Message for the youngsters || Acharya Prashant, IIM-Konversations (2023)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?... ~~~~~  Video Information: 10.10.23, IIM-Konversations, Greater Noida   Context: ~ Which relation does matters the most? ~ How we are with ourselves? ~ How much time do we really give to ourselves? ~ When external help is useful?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 The young people, they are probably facing a lot of challenges that your generation might

00:08 not have seen because of the kind of things that they are going through.

00:13 Digitalization is at its peak right now, artificial intelligence is threatening their jobs, they

00:18 have relationship issues, their partners are not happy because they would have a certain

00:24 motorcycle, right.

00:27 All of that is a concern, a burden for the generation of today.

00:34 What would be your advice so that they sit back and think about the things that matters

00:40 in life?

00:41 You have to live with yourself.

00:45 You may have a great bike or a great wife or a great job.

00:50 You live here, not out there.

00:54 We all live here.

00:56 Have you not experienced how miserable you might feel even in the most lavish of palaces?

01:07 So outside you have riches sprawling and inwardly you are feeling extremely impoverished.

01:20 We live here and if there is a hollowness, a void and poverty inside, it does not matter

01:29 how rich you are out there.

01:32 And this is not just rhetoric, this is a fact.

01:38 We all have to live with ourselves.

01:41 Right now the two of us are in front of each other, but there are not two of us, there

01:46 are four of us.

01:47 I am with myself, you two are with yourself.

01:50 And that's the relationship that matters the most.

01:53 How you are with yourself.

01:56 How you are with yourself.

01:59 So mind it, that more than anything that you have on the outside, what matters the most

02:08 is how you live within.

02:11 And if that matters the most, then that has to be the priority.

02:17 Does this mean that you take more effort in understanding what your mental health is?

02:26 Obviously.

02:27 You have to give time to yourself.

02:31 Anything that is important deserves time, doesn't it?

02:34 So how much time do we really give to ourselves?

02:38 Be with yourself.

02:39 See what the ones who knew, the sages, the seers, the philosophers, the wise ones, what

02:46 they had to say about life.

02:49 And then with your own original observation, try to see how the world operates, how you

02:56 operate and how you relate to what's going on in the world.

03:02 And then with courage, chart out your own course, figure out your own path.

03:13 You have one life and it's a very, very personal life.

03:21 Nobody is going to go die with you.

03:24 You have to live with yourself.

03:26 And if you have to live with yourself, then you must in your solitude, figure out who

03:32 you are, what you must be, and therefore how you must act.

03:38 And isn't this why we take a lot of help from say motivational books, self-help books, learning

03:45 from the experiences of people?

03:47 Isn't this why we seek help?

03:55 The machine that we are has an engine of its own.

04:05 Nobody would appreciate a car that needs to be constantly pushed by five people.

04:13 External help is useful only as long as it reduces the need to take external help.

04:23 Like kick-starting a scooter.

04:26 So you do not want to be kicking it all the time.

04:35 After two or three attempts, the need for that external force has to disappear.

04:46 So when you listen to others, motivator, influencer, whosoever, you have to ask yourself, is this

04:53 fellow really able to ignite my own engine?

04:59 Or is he just, you know, for a moment, giving me an external push?

05:06 For sure there is an engine within.

05:09 And it's a great measure of freedom to be operating from your own inner engine.

05:14 I do not discount that there are times when you require an external help or push or support

05:20 or whatever.

05:21 That is okay.

05:22 That is human.

05:24 But if one becomes habituated to crutches, then it's a tragedy.

05:35 I'm just thinking if it is advisable to start off with crutches and then ask yourself, do

05:49 I need that crutch anymore or not?

05:51 The intent has to be right, you see.

05:54 The intent has to be right.

05:55 Anything is okay.

05:57 Starting with crutches is okay.

05:59 Starting with no crutches is okay.

06:03 Not having the right intention is not okay.

06:06 The intent, and that intent in a more poetic way would be called love.

