually I get disappointed because either I have made someone hurt or like all
00:41these war kind of happens in my mind and I'm never, I'm fear, like I fear that I'm hurting
00:46someone and if I'm not hurting someone else, I'm hurting myself. So I'm always confused,
00:51like not exactly confused, but like while taking decisions, it's really a big task to
00:58take a decision about anything. So how to overcome this fear?
01:03See it's not that we are afraid of hurting people. We are actually afraid that it is
01:19bad to hurt people. Now, how do you know something is bad? How do you know something is good?
01:42If we can clearly know what is good, bad, loosely stated, what is right, what is wrong,
01:55that would solve a lot of your problems. You have your examination sheets and your teachers
02:11assess you on that, don't they? And when your answer is all wrong, how many marks do
02:18they accord you? Let's say the question carries 10 marks. How many do you get? The answer
02:27is junk, pure trash. How many marks do you get? Zero. The teachers are evil. They hurt
02:39you so badly, don't they? Don't they? Please tell me. Don't they? Today the election results
02:53are out and yesterday we had another one being declared. Three states, three different political
03:01parties. The electorate is ruthless, heartless. See how it hurts. One constituency, there were
03:1434 candidates. 33 returned hurt or you could say retired hurt. Am I right? Am I right?
03:29Why are we not calling the entire electorate as heartless? Why are we not? Because they are
03:46doing what is right. And when you do what is right, it is okay. If someone gets hurt,
03:54it's not your problem. Your problem is when you do not know what is right. There are two
04:09parties fighting a court case. Are both of them going to win it? Please tell me. No.
04:24So the judge must be a pretty sad person. See how he keeps hurting people day in day out.
04:32First of all, he is judgmental. The judge ought to be judgmental. What else can he be? And secondly,
04:45he keeps declaring one party as wrong or bad and he even throws people into jail. Hell,
04:53he even sentences people to death. So what do we do? We condemn our judges. Do we? Why? See
05:09how vicious and violent the judge is. He just sentenced somebody to jail or to the gallows.
05:18You die. That's what the judge is saying. These must be pretty bad fellows. Why are they not bad
05:27people? Why are the judges or your teachers or the entire electorate, why are they not bad people?
05:32Please tell me. Because they are doing what is right. And if that hurts, that hurts only those
05:42who deserve to be hurt. And such hurt is not punishment. Such hurt is supposed to be a means
05:51of self-correction. Are your teachers spiteful, angry, vengeful that they give you zero marks
06:06when you do it wrongly? What do the teachers really want? That you improve. Now what happens
06:17if you get 10 out of 10 where you deserve zero? What happens? You deserve zero but you get 10
06:26because the teacher is trying to be soft and accommodative, loving. What happens if the
06:37teachers start doing that? Please tell me. I'm glad I never had such teachers. Mine were extra
06:46strict. They gave me 5 even where I deserved 8. So I had to do something extra to get even 6 or 7.
06:55I'm indebted to my teachers. What happens when you start getting 10 when you deserve zero?
07:06Please tell me. You know that's what we do to all our loved ones in our relationships. We stop
07:21showing the mirror to them. We start saying because these are people near to me, therefore
07:30I must shield them from hurt. The more you shield someone from the right results of his or her
07:40actions, the more you have actually harmed that person. One way, in fact, one of the best ways
07:54any person improves is by facing the consequences of her actions and her being. This is the way you
08:05are. Therefore you must face such consequences. But we don't allow that to happen. We interfere
08:16with the very law of action. The kid has done something extremely bad. The mother is still
08:27trying to side with the kid and defend the kid. The kid deserves to be censored, right? Punished.
08:35But what's the mother doing? What's the mother doing? Please tell me. There is a little bit of
08:43a scuffle, a brawl involving some of your friends. So on one side there are two of your friends and
08:52the other side there are two three strangers and you happen to reach that place. Which party do
09:00you side with? Quickly, please tell me. Your friends. Do you even bother to investigate which
09:08of these parties is on the right side? Do you? No. Your first instinct will be to support your
09:17friends and that's where we go badly wrong. Support rightness. Support rightness. Remember
09:32your central scripture, Srimad Bhagavad Gita. If even your brothers, teachers, relatives,
09:44loved ones are on the side of evil, you have to fight them. That's what Shri Krishna is
09:55constantly telling Arjun. Fight them and you're not fighting persons. You are fighting a flawed
10:05principle. It's not those persons that you are firing at or shooting at. You are fighting the
10:20flawed wicked principle that they stand for. But we don't do that. Parents defend kids and
10:32kids defend parents and in the process a lot of nonsense keeps cooking. You remember the father
10:49of our friend Duryodhana. What was he doing all the time? The entire kingdom, the entire country,
11:00even the animals everywhere knew that Duryodhana was acting wickedly. There was only one person
11:12in the kingdom who didn't see that. Who was that blind one? Dhritarashtra. And he was like,
11:23oh how can I hurt my son? He has some legitimate aspirations, some teeny weeny things he wants,
11:31a little bit like the crown, the throne, like the control of the entire country. Only this much he
11:45wants, some little toys. How do I break his little heart? The same thing happens from the kid's side.
