Don't React, Respond. || Acharya Prashant

Acharya Prashant

Full Video: How to be less reactive and more responsive? || Acharya Prashant, at Cummins College, Nagpur (2022) Link:      • How to be less reactive and more resp...    ➖➖➖➖➖➖  ‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...  ⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates? Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work? Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...   Want to work with Acharya Prashant? Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...  ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 21.11.2022, Cummins College, Nagpur  Context: ~ How to control my emotions? ~ How to be less reactive? ~ How to not feel easily hurt? ~  Why are women easily fooled? ~ How to be a better human being?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Reaction is something like reflex action.

00:08 So where do these reflexes come from?

00:16 Does a little baby have reflexes?

00:21 Yes or no?

00:22 Yes.

00:23 So, where do these reflexes come from?

00:27 They come from Mother Nature.

00:29 They come from the mother's womb.

00:32 You don't have to be taught reflexes.

00:35 They exist right in your body.

00:41 You bring a finger towards a little baby, just let's say a month old, you bring a little

00:47 finger gently towards his eyes and what will he do?

00:58 Nobody taught the baby to do this.

01:01 Instinctively the baby knows that some foreign object is coming towards the eye, so the eyelids

01:08 have to be shut.

01:12 Right?

01:16 Similarly heat or cold or wetness, the baby knows how to deal with it.

01:25 At least the baby knows that these are not nice things, so I need to cry.

01:32 The temperature is 35, not pleasant, so the baby will cry.

01:37 Or the temperature is 15, again not pleasant.

01:42 Or the little bed is wet, again it will cry.

01:47 How does it know all these things?

01:48 How does the baby know how, for example, to take feed from the mother's body?

01:54 The baby knows, you don't have to educate it.

01:57 These are reflexes.

01:59 What do these reflexes exist for?

02:06 All these things that we just talked of, do they turn the baby into a better human being?

02:13 Do they?

02:16 Do they?

02:17 No.

02:18 Still they serve a purpose.

02:19 What's the purpose?

02:22 The purpose is physical security.

02:28 Physical security.

02:31 Now the hand that is coming towards the baby might be of a well-meaning relative and yet

02:39 the baby might resist it and cry out or turn her face away because all that is needed for

02:51 physical security.

02:55 All that is needed for physical security.

03:00 And nature through its very very long process of evolution instilled these reflexes within

03:08 us.

03:09 They now sit in our DNA.

03:14 And once upon a time they had an important function to perform.

03:18 The function was physical security.

03:24 Now what has happened is that over the last three four thousand years mankind has progressed

03:34 remarkably and very speedily.

03:39 But evolution is a very very slow process.

03:43 In the dimension of evolution four thousand years mean nothing at all.

03:49 So our body and the conditioning embedded in the body has remained just the same as

03:56 it was ten lakh years ago.

03:59 Now compared to ten lakh years how much is four thousand years?

04:03 Nothing.

04:04 But all that which you call as your knowledge, your development, your civilization has come

04:09 in the last four thousand maximum six thousand years not more than that.

04:15 But the instincts that you carry in your body they are millions of years old.

04:20 Because they are so old so they will take time to change.

04:24 Not that they cannot change but they will take time.

04:27 So internally we are still as we said that caveman, that old caveman with his cave-like

04:33 instincts.

04:34 Our instincts belong to the jungle because all our life we have lived just in the jungle

04:41 right?

04:42 How old are we?

04:43 We are millions of years old and where were we living all this while?

04:48 Where were we living all this while?

04:51 In the jungle.

04:52 Only recently, very very recently have we moved out of the jungle into the village or

04:57 the city.

05:00 So our body still belongs to the jungle and that's where our reflexes come from.

05:08 You could say our reflexes are very jungly.

05:12 That's what is reaction.

05:15 A wild thing.

05:17 An uneducated thing.

05:20 A very animalistic thing.

05:23 But something very powerful because you don't even need to think about it.

05:27 It sits in your body.

05:30 Let's say your arm touches something hot.

05:34 Do you have to think whether or not to jerk away?

05:38 No.

05:39 You immediately flinch, don't you?

05:43 Why is that needed?

05:45 Because mother nature said that if you think, thinking will take time and in that time your

05:51 skin, your arm will be damaged.

05:55 So let me give you something that bypasses thought.

05:59 That's what reaction does.

06:00 It gives you no time to think.

06:04 It just happens.

06:07 It's like switching on an electric bulb.

06:11 Instantaneous reaction, right?

06:12 It's like pouring water over sodium.

06:15 Instantaneous reaction.

06:16 No time to think.

06:18 Just happens.

06:19 Something very chemical, very biological.

06:21 That's what reactiveness is.

06:23 There is no thought, no consciousness involved in this.

06:27 Mind this word, consciousness.

06:30 Reflex action does not involve consciousness.

06:34 Reflex action does not involve thought.

06:37 Reactiveness does not involve consciousness.

06:40 It only involves your wild, wild cave-like instincts.

06:45 Are you getting?

06:48 Now those instincts we said are useful because they help the animal survive.

06:52 We were an animal, right?

06:54 Living in the jungle, we were just like animals.

06:57 And those instincts have surely been beneficial because they have helped us survive over all

07:01 these millions of years.

07:03 So definitely they have, at least they had a good use.

07:09 Are you getting it?

07:12 You must ask yourself, do you still need to live by the code of the animal, by the rules

07:20 and the constitution of the animal or as evolved human beings?

