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Video Information: 20.06.2022, Greater Noida, U.P.
Context:
~ What is a real Yog?
~ What is Definition of Yog?
~ How to understand mind?
~ Why should one encorporate Yoga in one's daily living?
~ Is Yoga related to the body only?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
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?
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➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: 20.06.2022, Greater Noida, U.P.
Context:
~ What is a real Yog?
~ What is Definition of Yog?
~ How to understand mind?
~ Why should one encorporate Yoga in one's daily living?
~ Is Yoga related to the body only?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00It's my pleasure and privilege to welcome Acharya Prashant in this BW Dialogue on the
00:00:07Yoga Day, 21st June 2020. Acharya Prashant ji doesn't really need an introduction. He's
00:00:13a spiritual leader, he's a seeker, he's a guru and he's now an author of multiple books
00:00:21which are being read by millions of people to seek the right path. Acharya Prashant,
00:00:27we celebrate the Yoga Day every year, we go back to our lives. Sometimes we don't incorporate
00:00:32yoga in our daily living. Why should one incorporate yoga in one's daily living?
00:00:41Because one is not okay as one is. Had we been perfectly alright, there was no need
00:00:47to change anything, bring in something new or exclude something. And it is not really
00:00:55the body that is not alright. Given the advancements in technology, medical science and the prosperity
00:01:04we have today, our bodies are probably better placed and we are healthier than we were ever
00:01:19at any point in history. You look at the average age of the human being today, in some countries
00:01:29in Europe it is going closer to 90 years now, even in countries like India, it's shifting
00:01:38towards the 80 years mark. We have eradicated so many diseases, we are quite in control
00:01:47of much that is physical. The problem is the mind. Therefore when we talk of yoga today,
00:01:56it must be yoga of the mind. That which we think of and talk of as yoga, popularly, are
00:02:06just physical exercises. Much of that does not deserve to be called even the first step
00:02:13of yoga. Yoga has to do with the mind because that is where our problems are, that's where
00:02:21our sufferings are. Is that not true? Are we problemed, are we troubled because our
00:02:28knees are aching and we have a stiff back? Is that really a problem? If that is a problem,
00:02:35then medical science has answers for that. Our real problems, I am not denying that people
00:02:40do have sore knees, but our real problems lie somewhere else. Nobody commits suicide
00:02:47because the knee is bad. Nobody would say that his life has been destroyed by his stiff
00:02:55back. But we all, if we are to really account for the thing that is severely degrading our
00:03:08quality of life, it would be our mental condition. So real yoga has to do with how the mind is
00:03:18placed. Unfortunately, too little emphasis, in fact, negligible emphasis is being put
00:03:27on that. So probably the yoga day is a good opportunity to shift the focus on the right
00:03:37thing.
00:03:38Absolutely. A lot of us have stress, which may not show up in physical symptoms. And
00:03:49you know, young people are dying. Today morning I lost a 46 year old young friend. He was
00:03:57absolutely physically healthy. He had a heart attack. We lost singer KK. We don't even know
00:04:04what's happening to our bodies because of what's happening to our mind. Clearly, yoga
00:04:10is needed. So there are lots of myths around yoga. Can you tell us what these myths are?
00:04:16And while you talk about them, also bust them. Because as you rightly said, we think of yoga
00:04:25as a bodily thing, but it's not. It's about bringing the mind into an equilibrium. And
00:04:31again, we spend much lesser time in nature. You know, so give us a sense of why is yoga
00:04:38even more important? And how can busy executives incorporate yoga in their daily life?
00:04:47You see, the fundamental myth is that yoga has got a lot to do with the body. In fact,
00:05:03that myth is the biggest obstacle in the way of real yoga. You look at the way yoga
00:05:20has assumed an imagination in the popular culture, the entire iconography around it.
00:05:32And immediately what comes to mind is a fit person in a particular asana or mudra. Now
00:05:42that's good to look at, but that's not yoga. That's just not yoga. As someone who loves
00:05:51the Bhagavad Gita and has been teaching the beautiful scriptures since long, you look
00:05:58at Gita chapters 2, 4, 6, 10, Shri Krishna has very unequivocally explained what yoga is.
00:06:12When the mind is adhering steadfastly to what is right, that is the state of yoga. You have
00:06:30to know who you are and you have to act accordingly. You have to be one in unison
00:06:37with that which really matters and that union is called yoga. Yoga is not about, as they say,
00:06:50you know, the coming together of body, heart, mind, soul and a few other things as well. And
00:06:57there is just so much meaningless poetry around it that sounds flowery but amounts to nothing.
00:07:05Yoga is simply about the mind remaining constantly riveted to, hinged to what is right and this
00:07:20union that does not allow the mind to go astray is yoga. It's just that since a lot of our troubles
00:07:31are psychosomatic, when the mind is right, the body is bound to be right, when you know what
00:07:42is worthy to be done in life, then you will know that the body is important because you will not
00:07:52want the body to take away much of your time and attention and you'll want to preserve your body
00:07:58and keep it right and healthy as a great vehicle that can take you towards your destination. The
00:08:07body will then become a resource for the mind and the body will consequently be kept alright. So,
00:08:16the health of the body is something that is a by-product of yoga. It is secondary,
00:08:26it is not the central thing. The central thing is that you should live rightly. Now, you said,
00:08:32how do we incorporate yoga in our daily living? Now, that's not at all the point of yoga. Yoga
00:08:40is not something that you can just somehow fit into your usual daily pattern of life. Yoga has
00:08:54to be the center of your life. Yoga is not something that you bring in from outside and
00:09:00somehow give a place. What is yoga? I repeat, yoga is one's determination to live rightly. Yoga is
00:09:12not something that you use to keep the body fit so that you can continue with your absurd ways.