06:15 There has to be a love for freedom, especially as a young person.

06:22 One should remain young all his life, you see.

06:24 But at least when you are in your 20s or 30s, you need to have a burning desire to live

06:36 as a sovereign entity.

06:39 And when that is there, then anything that comes your way would be rightfully utilized,

06:44 including crutches, including crutches.

06:47 But if that love is not there, then even if the car is running, you would apply the brakes

06:56 and turn the whole thing off.

06:59 So the right intent.

07:01 And there is no sure shot or proven formula for invoking that intent.

07:12 But the right company helps.

07:14 The right books help.

07:15 The right teaching helps.

07:17 The right environment helps.

07:19 Conversely, you move to a bad environment and you have lost it all.

07:25 You lose the company of the right books and you often lose it all.

07:33 So one has to be careful.

07:36 We just have the potential for great living.

07:41 But actualizing that potential is a different matter altogether.

07:47 And what are your thoughts on the corporatization of love?

07:50 The tinders of the world, the bumbles of the world?

07:54 Not worth talking about.

07:56 It sounds so so coarse, you know, corporatization of love grinds the ear.

08:03 So what do I say when I utter the word love?

08:10 But that's where the youth is going to seek support, help, love.

08:14 That's the ironical part probably in this amazingly connected digital world.

08:24 You have to seek love from these places.

08:30 Try it out if that's what's going on.

08:33 Go, get an experience.

08:37 But you must have the intent to really test it for what it really is.

08:47 Experience is one thing and realization is a totally different thing, is it not?

08:52 You can keep experiencing life for 70 years without ever realizing what life really is.

08:58 On the other hand, as someone with the right intent, even two hours of an experience can

09:11 suffice to enable you to see what really is going on.

09:18 So if that's what is going on, that corporatization that you talked of, fine.

09:24 See how it operates.

09:26 Go meet a man or a woman that way.

09:32 Experience and dispassionately then see what is happening.

09:38 Look into yourself, look into the other, look into the relationship and be honest about

09:44 it all.

09:45 Don't lie to yourself.

09:47 You know, why I brought this point up is because calm or pleasure is something that we often

09:57 are not taught, whether it's school education, whether it's higher education.

10:03 It's something that's always come, it's always that is something, sorry, it's something that

10:09 is always kept under the rugs and that's how we grow up as well.

10:14 And it's unfortunate because we come from the lands of Kama Sutras, right?

10:21 These very corporatization of love apps or businesses that have kind of, you know, been

10:31 there in the market or are doing great probably is pushing you towards it.

10:36 I don't think that in an IIT or an IIM, students are naive about sex.

10:47 In fact, there was just so much of porn available in the campus.

10:51 Who does not know what pleasure or calm or sex is?

10:55 There were entire folders.

10:56 No, but is it the right way of going about it?

11:00 Watching porn and understanding about sex?

11:02 It's not about the right way.

11:04 It's about where you are coming from.

11:07 When you are coming from a center of consumption, the female body or even the male body is just

11:15 another thing to be consumed.

11:18 You see, the center of ego, the normal prakritic center of ego is so hollow, so incomplete,

11:29 so insecure that it cannot help looking at everything in the world as something to be

11:36 consumed.

11:38 What is ego?

11:39 A hungry beast within.

11:41 A beast that is always and perpetually hungry irrespective of what you feed it.

11:48 So there is the woman.

11:49 What does the woman mean to me?

11:51 Food, flesh.

11:54 I'll eat her.

11:56 Literally.

11:57 There is money.

11:59 There is that car.

12:00 There is my friend.

12:02 There is that course.

12:04 Am I enrolling into a course out of love for learning?

12:07 No, not at all.

12:08 I want to consume.

12:10 So the reason why I get into a relationship with the girl is much the same as why I enroll

12:16 into that course or get into an IM.

12:18 I want to consume everything, including the female body.

12:21 Or if I am a woman, then a male body.

12:24 So from that center, obviously you look at the world in a way of appropriation and equally

12:36 you remain insecure because that is also the way everybody else is looking at you.

