Existence owes you nothing, whatever you have is a bonus || Acharya Prashant, on Lao Tzu (2019)

Acharya Prashant

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00:00Kanika Choudhury, Mumbai, quoting from the Aute Ching of Lao Tzu, Chapter 79.

00:24When a great resentment has resulted, even if one tries to reconcile and make peace,

00:37there is bound to leave some remaining resentment.

00:46Thus, how can this be considered as a good settlement?

00:59Therefore, a saint cultivates himself with introspection and self-discipline without blaming others for faults.

01:09This is like the ancient custom which acts by holding on to the left part of the tally as a debtor that demands nothing from others.

01:29Hence, a person of virtue acts as if he were the debtor.

01:39And a person without virtue acts as if he were the creditor that demands only from others.

01:59The cow of nature is impersonal, which makes no exception to anyone. It always assists those who are kind and virtuous.

02:16Question is, Acharyaji, in the above verses, great resentments once resulted are bound to leave some resentment in spite of the reconciliation.

02:30This is what happens in my personal life. There is always a residue.

02:38Further, it's said that a person with virtue acts as if he were the debtor.

02:51How can I develop myself to be a person of virtue and act as if I were the debtor?

03:07Kanika, this is the way of gratefulness.

03:26Whenever you are resentful or revengeful

03:49or full of complaints, it is actually the source of existence you are bitter against.

04:12It is just that you can never really directly, personally approach or confront the source of existence.

04:32So, you went out your resentment on the various objects in existence.

04:47You are not really angry on those miscellaneous little objects.

05:08Those little poor ones are just paying the price for being approachable and proximate.

05:32So, witness to this.

05:53The day has not really been smooth for you.

06:03All kinds of troubles and irritations have been besetting you.

06:21And in the evening, you return to your house and lash out on your mother or your sister or your friend

06:42or whosoever is available to be hit.

07:01That does not mean that the one who got hit was the culprit.

07:11In fact, he becomes the culprit because he got hit.

07:18Please appreciate this.

07:21His only fault or at least his major fault is that he is available to be hit.

07:39The rest of the universe, it is too distant, too big, too powerful, too indifferent and also too spiteful to be hit.

08:08The fellows in the home, they are soft targets.

08:19They can be hit.

08:22Remember that your grudge is against much of what existence served you throughout the day.

08:33But you cannot lash out at everyone.

08:36Can you?

08:39You don't easily slap your boss.

08:48The taxi driver is stinking like hell.

08:53But you don't ask him to stop the cab and neither do you debold.

09:02You just tolerate it.

09:10There is traffic on the road and the road is ill-maintained.

09:18And it hurts your back when the equally ill-maintained vehicle with its bland tires meets the holes and bumps on the road.

09:46But you can't go and fight the municipality or the government or the larger institutions.

10:13So you come back and you find that your maid has still not finished washing the utensils.

10:27And you decide that your maid is the center of all evil in the world.

10:32And she has had it now.

10:46And once you have started your acrid conversation, your heated exchange with the maid, soon it

11:00starts appearing that your spoiled mood was anyway always due to the maid's misdoings.

11:22You actually start feeling that the maid with her misdeeds has ruined your day.

11:30That's not the way it really is.

11:36There are dozens of hundreds of people you are actually annoyed with.

11:47You can't name each of them, let alone vent yourself out on each of them.

11:55You don't even know that you are angry on at least 500 people every day.

12:04But they are just too far, too unapproachable.

12:10So it doesn't pay to enlist their names.

12:15So it doesn't pay to search for them and settle scores with them.

12:46When we are sore, the soreness is with much that we call as life.

13:13We love to unnecessarily, rather conveniently, simplify the issue and declare one or two

13:39or five persons or objects or events or situations as the cause of our turbulence, our annoyance.

13:52Those five are not the cause.

13:56Those five are actually the victims that bear the brunt of your annoyance against the entire existence.

14:07They suffer doubly.

14:22If you ever find a person annoyed with one thing,

14:27you must know that the fellow is actually annoyed with life in general.

14:39It's just that the one thing he chooses to put his finger on is a soft target.

14:57And it is too much to complain against the universe in general.

15:03One looks like a fool.

15:06You have gone to the police station and lodging an FIR against the universe.

15:15So what do you do?

15:18You pick an element in the universe to hold your grudge against.

15:27That is convenient and lawful.

15:35That one, he is responsible for my shattered state.

15:44That one.

15:50Now you are relieved of declaring that you are actually fighting a mighty battle,

16:04that you are actually up to something.

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