00:09:21You know, I might be living a very mistaken, a very deluded kind of life and still I might want
00:09:34to have a fit body because a fit body allows pleasures of all kinds and keeps away pains of
00:09:40many kinds and also given that most of us are terribly body identified, there is an added
00:09:48incentive to be physically fit. Now, that's gross misuse of yoga. I'm into a job or business that's
00:10:01soul-sapping absolutely or I'm into some business that involves very meaningless kind of display of
00:10:16body, let's say. But because I want to be alright, because I want to do well in my profession,
00:10:25therefore I use or rather misuse or misappropriate yoga to serve my purposes. I'll give you an
00:10:34example. Long back I had read that there was this bunch of extremists and when they were to
00:10:47launch an attack on one of the destinations, one of the targets they had set, they were actually
00:10:57trained in breath control and some techniques of so-called physical yoga so that they could more
00:11:10effectively, more efficiently achieve their targets. Now, is that what we want to use yoga for? We say
00:11:22we have our own targets in life and let yoga be utilized so that we can reach our targets in a
00:11:30more efficient way. Now, that's not at all the purpose of yoga. Yoga has to the center of your
00:11:37life and what do I mean by that? Yoga has to set the target. Yoga cannot be at the service of your
00:11:45self-appointed target. Otherwise, it's a strange situation. The ego appoints the target and uses
00:11:53yoga to reach the target. That's like, you know, using the greatest kind of weapon for the lowest
00:12:03kind of purpose, the greatest kind of resource, the greatest kind of knowledge for the lowest
00:12:10kind of purpose. Yoga could have been something that potentially redeemed us. Instead, it has
00:12:23become something that is grossly misused. I said once, you might find it interesting, that if yoga
00:12:34is about physical fitness, then Arjun was probably one of the fittest persons on the battlefield
00:12:44already. It is, in fact, possible that physically Arjun was better off than even Krishna because he
00:12:58was the mightiest warrior and the archer of the times. So, why did then Krishna have to teach
00:13:07him 18 kinds of yoga? Obviously, it was not for the sake of Arjun's physical health. Physical
00:13:16health was already alright. Now, we all are Arjun in the sense that physically we are more or less
00:13:24already alright. We should again revisit the physical health data that we have. We are living
00:13:33longer lives and in fact we are taller now. The average weight of the world has increased. Deaths
00:13:40due to malnutrition are lower today than other points in history. So, physically we are doing
00:13:49almost okay. In fact, the physical problems that we have today, a lot of them are attributable to
00:13:57our mental bankruptcy. The problems that we face, for example, due to pollution and all the lifestyle
00:14:04diseases, they are not really physical problems. They are coming because of the mind. So, we are
00:14:11like Arjun in the sense that there is not much purely physical trouble. There is not much purely
00:14:17physical trouble. Yet, there is a lot of trouble and that trouble is coming from the mind and that's
00:14:22why yoga is needed just as Arjun needed the 18 chapters, 18 kinds of yoga that Krishna taught
00:14:32him. So, this myth has to be busted. This misconception has to be totally negated. Otherwise,
00:14:44on the yoga day, you will again have leaders and politicians and everybody who wants to have
00:14:53his share of the limelight coming in front of the camera and displaying a few physical poses and
00:15:02passing that off as yoga. That is not at all yoga. That's a stretching exercise or that could be
00:15:13strength exercise without using external weights. You go to the gym, you use iron weights or you
00:15:25could do the same exercises using body weight. Now, stretching and strength building, this is
00:15:33not at all yoga. I am not denying the importance of this. Everybody should have a flexible body.
00:15:39Stretching is great. We all must have powerful muscles. So, having a well-tuned and strong body
00:15:48is again great. But please, that is not yoga. That is not yoga. Let's not corrupt the very
00:15:56concept itself. And if you will go closely into the psychological aspects of it, the ego has a
00:16:06vested interest in limiting yoga, in actually caging yoga within the concept of physicality.
00:16:17Because if yoga is not arrested within the bodily walls of physicality, then yoga will attack the
00:16:30ego itself and the ego does not want that. So, the ego has played a clever dirty trick. It has
00:16:38said yoga is wonderful, yoga is great and yoga is physical. Now, the moment you liberate yoga
00:16:46from these artificial and unwise physical constraints, yoga becomes such a powerful
00:16:54force of life transformation. Then you have to read, then you have to understand,
00:16:59then you have to go into what Patanjali and Shri Krishna actually meant. Now, that is something
00:17:09we do not want to go into. But we are very happy with having a slim body because it helps in doing
00:17:17whatever we want to do and that's the evil in it. Whatever we want to do. Why do you want to do
00:17:24whatever? Why don't you do that which is right? And yoga is about that itself, doing what is right,
00:17:30not doing whatever. You have ample gurus who will come over and say, oh, you know, you do this and
00:17:38then you can do whatever you want to do. Now, the moment you hear this kind of phraseology,
00:17:45that yoga will help you do better whatever you want to do, I suppose one must run away
00:17:51because that's exactly antithetical to yoga. Yoga is not about doing whatever you want to do.
00:18:00It's ego that says that. Not the dedicated, devoted, wise mind. No, that does not come from there.
