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Video Information:
Interview Session, 12.01.20, Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India.
Context:
~ Do we really understand affection?
~ Are love and affection one and the same thing?
~ Is the Public Display of Affection (PDA) , harmful to society and culture?
~ Is PDA a healthy sign of maturity?
~ What about people who try to censor PDA through moral policing?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates?
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Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
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Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work?
Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...
Want to work with Acharya Prashant?
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➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information:
Interview Session, 12.01.20, Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India.
Context:
~ Do we really understand affection?
~ Are love and affection one and the same thing?
~ Is the Public Display of Affection (PDA) , harmful to society and culture?
~ Is PDA a healthy sign of maturity?
~ What about people who try to censor PDA through moral policing?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 Namaskar Acharya ji.
00:11 I have a question which relates to the youth of today to us.
00:19 So we are now comfortable with public display of affection.
00:26 It is in a sense, you know, our expression of freedom for the other.
00:31 We are in a relationship, so we have nothing to hide.
00:35 But there is a certain resistance against it.
00:39 So people, it's being looked down upon.
00:41 However, I feel that it is something that we have evolved towards.
00:45 It's more freedom.
00:47 So why is there still resistance towards it?
00:51 So public display of affection, right?
00:58 Let's come to the central word first of all, affection.
01:15 Is this that is being displayed or most of the times prevented from being displayed?
01:32 Actually affection, if it is really pure affection which is love, then its display in public
01:53 can have no harmful effect upon the public.
01:57 Those who attack public display of affection, PDA, they say that by doing these things in
02:05 public you are setting a harmful, corrupting example towards those who are watching these
02:19 things.
02:20 That's their argument.
02:26 Now the fact is that if the relationship is really based on solid fundamentals, if the
02:37 relationship really has some depth, genuine sincerity, then that relationship will only
02:48 set a beautiful and life-giving example in front of all and everyone who comes across
02:58 it or watches its display.
03:02 So it's not really public display of love that is harmful.
03:09 It cannot be harmful.
03:10 Love cannot be harmful to anybody.
03:13 If love is really pure, that's the catch.
03:17 So the question is not really the public display part of it.
03:24 When we say PDA, PD is not so much of a problem that A is what needs to be questioned.
03:33 You see affection and love are different things.
03:37 If you go into books of wisdom, if you hear the words of those who have understood life
03:43 and the world, they will tell you that affections are a problem.
03:49 Love is the solution and affection is a problem.
03:53 Affection is almost an affliction, a disease.
03:57 Are you getting it?
04:00 So what is it that you are demonstrating in front of the public?
04:04 If you are demonstrating pure love, then pure love knows its own way.
04:09 It's like a pure stream.
04:12 It knows how to flow, where to flow and which ocean to reach.
04:19 So if the individuals concerned are really in a relationship of pure love, then obviously
04:33 first of all they have all the freedom to do as they please.
04:37 Secondly, even if the society wants to stop them, it cannot because pure love cannot be
04:41 stopped.
04:47 So public display is a secondary issue.
04:52 First of all, we must discuss the quality of relationship among these individuals who
04:59 choose to often demonstrate loudly in public.
05:04 And when I say demonstration, that brings me to another issue.
05:11 There are lot of couples who are so reticent, almost ashamed about their relationship that
05:22 they never even hold hands in public.
05:27 The PDA stuff that you are talking of is more of a metropolitan phenomena.
05:33 If you go to the general towns, normal cities and small towns and villages, it is still
05:44 a norm that even married couples do not even hold hands in public.
05:54 Now that is equally problematic.
05:57 There again you have to question the nature of relationship.
06:01 If your relationship is of pure love, why have you made the society so important that
06:09 your mutual conduct towards each other is being dictated by the presence or absence
06:18 of others around you?
06:21 I am not advocating that all married couples should hug in public or kiss in public or
06:27 do all those things.
06:29 What I am talking of is the quality of relationship.
06:33 What is the quality of relationship between a husband and wife if the husband looks around
06:38 ten times before even hugging her?
06:43 What kind of love is this that is so scared?
06:47 Please get me straight.
06:48 I am neither advocating this side nor that side.
06:52 I am trying to come to a more moot issue.
06:58 We often say as you said that your generation wants to be more expressive, more open and
07:11 then there is the vast majority of those who say that by themselves they do not want to
07:17 come out in open and be public about it.