11:57Now that we are referring to Mahabharata, that also reminds me of what is stated as one of the
12:09fundamental reasons that led to the grand war. There was this son who decided to defend a very
12:22ordinary kind of desire his father expressed. There is the king and the king has seen a fisher
12:36woman taking bath and he gets enthralled. He says I want to marry her. Now the fisher woman Satyavati
12:48is smart and her father is actually shrewd. So they say, you know, even if she gets married to
12:57you, how will she ever become the dominant, the powerful queen? Because from a previous marriage,
13:10you already have a son and the name of that son was Bhishma. He will become the king. So the father
13:23goes and tells the son, you know, and the son is already grown up and the father has been enamored
13:31by the young fisher woman. Son, I want to have that girl as your new mother. But she says that
13:42you will become the king. So, you know, can you help me out? So just like most of us here, he says,
13:53because my parents want something, they should not feel hurt. A grand oath he takes and what does
14:07he swear? Bhishma Patigya, we still use that word. What does he say? I will never accept the throne.
14:15I shall always be a guardian to the throne, but never an occupant. But the girl is still not
14:24satisfied. She says, you know, he might not become the king himself, but he is already so grown up,
14:30very soon he will marry. Maybe he will marry after his father does and then he will have sons and
14:38they will become claimants to the throne. So Bhishma again to defend the father says, I swear
14:49that I will not marry at all. So no question of any kids, therefore no question of any competition
14:58to Satyavati's would-be kids. And this kind of mollycoddling led to the war in which innumerous
15:18people died. That's when you try to defend your relationships too much. That's when you try to
15:32not hurt your kids, your parents, your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your husband, your
15:39wife. He wants that, how do I deny it? Come on, it's not a question of whether or not he wants it,
15:47it's a question of whether or not it is the right thing. Rightness must take precedence over
15:57relationship. Can you remember this please? What is right is more important than anything else in
16:05the world. Else you will have Mahabharata like wars again and again, over and over. Are you getting it?
16:19On one hand you should not be afraid of accepting when you are on the right side of things. Be humble,
16:31be truthful, be polite and be brave. If you know that you are misled, wrong, simply accept it.
16:49Equally if you know that others are insisting wrongly on something improper, never yield,
17:05never succumb. Yes, obviously truth does hurt. But when truth hurts someone, it is not your fault.
17:18Fold your hands, bow your head down and tell them, I know you are feeling hurt but that's neither my
17:32intention nor my action. Neither do I intend to hurt you nor have you been hurt by my action.
17:41What hurts you is your own inner falseness and I am not responsible for that. There are a few things
17:51that every person must only individually bear. Nobody else can take care of that. If a father
18:03is standing for something false, the father alone will have to bear the consequences and when the
18:13father is bearing the consequences, the daughter cannot be responsible. So the daughter has to
18:21simply say, you know, I know you are feeling offended but I didn't do that. It's your own
18:29doing. I can only request and pray that you improve yourself as much as and as soon as
18:42possible and if I can be of any assistance, any help in the process of your improvement,
18:48obviously I am available. A lot of evil in the world is only because we are just too afraid of
19:06hurting falseness and somehow this tendency is found more in the so-called good people.
19:18If you are a nice chap, you will be reluctant to hurt someone but if you are reluctant to hurt,
19:27then unintentionally you will find yourself siding with the evil. Which side did Bhishma
19:41fight on in the Mahabharata war? The wrong side. Imagine fighting against Krishna. Why?
19:52Because you are a nice chap. What is going on? I am a nice chap, so what do I have to do? I have
20:02to fight Krishna. What's going on? You want to land yourself in that kind of a mess where you
20:10have to find goodness itself because you are a nice person. How many of you have experienced this?
