Full Video: When India disappoints a Western seeker || Acharya Prashant, on Upanishads (2022)
Link:
• When India disappoints a Western seek...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
♂️ 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:
Context:
~ Why does knowledge have to precede action?
~ When one can know life?
~ What did one come to India for?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Link:
• When India disappoints a Western seek...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
♂️ 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:
Context:
~ Why does knowledge have to precede action?
~ When one can know life?
~ What did one come to India for?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 Pranam. Now I have a question on yarn. As you said earlier that knowledge has to precede action.
00:12 Yeah.
00:13 And this knowledge, you mean that this knowledge is the knowledge of the factual state of oneself as the ego, unfulfilled ego?
00:28 The knowledge before action has to be of the actor itself.
00:34 Ah. But it's a constantly moving thing, right? It can't be...
00:40 Otherwise, otherwise you cannot have knowledge.
00:42 Ah.
00:43 This is very dynamic knowledge that you can attain only in the flux of life. It's like measuring the speed of water flow.
00:57 If you want to measure the speed of flow, you have to measure it during the flow, in the flow.
01:09 No? You cannot stop the water or freeze the water and then try to measure the speed.
01:19 Similarly, life is a constant movement. So life can be known only in the movement.
01:28 Hmm. I guess that has been confusing me a little because when I came back to Finland,
01:43 I was actually... At first it felt a little depressing because I had the notion that coming to India would like...
01:51 that something would happen, you know.
01:54 Something will?
01:55 Happen.
01:56 Ah.
01:57 Like my motivation or something would get a spike up. But then I realized that I had a notion that
02:07 that kind of a motivation could come from somewhere outside of me. It just took me back to the same fundamental that
02:14 nothing outside of me can inspire me to, like, really work.
02:20 This is going a little off track, but I still want to say this.
02:24 But now it's just funny because I'm in the same situation as when I was before coming to India.
02:32 But now it seems that I still have work to do in this situation. I guess it's been just fine because...
02:42 See, how can soil and roads and brick and mortar give you fresh insight? What do you mean by India?
02:55 India is just a notion. When you come to a notion, you will miss the ocean. No?
03:05 So what do you mean that you expected that when you will come to India, you will return with your inner gates flung open?
03:15 What exactly is India for you? What do you mean?
03:19 You probably came to me, right? And that nearness is not something just physical or geographical.
03:34 If anything was to be thrown open, that could have happened only if there was a willingness and a realization
03:51 that it is not the country that counts, but the consciousness.
03:58 So that's the thing that happens with a lot of people from the West.
04:04 They come to India thinking that the land itself will do something magical to them.
04:09 The land will do nothing. In many senses, the country you are in is a better place than India.
04:18 In many material senses at least. No? You know that very well.
04:23 Pollution, overpopulation, so many other things, you are already better placed there than in India.
04:32 What makes India special then at least for some people?
04:36 The right company, the right environment, the right process of self-inquiry.
04:43 Now you have to then ask yourself how much of self-inquiry did really happen?
04:49 How much vulnerability did you really espouse?
04:55 And it's a choice always to open up, to come close and say I want to speak out, I want to confess, I want to talk about myself.
05:02 Not about the experiences I am having in India.
05:05 What is the point in coming to India and waxing eloquent about a particular wedding ceremony one sees
05:17 or a particular thing one sees on the road or a particular thing one experiences in the apartment.
05:23 Is that what one comes to India for? No.
05:27 One comes to India to probe himself, to know himself.
05:31 Ask yourself how much of that did you really choose to happen?
05:37 It cannot happen on its own. It just cannot happen on its own.
05:41 There is a process and the process is Upanishadic. The process is of deep discussion and deliberation.
05:48 The process involves opening up.
05:51 The process involves coming to the teacher, talking nothing about this and that.
05:58 Talking only about oneself. Who am I? What my life challenges are?
06:02 What do I do the entire day? How my mind functions?
06:05 What my fears, my insecurities are? What do I want?
06:09 If you talk of this, then of course India can bless you with something very magical.
06:16 But India's blessings cannot be foisted upon someone.
06:24 One has to first of all be prepared for those blessings.
06:30 One has to first of all be deeply in love with and desperate for those blessings.
06:37 So the more you exhibit your desperation, the more madly you are in love with realization,
06:46 the more you will find India is working for you.
06:50 Otherwise India is just an overcrowded place.
06:54 Not very different from any other place in the world.
06:58 But I mean, I kind of thought about this on my own, but it did require coming there.
07:08 I had to see that.
07:13 As I said, there was just too much confusion on my side.
