Knowing Vidya and Avidya together || Acharya Prashant, on Isha Upanishad (2019)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 24.07.2019, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India   Context:  ~ What is the significance of Vidya in our lives? ~ What is the role of Avidya in our everyday errands? ~ How do these two flow in our lives?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 The Isha Upanishad, verse 8.

00:11 He the self-existent One is everywhere, the pure One without a subtle body, without blemish,

00:18 without muscles.

00:22 Holy and without the taint of sin, the all-seeing, all-knowing, the all-encompassing One is He.

00:29 He has duly assigned their respective duties to the eternal Prajapatis, cosmic powers.

00:35 Acharya ji, can you please explain what is meant by the Atman duly assigning duties to

00:41 the Prajapatis?

00:42 What are these Prajapatis?

00:44 Do we need to worship them?

00:45 Thank you Acharya ji.

00:47 Prajapatis are just the forces of Prakriti, nothing else.

00:53 What is being implied here is Prakriti works as per the dictates of Atma.

01:10 So all the forces of physical nature that you see around you, the Upanishad is saying

01:18 they operate as per the law set by God.

01:27 He has assigned their respective duties to the air, water, sun, moon, earth, body, fire.

01:41 The Upanishad is saying He has told the sun to keep providing warmth and brightness.

01:52 He has told the earth to hold and support you.

01:55 He has told the soil to bring up food for you.

02:00 He has told the trees to bear nice fruits.

02:09 That is all that is being said.

02:17 Do we need to worship them?

02:22 Knowing them is enough.

02:24 If you know Prakriti, you cannot be violent towards her.

02:31 It's a strange thing, Devati, but you must understand it.

02:33 The more identified you are with Prakriti, the more violent you would be towards her.

02:43 The more identified you are with Prakriti, the more violent you would be towards her.

02:50 The body is Prakriti.

02:51 For example, if you are very, very body conscious, very body identified, then for the sake of

02:59 the body, you will not hesitate in bringing down a tree or cutting down an animal.

03:10 Now, because you are body identified, so you can wipe off an entire jungle.

03:18 Because you are body identified, so you can consume away an entire species.

03:27 The more you take yourself as Prakriti, the more you will consume and devastate her.

03:38 The only way to therefore help Prakriti is to stay clear of her.

03:46 Who is the one who will be able to help Prakriti?

03:50 The one who does not take himself as Prakriti.

03:59 Abhilash from Chennai, quoting from the Ishupanishad, verse 9 to 11.

04:06 "Those who worship Avidya go to pitch darkness, but to a greater darkness than this go those

04:15 who are devoted to Vidya.

04:20 Different indeed, they say, is the result attained by Vidya, and different indeed, they

04:25 say, is the result attained by Avidya.

04:28 Thus we have heard from the wise who had explained it to us.

04:33 He who knows both Vidya and Avidya together transcends mortality through Avidya and reaches

04:42 immortality through Vidya."

04:47 Pranam Acharya ji.

04:53 In these verses, sages are indicating that one should know both Vidya and Avidya together.

05:03 Worshipping one without the other will lead us to darkness.

05:08 While reading these verses, I am considering Avidya as worldly knowledge and Vidya as understanding

05:14 of real self.

05:16 I have a 6 years old kid who is going to school and spending most of his day in school.

05:23 The entire school environment focuses on worldly knowledge.

05:27 They teach social science, maths etc.

05:31 They also consciously or unconsciously teach kids to compare themselves with others, compete,

05:37 go after rewards, fear, punishments etc.

05:40 At home we encourage the kid to question everything, not to compare or compete with other kids,

05:46 not to be afraid to express himself.

05:49 But for a child who spends most of his day throughout his childhood in such a school

05:53 environment, I feel in the process of giving worldly knowledge to him, he will lose touch

05:59 with his true self and become materialistic.

06:02 Acharyaji, please help me understand what should be my approach towards such young kids

06:08 while exposing them to the worldly knowledge.

06:11 I can't introduce scriptures to him at such a young age.

06:15 How do we ensure Vidya and Avidya go together right from childhood?

06:19 With love and gratitude, Abhilash from Chennai.

06:23 First of all, Abhilash, Vidya is not the understanding of the real self.

06:29 Vidya is the understanding of the false self.

06:34 Real self is not available to be understood.

06:39 The real self transcends all understanding.

06:50 It is the solvent.

06:53 You disappear into it.

07:06 Now you are asking the school environment is focusing on Avidya and also conditioning

07:16 the kid to compete, compare, go for rewards, be afraid of punishment, etc.

07:32 So that's what the school is doing.

07:34 That surely is Avidya.

07:37 What is Vidya then?

07:39 Vidya is to take the kid inwards.