20:18Landing in a soup because you are a nice chap and then we say,
20:22oh you know good guys finish last. No, good guys don't finish last. Ignorant guys finish last. It
20:35is possible to be nice but ignorant of the truth and then niceness will not help. You must learn
20:46to say no and you must be brave enough to say yes. It's just that yes has to be said to the
20:59right thing and no too has to be said to the thing that deserves a no. Unambiguously you
21:08should be able to make the distinction. When you say yes, stand by it. Do not say yes too
21:18frequently but when you say yes, live by it and when you say no, don't feel ashamed of it. Some
21:31random thing has come to you and the fellow is begging you to say yes. Why must you feel
21:37pressurized? But because we are nice people, we just can't say no. You must roar out a no to all
21:50the nonsense unabashedly. Otherwise even your yes will not carry any weight. Yes carries any
22:03meaning only when you have said no ten times and that must be the ratio. Ten no's and then
22:16one yes. Then that one yes has sacredness. Then that one yes is something you can invest,
22:27devote, surrender your life to. Otherwise you keep saying yes to all the little things and
22:40that doesn't mean anything. Are you getting it? Or do you want to be like Bhishma? In your last
22:55days what do you find yourself doing? Defending Duryodhana and even then Duryodhana is constantly
23:07giving you an earful. Even in his last days, Bhishma did not get any respect from Duryodhana
23:16and it was Duryodhana he was fighting alongside. You say you worship sacredness. Do you want to be
23:35aligned against goodness, Gita? Just think, Krishna is narrating the Gita to Arjuna and all this while
23:58what does Bhishma find himself doing? Right in front of him and he is a very very respectable
24:07old man. He is a very good man and right in front of him there is Gita being delivered to Arjuna.
24:16And what is Bhishma doing? He is readying himself with his bow and arrows to fire at Krishna and
24:30Arjuna. Such a sad scene from the perspective of the old man. Is it not? Your entire life has been
24:40one of righteousness, discipline, dharma and in your last war you find yourself devoid of the
24:52Gita. Not only are you devoid of the Gita, you have to fire against the process of the Gita.
24:59Is that not sad? Is that not really heart-wrenching? Think of it. Do you want that to become your
25:11destiny? But that's what happens to most people who are just nice without being truthful. That's
25:21how most of us are. None of us are bad fellows. Are we? How many of us are really vicious here?
25:27How many? The filmy kind of wickedness, how many of us display that? I don't suppose. You look
25:41pretty decent chaps, all of you. But most of us will finish our lives devoid of the Gita. When I
25:54say Gita, I mean goodness. Why? Because we are nice people. Therefore we cannot say no to the
26:03Duryodhans around us and it's these who are around us that hurt us the most. Remember the war was not
26:15between strangers. The war was between family members. Often it is those who are related to
26:26you by chance or by blood. They are the ones you need to stand up against. That's the real battle.
26:42That's the problem Arjuna was facing. He was saying how do I fight against my own
26:47kith and kin? Krishna said nothing doing. Truth is truth. Dharma is dharma. If even your own brother
27:00is siding with evil, adharma, he needs to be not only fought but actually killed if needed.
27:18You will not become a bad girl if you oppose nonsense and nonsense is nonsense irrespective
27:28of where it comes from. If it comes from within your own mind, it is still nonsense. Learn to
27:35slap yourself hard. Why should we not? And don't we see how this thing here is a great breeder of
27:45nonsense? How many of you disagree with that? It's a nonsense churning factory. Is it not?
27:54When that happens, don't support yourself. Useless feelings, random thoughts, don't they
28:06just come and possess you from within? Please tell me. Does that happen or not? When that happens,
28:14don't be afraid of saying no. And now you are saying no to yourself. So learn to say no to
28:25yourself. And when you say no to yourself, you find it's not very difficult to say no to others
28:31irrespective of how deeply they are related to you. In fact, your first deep relationship is
28:40with yourself, right? So if you can say no to yourself, it will become easy and possible for
28:47you to say no to others as well. And saying no is not a crime. You do not become a bad girl if you
29:01say no. A bigger problem is to be a nice girl away from the truth. In fact, if it means that
29:19you will be called a bad girl, if you side with the truth, be ready to be called a bad girl. Yes,
29:28I'm a bad girl. If being truthful means being called bad, I'm prepared to be called bad. But
29:38nothing is higher than the reality. Nothing takes precedence over the truth. That's what I respect
29:46that's what is sacred. Does this make sense? Good. Thank you.