12:40 You want to feast upon the other one and the other one wants to prey upon you.

12:46 So you are both aggressive and insecure.

12:50 So that's going to happen.

12:53 Real love is a purely spiritual thing.

12:56 You cannot have real love without having paid the price to earn spiritual education.

13:09 You have to be spiritually literate.

13:11 Otherwise you will never know love.

13:14 You can live your entire life without knowing even a moment of love.

13:19 And you can equally have a very stable relationship.

13:21 You can say, you know, I've had a wife of 50 years standing and we have two kids and

13:29 we always have been loyal to each other.

13:32 And the people look at us as an ideal couple and all those things will be there.

13:39 Still the fact would remain that you are a very, very loveless couple.

13:44 You are loveless because love is not about two persons relating to each other.

13:48 Love is about the center you come from.

13:54 And when there is love, the love will never remain limited to one person or one family.

14:01 It is your very existence.

14:02 You radiate it.

14:04 You will be loving towards the dog on the street.

14:07 You will be loving towards unknown people.

14:11 You will be loving towards people who do not matter to you or even people who have harmed

14:17 you or wronged you.

14:20 So love is not something natural.

14:24 That's a gross fallacy.

14:25 We think that love is something that can come to you just as you grow a beard in a natural

14:35 way with age.

14:36 Men get a beard, women get a breast and then they fall in love with each other.

14:43 That's not how it happens.

14:44 That's not how it can ever happen.

14:47 And if one does not have a spiritual center, one can be at most lustful.

14:54 Nothing beyond that.

14:56 One can be politely lustful.

14:59 One can be a lusty gentleman.

15:01 All that is possible.

15:02 But one can never be loving.

15:05 Love is a different planet altogether.

15:13 You have to be there and you have to pay the price.

15:17 Devoid of a spiritual context, love is not at all possible.

15:21 Let me just very plainly put it.

15:22 I know it would be not just disappointing but actively offensive to many people.

15:27 That's the way it is.

15:31 Then what is discipline?

15:35 Discipline in the real sense means challenging your own patterns.

15:41 Challenging your own patterns.

15:42 Related to the word disciple.

15:44 Who is a disciple?

15:46 Someone who follows.

15:47 Who is to be followed?

15:49 Someone who is worthy of being followed.

15:52 The truth is to be followed.

15:54 Freedom is to be followed.

15:55 So if you are a disciple with discipline, then you challenge your own patterns which

16:01 are your bondages because freedom beckons.

16:04 So you say I am not going to tolerate my bondages.

16:06 I will do everything to challenge my own inner structures.

16:10 That's discipline.

16:12 Discipline is not about obedience.

16:14 Discipline is not about obeying commandments from outside.

16:18 Discipline is first of all realizing who you are, what is it that you have fallen in love

16:23 with, what really calls you and therefore what is it within that you must conquer.

16:29 That's discipline.

16:32 And if I had to talk about the discipline in youth or young people today, what do you

16:40 feel about it?

16:41 I have a general sense of argument about it which I don't want to put forth in this particular

16:48 platform.

16:49 I want to hear from you.

16:51 Do you think this particular generation or the generation coming have the right things

16:56 in place to be disciplined?

16:59 If you are not coming from the right center, I'll always go back to that.

17:03 It starts getting boring.

17:06 No point.

17:08 If you are not coming from the right center, you can either be obedient or disobedient.

17:13 But you can never be disciplined.

17:17 So you will have obedient youngsters and you will have disobedient youngsters.

17:23 But never disciplined ones.

17:24 To be disciplined is a very different thing.

17:29 Discipline and love go together.

17:30 And only love can induce discipline in you.

17:35 Obedience can come from fear.

17:38 Disobedience can come from a sense of reprisal or indifference or whatever.

17:47 Lack of fear, lack of incentive, lack of greed, all that can lead to disobedience.

17:53 But discipline, that's a beautiful word.

17:57 Thank you.

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