07:26 You need to live more by thought and even more by understanding.

07:36 Someone comes and says something unpleasant to you.

07:39 Do you need to just immediately unthinkingly explode as most of us do?

07:46 Or can you tell yourself, I'm not an animal.

07:49 I can wait.

07:50 I can be patient.

07:51 Let me at least think over it.

07:54 And if I think deeply, the thought will sublimate into understanding.

08:00 Even if I can't go to that depth of thought, let me at least try to think.

08:05 Let me at least postpone the reaction because the reaction belongs to the jungle, to the

08:11 animal, to the caveman.

08:13 Am I jungly?

08:19 In the jungle, we didn't have hair cut to begin with and there was no social media.

08:27 We weren't brushing our tooth either.

08:33 No one was wearing specs.

08:35 No one wore clothes in the first place.

08:38 When you have dropped all that, think of all that happens in the jungle.

08:45 Woman is just pouncing upon someone else and tearing the body apart and eating the flesh.

08:53 When you have dropped all that, why can't you drop your reactiveness?

09:02 And particularly women, you see, because the biological role of women has a lot to do with

09:10 the body, right?

09:12 The woman carries the baby for nine months and then also raises the baby for several

09:18 years.

09:19 Therefore, prakriti, mother nature, made her even more reactive.

09:26 Now that was all okay in the cave times.

09:30 That is not okay today.

09:33 Do you want to live as a body coming from the jungle or do you want to live as a free

09:38 consciousness?

09:39 Answer this please.

09:41 And if you want to live as a free consciousness, then stop being emotionally reactive.

09:46 That's the worst thing girls can do to themselves, living from their emotional center.

09:52 But you know, the force of emotion is so strong that when it rises, it feels like just the

09:58 right thing.

10:01 That's the problem.

10:02 You can resist something if at first of all it appears bad.

10:07 If something appears bad, then you will even begin to resist it.

10:12 But when emotion arises, it does not even appear bad.

10:16 It appears just the right thing to happen.

10:19 And you feel like supporting it.

10:21 And the more you support it, the more you will remain enslaved.

10:27 The animal, you know, what do you call animal in Hindi?

10:32 In Sanskrit?

10:34 Pashu.

10:37 That which is in Pash.

10:39 Pash means slavery.

10:43 That which is in Pash is Pashu.

10:45 If you live by the code of the animal, you will live the life of a slave.

10:50 The more reactive and the more emotional you are, the more easily you will be enslaved.

10:57 Because emotion is like a button and everybody knows where your buttons are.

11:04 Everybody can come and press that button and get the desired output from you.

11:07 Suppose I want to make you angry and I know that if I utter a particular word to you,

11:11 you get angry.

11:12 Now it is so easy for me to control you, is it not?

11:17 If I want to upset you, I just have to utter that word.

11:21 You have become a machine and I know the trigger.

11:24 Equally, let's say I want to make you happy.

11:26 I want to please you.

11:29 And that is something very frequently used, especially with women.

11:31 I want to please you.

11:32 I know what pleases you.

11:33 I can come and say, "Oh, you're looking gorgeous."

11:39 The button has been and immediately you will be prepared to do me a favor.

11:46 It's not so simplistic, but you get the drift, right?

11:51 If I know what pleases you, I can enslave you.

11:58 If I know what displeases you, I can again enslave you.

12:02 And that is the great danger in being emotionally reactive.

12:08 You are predictable.

12:09 And if you are predictable, you are controllable.

12:14 You get this.

12:17 Don't you see how even little kids try to fool their mothers?

12:20 "Mama, the food is great today."

12:23 "Mama, can I have 500 rupees?"

12:27 Now the father had refused even 100 rupees.

12:31 But this rascal manages to squeeze 500 from the mother.

12:34 "Mama, the food is great."

12:37 And the mama says, "Okay, you take 500."

12:47 Those who have known what womanhood means have had tremendous respect for women.

12:57 The topmost Hindi author Premchand, he used to say that when men evolve beyond a point,

13:08 it's then that they acquire some feminine qualities.

13:12 Otherwise men remain inferior to women.

13:17 And therefore it is an even bigger tragedy that such a fine creature, the woman, such

13:26 a fine specimen of evolution has lived life of continuous deprivation and slavery just

13:37 because she has been too emotional and too reactive.

13:49 Ready to shed tears at the drop of a hat.

13:52 Why must you weep so often?

13:54 Not that tears are a problem.

13:56 I too weep quite frequently and there's nothing problematic in that.

14:04 But there has to be some discretion.

14:08 You must know where those tears are coming from.

14:15 No?

14:19 Remember if there is an animal sitting in the woman, there is a bigger animal sitting

14:26 in the man.

14:31 And that animal is bloodthirsty and bigger.

14:37 And he'll eat you up.

14:41 He'll tear you apart.

14:42 And that's what he has been doing since centuries.

14:47 If you remain an animal, the male, remember, is a bigger and more powerful animal.

14:54 The only way you can beat the male animal is by not remaining an animal, become a human

15:02 being.

15:03 And a human being is not characterized by her reactiveness or emotionality.

15:08 The mark of a human being is consciousness, understanding, depth, freedom of thought.

15:21 Animals are supposed to react.

15:23 Human beings are supposed to understand and then respond.

15:26 That's the difference between reaction and response.

15:30 Response involves understanding.

15:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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