00:18:12It's amazing the ways of the inner mischief maker. We can take the greatest gift given to us and turn
00:18:32it into something that we want to use almost as an intoxicant. Like youngsters who take cough
00:18:46syrups to get inebriated. There is no medicine that cannot be used as a narcotic drug and that's
00:18:58what we are doing to yoga as well. It's a medicine. Yes, please. You know, you are saying
00:19:05that we have to do the right thing for the right reason in the right manner, absolutely right
00:19:11intent and again you are talking of doing the right karma in every aspect, having the right
00:19:17thoughts, having the right action, having balance in pursuit of even economic benefit in worldly
00:19:25goals, using the right means to achieve the right ends. So means are equally important.
00:19:33If you're right, we are so identified by our name, our body, where we come from. We don't identify as
00:19:42souls. We don't identify as souls in a body. So I understand that. Let me ask you another
00:19:54question. Today on the World Yoga Day, is there a mantra you already said, do the right thing for
00:20:02the right reason? You already said, don't abuse your body, don't abuse your mind and mind
00:20:08comes from right practice, from doing the right things, balance in life, doing whatever your
00:20:16karma is, whatever you do, there is a right thing to do in that, doing that.
00:20:23And when your mind, they say when your mind and your actions are in sync, what you
00:20:30say, what you do, what you believe, if all three are in sync, then you have a healthy mind, so to
00:20:36say. You have a healthy living, you have a harmonious living, whatever word you want. You are living to
00:20:42your higher purpose. I mean, what is this fixation with perfection today? I am a Hindu, I only
00:20:51believe the perfect person is Lord Shiva. Only Lord Shiva is perfection incarnated.
00:21:01So how do we live our life? While it is a conversation on yoga,
00:21:09you brought in a larger connotation, doing yoga in what context, doing yoga for what purpose?
00:21:16No, hence give us some thumb rules for living your life. You see, that exactly is the point.
00:21:23If you take Shiva as perfection, then there has to be a certain love for perfection
00:21:33and life has to be a relentless, unending pursuit of that perfection.
00:21:40That which might be unattainable, and the scriptures clearly say so, that it is something
00:21:48that you will never really get to hold or come to touch or
00:21:57really meet in the normal sense of the word. But still, if you just remain devoted to it
00:22:11and pursue it, life will become worth living. Not the attainment, even the pursuit, even the
00:22:22pursuit is sufficient and that pursuit is something that would anyway happen
00:22:30if your respect for that which you are calling as perfection or Shiva is genuine.
00:22:37What kind of person am I if I venerate Krishna and have nothing to do with what he is teaching?
00:22:47So, and that is not really a policy or an option or a smart trick to play to oneself.
00:22:57You see, the mind is fed up of its follies. The mind is a constant thirst.
00:23:10The mind is always stuck, always challenged, always bemused,
00:23:22seeks more, is not satisfied with what it has and does not even know what it really seeks.
00:23:29So, going towards that which you are calling as perfection, somebody could call it contentment,
00:23:35somebody could call it Shiva or Krishna, is anyway the only option that you have,
00:23:41because without that pursuit you will anyway never feel any kind of repose or contentment or
00:23:52rest. One would constantly be agitated, one would constantly be dissatisfied with life
00:23:59and that's not how we want to spend our life. This is not just theory or ideology,
00:24:07this is the fact of who we are. We are born discontented and because there is just so much
00:24:17agitation within and darkness within, therefore there is no option but to spend life in pursuit
00:24:26of light, that same light that you could call as perfection or Atma or Brahma or Truth or Shiva or
00:24:33Krishna or Ram. The name is your choice, but that's an inevitability with anybody who has some sense
00:24:45and self-love. Why do you want to destroy your ears? That's the question we must ask.
00:24:52I mean, one is already not all right and one is acting in ways that would only further the
00:24:59inner sense of injury and disquiet. Why does one want to do that? There can be no sensible,
00:25:07plausible reason. So, spirituality therefore is not something that one gets into. Spirituality
00:25:16has to be the only way of life if one is not adamant on self-destruction.
00:25:24Absolutely. I think on this day, on the World Yoga Day on 21st June 2020, we thank Acharya Prashant
00:25:32for making us think through what we are doing, examining our beliefs and taking the right path.
00:25:38As he rightly said, spirituality is a way of living. It has to be reflected in the choices we
00:25:44make, the means we take. He rightly said, sometimes the mind doesn't know what it seeks
00:25:50and just being in the moment, being mindful is possibly one way to then get to that path.
00:25:59So, we are grateful to you Acharya Prashant for doing this conversation, which is a benefit to
00:26:06our viewers and readers on the World Yoga Day. Again, look at yoga in a holistic way,
00:26:15in a deep way and not just in a superficially, in an exercise or a stretching
00:26:23activity. So, thank you so much. We are grateful to you and we look forward to doing more conversations
00:26:29soon. Thank you. That was Acharya Prashant talking to us about the deeper meaning of yoga
00:26:36and how our actions and thoughts have to be aligned to live the life of purpose.
00:26:41Thank you so much. We will be back soon with another powerful conversation which ignites
00:26:48the right thought process and hopefully right action. Thank you to you Acharya Prashant and
00:26:54thank you to all of you for watching us. Thank you. So, while we are in the middle of the series,
00:27:05on Chandogya Upanishad, just prior to this session, I was speaking to someone on the
00:27:19topic of Yoga Devas, coming day after tomorrow. So, I thought it would be a good idea to
00:27:39discuss with you all today on the same theme.
00:27:44What is Yoga? So, we are taking today the Bhagavad Gita instead of Chandogya Upanishad
00:27:56and specifically the verses devoted to the meaning and significance of Yoga.