07:25 To both these sides this question needs to be asked.
07:28 What is it that makes you relate to the other?
07:32 What is it that makes you relate to the other?
07:36 If it is merely a relationship of convenience or bodily attraction, then obviously the message
07:44 that you are sending to everybody who is watching you is not very beneficial.
07:57 At the same time if you are sure of who you are and therefore why you are relating to
08:05 the other, then no power in the world can stop you.
08:14 Your effect upon everybody will only be beneficial and that is the thing about love.
08:26 It benefits everyone but that is not the thing about affection.
08:32 When you say that you are in relationship with one particular person, you are attached
08:39 to that person, that person has become special to you, then it is only the interest of that
08:46 one particular person that becomes supreme to you.
08:50 You tend to neglect the interests of others.
08:56 In love that does not happen.
09:00 Love has a beautiful mystical quality about it in which the entire world benefits in direct
09:10 or indirect ways from a loving person.
09:16 So if two real lovers are walking down a street, believe me all residents would be benefited.
09:29 Do not ask me how, it just happens.
09:31 I said love has a mystical quality about it.
09:34 It just happens.
09:42 How would one differentiate?
09:45 Suppose I am somebody who is closed minded in the sense towards any sense of affection
09:52 being shown towards the other, how would I differentiate, how would I know?
09:57 That's your responsibility, that's your responsibility not towards the onlookers but towards yourself.
10:06 How do you afford to not to know?
10:10 If you are alive and if you are in relationships, how do you afford to not to know who you are
10:19 and why you are relating to the other?
10:23 That obviously does not mean that somebody else gets the license to intercept you and
10:30 regulate you and dominate you and tell you how to do your personal stuff.
10:38 That obviously is out of the question.
10:44 But then you do have a great individual responsibility to ask yourself, I am hugging and kissing
10:52 this person in public, who exactly is he?
10:56 What does he mean to me?
10:58 And you should be doing this irrespective of whether somebody is objecting to your relationship
11:03 or not.
11:07 You might be living in Europe or Australia or America where nobody objects to PDA.
11:14 But still it is your own obligation towards yourself to ask yourself, who is this person
11:21 I have allowed to enter my life?
11:27 How has he become the center of my universe?
11:31 How has he become so important to me that all the time I am found sticking to him?
11:36 Who is he?
11:38 That's the important question and if you are right, the other one is right and the reasons
11:47 in the relationship are right, then whether you display it publicly or not, it doesn't
11:55 matter.
11:56 Whether you display it publicly, whether you don't display it publicly, it would be good
12:01 for you and it would be good for everybody else.
12:08 But for those who are objecting, do they have any way of…
12:13 They have no authority, they have no authority, no authority.
12:18 Nobody has any authority, especially those who themselves do not know who they are.
12:26 Those who object are mostly objecting for so-called cultural reasons.
12:31 These are pseudo-cultural reasons.
12:32 They do not even know culture.
12:34 Ask them to define culture, they would be clueless.
12:39 So they are out of the question.
12:45 You see, when you say public display of affection, it includes both the sides.
12:51 Display means a positive display as well as a hindered display.
13:00 So they too are PDA candidates.
13:05 You are displaying your affection by hugging in public and they are demonstrating their
13:13 brand of affection by not even touching each other in public.
13:18 That too is a particular type of display.
13:22 Do you get it?
13:23 Yes.
13:24 You are not displaying merely when you are hugging or kissing.
13:27 You are also displaying when you refuse to even touch each other.
13:32 That too is a particular quality of display.
13:35 So all kinds of displays apart come to the central point.
13:41 Who are you and why are you being seen walking with the other?
13:47 What is the other bringing to your life?
13:48 What are you bringing to the other's life?
13:51 Are you in a relationship that would really enhance each other or would the relationship
14:01 actually degrade the two of you?
14:05 Remember, if the relationship is such that it enhances the two of you, then it would
14:12 also enhance the rest of the world.
14:19 This is a little bit of a tangent, but sometimes it is used in a revolting manner.
14:27 You would display in public so that those who do not do it can also see that such things
14:36 happen.
14:37 So, is that an alright way to…
14:40 It's a very adolescent way of revolting.
14:45 It has some value, but very minimal.