07:20 I sometimes felt that I didn't know what I was doing there.
07:24 It was your virgin attempt. Try again.
07:30 Try again. You'll have to make yourself land in another India.
07:38 India is not one thing. India is a million different things.
07:44 And they are hierarchical. There can be the greatest India you meet.
07:51 And there can be a very mediocre India you land at.
07:57 It depends on your choice. What do you want to take away from here?
08:07 Body identification. Julius, body identification.
08:11 When one is identified with the body, which is our fundamental nemesis,
08:16 then one is identified with everything that is physical.
08:21 The body is our basic physicality.
08:26 And when there is body identification, then there is identification with soil,
08:30 because the body is soil.
08:32 So one thinks that by landing in a particular geography,
08:35 something important will happen that is akin to thinking that the body is important.
08:40 If the body is important, then land is important.
08:44 If the body is who you are, then the land is the Guru.
08:48 And then you will miss the Guru.
08:53 By the way, I was seeing it happen all the time.
09:00 I know.
09:02 I was seeing it day by day how you were missing it.
09:06 I know. Me too.
09:09 I know. You are already all-knowing. You know so much.
09:14 Yes, yes, yes. Too much.
09:19 Yeah. But it had to go that way, I guess.
09:28 Obviously, obviously. You see, it's necessary.
09:32 It's necessary that one realizes the immensity of the possibility
09:39 and one realizes how easy it is to miss it.
09:43 How one can be very, very close and yet far from being intimate.
09:51 Yeah, I mean, I felt bad for, you know, I just felt like I was wasting your time there all the time.
09:58 It was kind of...
10:00 My time is wasted when I do not get to solve real problems.
10:09 If I am solving real problems, that's the best utilization of my time.
10:15 So could you come up with something real?
10:19 I would have loved it.
10:25 But if I'm not coming up with anything real, does that mean that my lifestyle is not...
10:31 What else is it that matters to you, Julius?
10:34 What else matters to anybody?
10:39 Climate change?
10:41 Huh?
10:43 What else is it that matters to anybody?
10:46 Why do we want to talk about anything else under the sun?
10:51 It's your life that's the fundamental unit of your challenge.
10:58 Everything arises from there.
11:00 Even the global problems come from our own misled minds, no?
11:09 So one has to talk of one's mind. That's all that is there to talk of.
11:17 Think now of all the days you spent here and think of what you spent them doing.
11:29 And then you'll be surprised big time.
11:36 How could I miss it so completely?
11:44 So near yet so far.
11:47 (Tad dure tadvantike)
11:52 You know the Upanishads put it this way. It's a beautiful quote.
11:57 (Tad dure tadvantike)
12:02 Near and far. That's near, that's very far.
12:08 Very very near yet very very far.
12:18 I have people who are with me since years and they are very very far.
12:25 One day when they'll be even physically far, that's when probably they'll wonder, much like you,
12:31 how did we miss it so completely? How did we waste all our years?
12:44 Yeah. But it was actually funny talking of the distance now because
12:51 when I got sick at the later part of the trip,
12:56 I got most out of the session I was watching from afar.
13:00 I don't know why but in the session hall it was really hard for me to...
13:04 Exactly, that's what.
13:09 Nearness is such a deception.
13:17 It makes you miss even that which you were receiving when afar.
13:26 There in Europe you are probably receiving more than what you did sitting right in front of me.
13:32 Yeah, definitely.
13:35 Because you thought that you were near.
13:41 That's what the senses make us feel.
13:46 I'm already near. If I'm already near, why do I need to be attentive?
13:51 If I'm already near, then I'm eligible to expect a miracle.
13:59 And the miracle is not happening. So I'm frustrated.
14:04 But you are not near at all except in the physical sense.
14:09 Right at this moment there is greater intimacy than there was over the period of that month.
14:20 Because you see it is not the body that matters, it is mental closeness and availability that matters.
14:29 That's why I asked you about what constitutes India for you.
14:34 The airport, the city, the roads, the apartment.
14:39 What do you mean by India? Did you come to have a taste of the soil?
14:45 Did you want to have an experience of the newly built airport?
14:50 That's why you landed here?
14:53 That's what we forget. Just as we don't remember why we took birth in the first place,
15:00 we also forget why we have come to a place at all.
15:05 You look at the people around. Do you think they realize why they stand born?
15:11 No, we don't know. We don't know the purpose of life.
15:15 We also do not know or we rather forget the purpose of our visit or journey.
15:21 And we just get lost. And then we wonder why such disappointment?
15:28 Why am I returning empty handed? Just as we die empty handed, we also take off empty handed.
15:35 [Music]