00:28:14I had done a similar series around five years back in Rishikesh,
00:28:21particularly in Rishikesh because it is called the Yoga Capital and
00:28:31that was with seekers from abroad who thronged to
00:28:40Rishikesh for the benefits of Yoga.
00:28:50Some of these verses I had taken up then as well, but it's been long and it would be great to
00:29:00revisit a few of these today.
00:29:07Right.
00:29:21Chapter 2, verse 49.
00:29:24O Dhananjay, indeed action is quite inferior to the Yoga of wisdom. Take resort to wisdom.
00:29:34Those who thirst for rewards are pitiable. Arjun, action is inferior to the Yoga of wisdom.
00:29:44So, turn to wisdom and those who thirst for rewards are pitiable.
00:29:52Now, what is this action that Shri Krishna is referring to here?
00:29:58You see, the classical debate is between following a prescripted course of action
00:30:17with the intention to achieve some benefits or rewards from it versus acting out of one's understanding.
00:30:30That's the debate we remain surrounded within and throughout our life and that's also the debate
00:30:44within the Vedic literature itself, how to live.
00:30:50There is a school of thought that says,
00:30:53and that's also the debate within the domain of spirituality.
00:31:02That's also the debate within the Vedic literature itself, how to live.
00:31:11There is a school of thought that says, you know, there are tried and tested methods.
00:31:19You do this and you will get that reward.
00:31:23And it's for the sake of rewards that one lives.
00:31:27And what are rewards? Other names for happiness, pleasures.
00:31:33And because Prakriti is repetitive in nature, therefore, certain rules and equations
00:31:43can be culled out from the flow of life.
00:31:55For example, you could very well prescribe it as a rule to your kids
00:32:05that if you study well and then you get a decent job and then you get married,
00:32:11then you'll have happiness.
00:32:13So there is the flow of life.
00:32:17And if you are even half attentive, you'll be able to figure out that these kinds of pattern-based equations exist there.
00:32:29So there is this school of thought that says that since we know that there are certain actions that bring about certain happiness,
00:32:39why not simply follow those actions?
00:32:47Why not do the things that anyway benefited several before us?
00:32:57Our fathers and forefathers, they were beneficiaries of certain patterns of actions.
00:33:05Do certain things, get certain results.
00:33:07Avoid certain things, avoid certain kinds of inconveniences.
00:33:15And that's well known.
00:33:17So that's one school of thought that believes in prescriptions and commandments
00:33:30and manuals for life, operating manuals for life.
00:33:39How to go about this tricky business called life.
00:33:42There is that school of thought.
00:33:44You could call this as very similar to the Puru Mimansa philosophy.
00:34:04I know that if I put in this kind of input, that kind of output is achieved, so I'll do this.
00:34:09Sometimes the input-output correspondence is not even very fully or logically established.
00:34:18But still you want to do it.
00:34:21For example, if I offer devotion to deities, then they will bless me with prosperity.
00:34:32Now here the input-output equation is not even logical or authenticated.
00:34:39But still you want to do it because you have been told that this kind of equation does exist.
00:34:45Two days a week if you go and offer fruits and coconuts and service to the deity,
00:34:51then you are blessed with certain things.
00:34:53Do you see the input-output equation?
00:34:55Do this, get that.
00:34:58Now this equation in this case exists just in imagination.
00:35:05Still one wants to live by this equation and hope to harvest the rewards.
00:35:16Why? Because there are several before me who lived this kind of life.
00:35:22Live a righteous life and you will get Punya and then Swarg.
00:35:28Live rightly, live morally, live as has been taught and told to you and you will get Swarg.
00:35:39So that equation is there. Do you see the input-output equation?
00:35:43This is one way of living.
00:35:46Unfortunately this way of living predominates the mind and the society. Why?
00:35:52Because in this way of living one does not have to exercise his consciousness.
00:35:59We are inherently and majorly very lazy people. That's called Tamsa.
00:36:11We don't want to exercise our brains.
00:36:16We don't want to think.
00:36:19We want somebody else to do the thinking business for us.
00:36:23You think and then you tell me what to do and I will do it.
00:36:29That's one school of thought, that's one way of life.
00:36:33Bhagavad Gita is a rebellion against that way of living.
00:36:39In fact Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna very unambiguously states at many points
00:36:49that if you are doing only those things that are mentioned in the Vedas
00:36:59as bringers and harbingers of good results and rewards
00:37:15then you will never understand what I am telling you Parth.
00:37:19If your mind is fully occupied with and has been corrupted by the Vedic notions
00:37:31of do this and do that then my knowledge is not for you Parth.
00:37:37Similarly here, I was looking at it, it was so beautiful.
00:37:54All that the Vedas talk of is within the three qualities of Prakriti.
00:38:07Trigunya is the three properties, which means Prakriti.
00:38:09So all that the Vedas are talking of, this is 4.45.
00:38:14All that the Vedas are talking of is within the fold of Prakriti.
00:38:18Arjun you have to go beyond.
00:38:24Go beyond the three qualities which means don't be limited to the Vedas.
00:38:30And the Vedas have been named here specifically and Krishna names the Vedas again and again
00:38:35and tells Arjun to go beyond the Karmakant portion of Vedas.
00:38:41And this aspect is rarely highlighted that Krishna is speaking so much against Vedic ritualism in the Bhagavad Gita.
00:38:50No one wants to talk of that.
00:38:53The Bhagavad Gita is extremely incompatible with early Vedic ritualism.