14:50 Acharyaji, this message, is it also going out to those who are the so-called torchbearers,
14:58 cultural, moral guardians who know how to tell love from affection or is this only going
15:04 out to the lovers on the streets?
15:06 Obviously, this message is for everyone.
15:09 Every individual has first and foremost the obligation to ask himself, why is he doing
15:17 what he is doing?
15:19 You see, let's say, there is a couple and they are indulging in very obvious and very
15:33 loud acts of PDA and then there are two people who are approaching these two in an aggressive
15:46 manner with the intention of censoring them, stopping them, asking them to move away.
15:56 Both the sides need to ask each other, what are we doing?
16:01 These two need to ask each other, what is it that has so possessed us that we must do
16:08 what we are doing right now and those two who are branding themselves as guardians of
16:17 culture or morality have an equal responsibility to ask themselves, what authority do we have
16:26 to tell somebody to do or not do what he is doing?
16:32 Both must be stopped in their internal tracks.
16:38 Both are carrying a certain blind internal momentum and both of them feel that they are
16:48 justified in their own way.
16:50 There is a 99% chance that neither side is really conscious of what it is doing and why
16:59 it is doing.
17:06 A last question on this topic Acharyaji, would you say that it is the misappropriation, misrecognition
17:15 of the spiritual idea of love by the so called moral guardians that has motivated them to
17:25 intervene between personal and…
17:27 Yes, obviously.
17:28 And would you not go to the extent of also acknowledging that this non-bodily conception
17:35 of love is also playing a big role?
17:38 I will come to both of these one by one.
17:43 You see, spirituality has been substituted and once it is substituted, it does not matter
17:50 what is it that takes its place.
17:54 In the case of the couples belonging to the more so called advanced cities of the country,
18:07 spirituality has been substituted by a brand of shallow liberalism.
18:17 In the case of those who act as the moral police and cultural guardians, spirituality
18:27 has been substituted by culturalism.
18:30 Now, be it liberalism or culturalism of whatever kind, these are very poor substitutes to real
18:44 understanding.
18:45 When I say spirituality, I do not mean any kind of mumbo-jumbo and all the nonsensical
18:53 superstitious stuff.
18:54 I am not talking of that.
18:55 I am just talking of understanding, knowing, realization.
19:02 So this side without knowing thinks that it is just alright to do whatever one wants to
19:10 do, what I want to do is supreme.
19:15 This side has turned the ego as its master.
19:22 That's what liberalism is commonly understood or misunderstood as.
19:32 I have all the right to do as I please.
19:35 So I have all the right to do whatever I am doing without being introspective, without
19:40 being meditative, without having the patience and the courage to go within myself, explore
19:48 things, question my intentions and discover the truth and that side, that side thinks
19:55 that it is already on the right side of religion, spirituality, morality, everything.
20:05 That side has arrogated to itself all the righteousness.
20:11 I am definitely the one in the right and who are you?
20:18 I can thrash you, I can smash you, I can throw you out of the park.
20:21 Don't sit here.
20:23 I know who I am.
20:26 It becomes very difficult to decide which of these two sides is deeper in ignorance.
20:35 Though if I have to pick the one who is more deeply ignorant, I would probably have to
20:43 point towards that side.
20:45 This side would at least be ready to listen.
20:52 Listening is one of the qualities here because they are prepared to discuss and debate.
20:58 That other side is not even prepared to discuss and debate.
21:02 They think they already know.
21:04 They feel that their acts have been sanctioned by some supreme heavenly authority.
21:10 They feel they have some kind of supernatural religious sanction to their acts.
21:15 So obviously both of these are ignorant and both these sides need education, real inner
21:23 education.
21:24 Glad Acharyaji that you touched upon it towards the end because I was about to ask if given
21:32 a choice what would you choose?
21:35 I mean a slap on the street or a kiss on the street because the both sides are enacting
21:40 these.
21:41 Neither.
21:42 It's not about slapping somebody on the street.
21:48 Neither is it about just going around blindly kissing people on the street.
21:52 Not people, not the one you love, not the one that you are with.
21:57 Why are you with the one you are with?
22:00 I am coming back to that question.
22:03 So both these sides need education.
22:08 It's just that one side is probably going to be a little more prepared to be educated.
22:14 The other side will say we are already educated.
22:19 That's the situation.
22:21 [Music]