07:47 Ask the kid to describe what happens to him when he is threatened or what happens to him

07:53 when he is tempted.

07:56 Vidya is about knowing who you are and that does not mean knowing Brahm or Atma.

08:09 They are Agye, they are Aprame, they are beyond mental faculties.

08:22 And that is the reason why Vidya and Avidya must go together.

08:29 It's a basic necessity.

08:30 Avidya means understanding the world, Vidya means understanding yourself.

08:35 Even if you want to have deep Avidya, you will need Vidya because you cannot know the

08:42 world beyond a point without knowing yourself.

08:48 Spiritual seekers face that hurdle, even contemporary physics is facing that hurdle.

08:58 The last problem it appears in front of physics is the problem of consciousness.

09:06 Physics has come to a point where it cannot proceed any further without going into what

09:12 consciousness is.

09:16 So even to know the world, you have to know yourself.

09:20 Avidya and Vidya must go together.

09:27 The world will tempt and threaten and allure and you have to ask yourself what happens

09:37 to you when the world allures you or frightens you.

09:42 You don't have to teach scriptures to the kid, not needed.

09:47 You just ask the kid to describe himself.

09:51 Just ask the kid to know what is happening in his mind and that's easy, is it not?

09:59 So how did you feel when the teacher said, "Very good".

10:04 So how did you feel when the teacher said, "I'll throw you out of the class if you are

10:08 caught gossiping once again".

10:12 How did you feel?

10:14 What happened in the mind?

10:16 How did the body react?

10:18 Did it stay with you?

10:21 So yesterday the teacher had scolded you.

10:25 How did that impact your relationship with the teacher today?

10:30 These are the questions that you must ask the kid.

10:32 This is Vidya.

10:36 So which teacher do you like the most?

10:39 Why?

10:40 Who is your best friend?

10:44 Who is the one you avoid?

10:49 Why?

10:52 What do your choices tell about you?

10:54 It's an easy thing to ask and it becomes a great adventure.

11:02 The kid starts loving it.

11:07 You can actually train the kid to be a lover of Vidya.

11:13 Just as kids love to describe how the world is going about them, you can educate the kid

11:22 to love to describe what is happening inside him.

11:27 That is Vidya.

11:37 It's fun.

11:41 And Vidya doesn't have to wait for a right age.

11:45 If the kid is old enough to absorb a Vidya, he is old enough to begin exploring Vidya.

12:00 A Vidya and Vidya have to go together.

12:03 That is why the Upanishad said so beautifully, "He who knows Vidya and Vidya together transcends

12:11 mortality through a Vidya and reaches immortality through Vidya."

12:22 What does that mean?

12:23 Transcends mortality through a Vidya and reaches immortality through Vidya?

12:29 There are two deaths.

12:33 There is the physical death and then there is the death of the ego.

12:42 If you know the world, it will help you avoid physical death.

12:47 If you do not know the world, you will quite likely and literally die young.

12:57 The average age expectancy, the life expectancy used to be no more than 25 or 35 till a century

13:14 back.

13:15 Why?

13:16 Because man did not quite clearly know the world.

13:24 We did not know how the pathogens operate.

13:29 We did not have depth in our medicine.

13:35 So the mortality rates were high.

13:39 To overcome physical mortality, you must know the world.

13:45 You must know how Prakriti operates, how the physical elements operate, what the bacteria

13:55 are, which chemicals would act upon a certain virus.

14:05 These are the things you must know.

14:11 And to transcend inner death, you must have Vidya.

14:16 What is inner death?

14:23 Inner death is when the ego does not get what it is really looking for.

14:38 You have heard some wise man say that, there are so many, I think it was Voltaire, that

14:46 most people die at the age of 25 but keep walking till 75.

15:00 The inner death has already happened.

15:04 You need Vidya to avoid the inner death.

15:09 You need Vidya to avoid the outer death.

15:13 You need both to avoid death altogether.

15:20 If you won't have Vidya, what you will have is a healthy and strong body but no life within.

15:30 No joy within, no love, no beauty, no compassion, no love.

15:37 Outwardly you will be quite stout.

15:41 All the physical indicators of health would be alright.

15:45 Blood pressure alright, liver alright, kidney alright, heart alright, everything alright.

15:52 Still you would be lifeless.

15:57 To have real life, Vidya is needed so that you can be internally lively.

16:08 This postmodern world is in the danger of being greatly healthy from the outside but

16:16 being totally dead inside because it has a lot of avidya but very little Vidya.

16:31 It is a strange thing.

16:33 We think a lot of avidya can help us without realizing that these two always go together.

16:45 And if they are not going together, then we will have walking corpses.

16:49 No?

16:56 Thank you.

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