00:39:00Let that be very very clear.
00:39:02And that's not an inference that I am drawing.
00:39:06That's the very spirit of the Gita enunciated in so many words.
00:39:14I am not reading between the lines.
00:39:19I am not foisting my own interpretation on the Gita.
00:39:24I am not even interpreting. I am talking of direct translation.
00:39:36Are you getting it?
00:39:41Krishna is saying your action has to come not from prescription but from wisdom.
00:39:48That's the difference. That's the rebellion. That's the other school.
00:39:56What's the first school we talked of?
00:39:58That says there are tried and trusted formula.
00:40:04And why do you want to reinvent the wheel?
00:40:08When prescriptions, established formula exist.
00:40:14Why do you want to use your thought and consciousness and discretion?
00:40:18There is no need. Just follow the tradition and the ritual and you will be home.
00:40:31That's the beauty of the Vedas you see.
00:40:35They begin with ritualism but they flower into something far beyond ritualism.
00:40:45And it's a testimony to the all inclusive nature of the Vedic corpus
00:40:55that that which contradicts a huge part of the Vedas is a part of the Vedas.
00:41:04You see 80% of the Vedic verses are devoted to just this.
00:41:13How to please that God, how to offer sacrifices, how to chant mantras.
00:41:19This kind of stuff. 80% by count, by volume.
00:41:27And then comes the remaining 5-10%.
00:41:3010-15% are Aranyaks which you could call as something middling.
00:41:37Then comes the nectar, the cream which is the Upanishads.
00:41:47And Gita too is an Upanishad.
00:41:49Gita is classically placed alongside the Upanishads called the Gita Upanishad.
00:41:57And then these come right at the end.
00:42:02Sometimes they are not even within the formal body of the Veda.
00:42:08Many a times they are. Sometimes they are not.
00:42:11And they bring then the discourse to another level.
00:42:20They open up another dimension of wisdom far removed from ritualism.
00:42:27There is no monolithic pattern of thought here.
00:42:36There is the great confidence and audacity to go against oneself in the pursuit of truth.
00:42:46Yes we said something. But now we have come to another thing that is much higher.
00:42:53And without any inhibition we will include this new and higher thing we have come to.
00:43:00We will not say that 80% of the journey we have been following one ideology or one school of thought.
00:43:11So now when we are coming to the fag end how can we take a U-turn or how can we climb to another height.
00:43:22No that's not what the Vedas do. The Vedas say yes we said something for a lot of our length, our thickness.
00:43:37But now we have come to something more beautiful.
00:43:43And we are not ashamed. We are delighted.
00:43:50We will keep this new thing and we will call it as Vedanta.
00:43:57We will say this is the summum bonum, the absolute height.
00:44:06And we want to tell you from where it came. It couldn't have come had we not started from where we did.
00:44:13Therefore we are not going to hide that either. We are going to keep both.
00:44:18It's a great display of our honesty and commitment to truth. We are not going to hide anything.
00:44:23Yes there was a time when we used to worship fire.
00:44:26And now we have come to a point where we say what fire, what air, what food, what water.
00:44:34These are just sensory appearances. I want to go into the senses.
00:44:40And when I go into the senses I want to say no, no, no, far from the truth, far from the truth.
00:44:46There was a time when fire was the biggest reality for me.
00:44:52And now I look at fire and I say far from the truth, far from the truth.
00:44:57I have put fire to fire. Gone, finished, reduced to ashes.
00:45:07I get it.
00:45:12So why did then the Rishis keep both, the Purvimansa and the Uttarmimansa?
00:45:22If they knew that the valuable part was contained only towards the end
00:45:33and was quite succinct, they could have kept only that much. Why?
00:45:39It's like a great research paper where we are taking you through the entire journey of the research process.
00:45:47Why do we hide that? There is no need.
00:45:51Because anybody who will begin on this kind of inner research expedition
00:45:57will invariably begin from a deluded state and will have to pass through a lot of dark places.
00:46:08Before you reach that height, you will have to negotiate so many valleys and curves and crevices and what not.
00:46:17I want to tell you the entirety of it. I want to tell you how I reached the Upanishads.
00:46:25Otherwise you will think the Upanishads just dropped from the heavens.
00:46:29Otherwise you will start saying that the Upanishads are a result of divine blessing.
00:46:34Otherwise you will start saying, oh these are revealed books.
00:46:41They do not come from one's hard work and commitment to truth.
00:46:52They are a result of blessings of some almighty God sitting somewhere in the heavens.
00:47:03The Rishis didn't want that to happen. So they said no we are showing you the entire process
00:47:10through which we came to the Upanishads ultimately.
00:47:14Obviously we are gifting you the Upanishads but we are also gifting you the entire recipe.
00:47:22We are not just serving you the delectable thing on a platter.
00:47:29We are also training you in the recipe.
00:47:34We are also telling you how someone with such modest beginnings
00:47:41could come to something as extraordinary as the Upanishads.
00:47:48Now that will be helpful because you too are modest.
00:47:52So I am telling you that from a fire worshipper how you can come to Brahma itself.
00:48:00You too are fire worshipper. What does it mean to worship fire?
00:48:03It means to worship the material. Aren't you all worshippers of the material itself?
00:48:09Somebody is worshipping money, somebody is worshipping food, somebody is worshipping something else.
00:48:16To worship the elements of nature is to worship the material.
00:48:20And the Vedic literature starts off from nature worship and that is materialism.
00:48:27When you worship nature is that not materialism of a very ordinary kind?
00:48:32We all are materialists. If we worship rain, the God of rain, the God of fire, the God of tempests
00:48:41and that's us materialism.
00:48:46So from that one comes to the Upanishads.
00:48:50The Vedas are telling us the entire story without hiding anything.
00:48:54From their humble beginnings they come to the greatest place possible.
00:49:00Now don't try to distort history.
00:49:05There are people who do that, don't they?
00:49:09When they become something they want to glamorize their past.
00:49:12The Vedas do not permit that.
00:49:15So they have very nicely documented the past.
00:49:19Past in the sense of the process that resulted into the Upanishads.
00:49:25So they have not left you with the scope to do any mischief.
00:49:35Otherwise if at age 70 you become something, let's say the president
00:49:43then you want to declare that even at 40 you were great, even at 20 you were divine
00:49:49and at 15 you had become enlightened.
00:49:52That's a favorite passion with anybody who becomes something.
00:50:02They mould the past in the form of the present so as to secure their future.
00:50:13Is that what you do?
00:50:16You have reached a certain point in the present.
00:50:19So what do you do?
00:50:21In the light of the present you suitably modify your past which is just a story.
00:50:27It's an imagination you are cooking up with an eye on the future
00:50:33so that this kind of distortion, this kind of manipulation
00:50:36can help you achieve something more pleasurable in the future.
00:50:43That's a very common story. Is that not what we do?
00:50:46There used to be these official bards, in Hindi we call them Bhand.
00:50:54What was their purpose? Kings used to keep them.
00:51:02When somebody would ascend to the throne, after that it was the duty of the bard
00:51:09to compose great poetry in service of the king.
00:51:19Great poetry.
00:51:23And some of that poetry later on becomes history.
00:51:28And you start thinking this is the way that king actually was.
00:51:31No, that is poetry officially commissioned.
00:51:39You have been appointed to construct my past
00:51:42so that the future may know me as somebody else.
00:51:48The Vedas are way beyond this kind of insecure nonsense.
00:51:55The Vedas say we will tell you how we thought.
00:52:00That's the beauty of the sages and that's what makes a Rishi different from a king, a Raja.
00:52:08A Rishi and a Raja are two very separate levels.
00:52:12The Raja is ashamed of himself.
00:52:16The Rishi is beyond all shame. He will very clearly tell you
00:52:21I come from very humble beginnings. I am just like you.
00:52:25Just as you are deluded today, once I too was.
00:52:30And I am recording it. I am putting it down officially.
00:52:36So that nobody can later on ascribe divinity to my process.
00:52:42My process is a very human process. And if my process is not human
00:52:46then of what use am I to you?
00:52:49Then you can at most worship me but you will never be able to travel the path I did.
00:52:56You have to know that you and I are one.
00:53:02That your weaknesses are my weaknesses.
00:53:06That your body is my body.
00:53:09That I face the same kind of insecurities, troubles, dilemmas, temptations, fears that you do.
00:53:18And now I want to tell you how I made my way out of all.
00:53:27Not just out of all these. In the middle of all these.
00:53:31With all these remaining as they do to any common mortal.
00:53:36I still made my way through them to the distance that I came right to the Upanishads.
00:53:50And if I can make my way through the darkness of inner ignorance
00:53:57Son, you too can. That's the entire message of the Vedas.
00:54:04You too can. See where I am starting from.
00:54:09And with all due respect to the Vedas, a lot of the verses are very very ordinary.
00:54:22And the greatness of the Vedas lies in the fact that the Rishis included them.
00:54:30We do not want to hide anything.
00:54:34If we passed through this in our spiritual journey, we will document this.
00:54:44We will be very dishonest if we tell you just the Upanishads.
00:54:50It will be both dishonesty and disservice.
00:54:53Because if we tell you just the Upanishads, the Upanishads will not remain very useful to you.
00:54:58They will not serve you. So we are telling you the tale of the entire journey.
00:55:05See we passed through a lot of superstitions also.
00:55:10We even passed through belief in witchcraft. Believe me.
00:55:15Before we could come to the Upanishads, this is what we had to experience.
00:55:22So son, if today you find yourself in the middle of a lot of muck, don't be disheartened.
00:55:31One day we were just as deluded as today you are.
00:55:37But we still made it.
00:55:42And if we made it, you too can. Don't be insecure. Don't be demotivated. Don't be ashamed.
00:55:54Before the great dawn of the Upanishads is the deep dark night of ritualism,
00:56:05blind beliefs, illogical thought and superstition.
00:56:14You have to live through that night. You have to survive. Just survive.
00:56:21Sometimes survival is enough.
00:56:26Don't allow yourself to die.
00:56:30Die another day. Every time you feel like dying.
00:56:37Let's keep it for another day.
00:56:44And if you can postpone it repeatedly,
00:56:51a moment comes when you find the first ray striking through the sky.
00:56:58Suddenly the darkness starts reducing.
00:57:08Suddenly there is visible proof of advancement.
00:57:18But you'll have to live through the night.
00:57:23Face all the agony and the darkness and the loneliness and the disappointments.
00:57:36You'll have to be alive and awake when it dawns.
00:57:47Are you getting it?
00:57:56So, have we gone astray from the verse?
00:58:03Action is quite inferior to the Yoga of Wisdom.
00:58:08You see now what action is? What is action?
00:58:13Action is the prescribed kind of action, ritualistic action.
00:58:18What is Yoga of Wisdom?
00:58:21Your action has to be one with the truth. That's Yoga of Wisdom.
00:58:29Let wisdom guide your action.
00:58:32That's the Yoga of Wisdom. That's what Krishna is suggesting to Arjuna.
00:58:37And what is the other kind of action?
00:58:40Prescribed action. Now each of us in each moment has to make this choice.
00:58:49Where is your action going to come from?
00:58:53Is it going to be template based or is it going to be wisdom based?
00:59:00Template does not merely come from rituals and superstitions and traditions.
00:59:05The first and the most tyrannical of templates is the body.
00:59:16The body gives you template based action. Now do this.
00:59:20If you are dishonest, the primary reason is not society. The primary reason is body.
00:59:26The body is not born for honesty. The body is born to survive.
00:59:30And if dishonesty is needed to survive, the body will be dishonest.
00:59:35The fact is its easier to survive with dishonesty than otherwise.
00:59:40Do not blame yourself. Realize where your dishonesty comes from.
00:59:48No animal is honest. In fact honesty is a word irrelevant to animal kingdom.
01:00:01Irrelevant. We cannot even say they are dishonest. They are a-honest.
01:00:08They are a-moral. You sit with some food here, some grains here.
01:00:19A little sparrow will come and happily sit and take some of your food away.
01:00:26Do you think she is ashamed? Or a squirrel might come or a rabbit might come.
01:00:31Do you think they know they are stealing? Do you think they are even stealing?
01:00:41Its not stealing. Its the way they are. Its the way they are.
01:00:47Morality does not exist there. Are you getting it?
01:00:53So the body with its template does most of what we think we do.
01:01:01Its not the consciousness that does what we do.
01:01:11Its the prescription that comes from the body and after that we have several other prescriptions as well.
01:01:19Mother, father, teacher, so much.
01:01:31The entire lesson is contained in just this much.
01:01:36Action is quite inferior to the yoga of wisdom. Full stop.
01:01:46That tells you how to live life. That also tells you what yoga is.
01:01:55Everything about you must be united with the highest point within yourself.
01:02:04That's yoga. What do you eat? What do you wear? Where do you go?
01:02:11What do you say? Let that be united with the highest point within.
01:02:18That's yoga. Are your words coming from the highest center within?
01:02:27Your thoughts, your ideas, emotions, your relationships, your goals, desires, your acceptances, your refusals, where are they coming from?
01:02:48Let them be united with the Krishna within called Atma or pure mind or no mind.
01:03:04You could put it either way. That's yoga.
01:03:12So we could simply say Krishna is saying consciousness is higher than prakritic inebriation.
01:03:30When he says action is inferior to yoga of wisdom, what he is saying is prakriti is inferior to Atma.
01:03:41Prakriti is inferior to Atma.
01:03:46For you, not in any absolute sense, for you, who are you? The thirsty consciousness.
01:04:00For you prakriti is inferior to Atma because it is not prakriti that would quench your thirst.
01:04:09You would receive salvation, satisfaction in Atma, therefore for you Atma is superior to prakriti.
01:04:22That's the entire point. Simplify it.
01:04:27Getting it?
01:04:32Take resort to wisdom. Those who thirst for rewards are pitiable.
01:04:37They are pitiable not because there is something inherently wrong with rewards.
01:04:41They are pitiable because they do not get any rewards.
01:04:44Those who thirst for rewards are pitiable because the so called rewards only deepen their thirst.
01:04:55The so called rewards only make them even more miserable.
01:05:02The reward that you need is understanding.
01:05:09And if you do something without understanding, how can the reward of this blind action lead to understanding?
01:05:20That's what bothers us, besets us, turns us crazy.
01:05:28We do not know. We do not understand. This lack of understanding is behind all our neurosis.
01:05:39Something happens and we do not know why is it happening, what is happening, what did I do to deserve this?
01:05:45What do I do? Where do I go? Who am I?
01:05:51We do not understand, so we suffer.
01:05:55Now if lack of understanding is our fundamental problem, then how can an action arising from lack of understanding lead to understanding?
01:06:06Therefore those who thirst for rewards are pitiable.
01:06:10You are starting from the wrong center. How will you come to the right place?
01:06:25It's like a drunkard searching for a de-addiction center in his drunkenness.
01:06:36You want exactly that which relieves you of your present condition.
01:06:45Your present condition is of drunkenness. You want to be relieved of that.
01:06:51You want to be de-addicted. And you want to be de-addicted so you are drinking all the more.
01:06:57Thinking that being more drunken will help you get de-addicted.
01:07:04That's the pitiable condition of the common man.
01:07:09You seek your solution in furtherance of the problem.
01:07:15That's how you live your life.
01:07:19Your problems annoy you. Your problems turn life hell.
01:07:28And the more problemed we are, the more we seek solace in deeper problems.
01:07:40In search of a solution, we just keep sinking from problem to a yet deeper problem.
01:07:52And we keep consoling ourselves that we are on mission solution.
01:08:05You look at anybody. What is it that they are doing?
01:08:11Every single person anywhere in the world at any point in time is solving something.
01:08:18Businesses are advised that you should present yourself as solution givers.
01:08:26So restaurant will say, they will not say that we serve food.
01:08:34They will say one stop solution to all your hunger problems.
01:08:39So they say identify the problem and then present yourself as a solution provider.
01:08:45Every single person whatever he is doing, he is actually trying to get a solution to something.
01:08:54Because we are always in problems, so we are always looking for solutions.
01:08:59The solutions are all nonsensical.
01:09:02The solutions pushes deeper into problems.
01:09:07But at least we get the satisfaction and the pride that we are trying for solutions.
01:09:15See look at the solution I came up with.
01:09:19And then when another problem comes, you at least have something to live for.
01:09:24Otherwise life would be so inconsequential.
01:09:30People would commit suicide.
01:09:32I have another new problem to look forward to tomorrow.
01:09:39So suicide postponed.
01:09:42Think of how meaningless life would be for most people if there are no problems.
01:09:51And now you know why the ego mischievously, surreptitiously keeps creating more and more problems for itself.
01:10:01It does not live for the truth.
01:10:03It lives for its own survival.
01:10:06And to live for one's survival makes any sense only in presence of challenges to survival.
01:10:16If there are no challenges to survival, whose survival are you protecting and living for?
01:10:21Therefore if you are to live for your own survival, it is incumbent, imperative that you first of all create threats to your survival.
01:10:30If there are no threats, what is there to protect?
01:10:39If there is nothing to protect, what is there to do?
01:10:42If there is nothing to do, why are you alive?
01:10:44So to be alive you need problems, threats, challenges.
01:10:51That's what we do all our life.
01:10:53We keep creating problems for ourselves just so that we can somehow justify our existence.
01:11:06When you go to the market, they do not sell you solutions, they sell you problems.
01:11:16If the problem is sold, you will be yourself crazy for the solution, you will buy it.
01:11:22First of all they convince you that there is a great problem and then you will beg for the solution and buy it at any price.
01:11:35Do you see this? That's the way of the ego.
01:11:41To keep creating problems so that you can take pride in calling yourself a solution provider.
01:11:49Are you getting it?
01:11:56Those who thirst for rewards are pitiable.
01:12:01Just to live you are turning life into hell.
01:12:08To live life must be hell.
01:12:16Pitiable.
01:12:19If all becomes okay, what's there to do?
01:12:29What's there to live for?
01:12:32Whom to curse? Whom to abuse?
01:12:35Yes, question.
01:12:53Today when you were explaining about the Vedas, the ritualistic part of the Vedas and the Vedanta,
01:13:01it took me back to my 9th class days when we used to read Dalton's theory and then we moved to Rutherford.
01:13:08Seeing that there were some problems with that theory, then we moved to other.
01:13:13But at last we were able to throw that away.
01:13:18Dalton failed, now Rutherford came, then dual nature came.
01:13:23But with the ritual part, why did we get stuck there?
01:13:27Why do we see people getting stuck there and not moving to the Vedanta?
01:13:31Because in science things are objective.
01:13:36Therefore objectivity is easier there.
01:13:40It's very difficult to be objective in subjective matters.
01:13:49This gets old.
01:13:52You bring in something better, you can keep it aside.
01:13:56Can you do that with your friends as you see that they are not maturing, not improving?
01:14:09You find it difficult, right?
01:14:12Because there is subjectivity involved.
01:14:14And if there is subjectivity involved even in this, then you will preserve this as well.
01:14:18Oh my old mug, my old relationships, we used to sip from it together.
01:14:22How can I throw it away?
01:14:26You see this attachment.
01:14:29That's one thing.
01:14:30Second, what if it requires a certain merit to sip from the new and better cup?
01:14:42What if you need to be first of all deserving of the new cup before you can touch it?
01:14:51Then you will want to continue with the old one, you know.
01:14:56It happens.
01:14:58The father used to ride a Bajaj scooter and he has done that for 30 years of his life.
01:15:06Now the son gets educated, goes abroad and buys an electric car and gets it delivered at home.
01:15:25One year later the son flies down from the US to check how the family is doing with the car.
01:15:34What does he find?
01:15:36The father is still riding Hamara Bajaj.
01:15:42The car has not done even 100 km.
01:15:45Why?
01:15:46Because it requires a certain merit to drive this new thing.
01:15:53And the father is just too happy and too accustomed to the old thing.
01:15:58The father will have to mend his ways, learn new skills to be worthy of the new thing.
01:16:07And the ego wants to self-preserve.
01:16:10Father says, you know, I am used to the old thing.
01:16:13The new thing might be great, but why take the pain when the old thing is still working?
01:16:22Why move to the new thing?
01:16:25It is just that the costs of the old thing are tremendous but hidden.
01:16:35And therefore one does not count them.
01:16:40One does not even want to count them.
01:16:43Some of them are invisible costs.
01:16:46Some costs are visible, but you just ignore them.
01:16:52You keep sucking in the poison, the polluted air as you ride with your old scooter.
01:17:04And it does not become immediately visible that you are inching closer to cancer every passing ride.
01:17:16With every subsequent ride, you are inviting a little more of death in your life.
01:17:25But that is never documented.
01:17:30That never becomes clear.
01:17:32So the father enjoys the luxury of being oblivious to the fact.
01:17:38The father says, oh, all this is new age tamasha.
01:17:41I have nothing to do with it.
01:17:42What electric vehicle?
01:17:43You spend some 70 lakhs buying this.
01:17:46Look at my scooter.
01:17:48When Gandhiji was in Champaran, at that time I bought it for just rupees 20.
01:17:56I know there was no bajaj at that time, but please.
01:17:59That is the kind of thing you have, you know.
01:18:05You are such an idiot.
01:18:06You have spent rupees 80 lakhs on this car.
01:18:08My scooter I bought just for 2 annas.
01:18:11Those were the days.
01:18:13You could get a brand new scooter just for a few paisa.
01:18:18That's the kind of extraordinary, exaggerated, rubbish rhetoric you get, don't you?
01:18:29Now you know why old stuff survives.
01:18:31Just that one day the old thing will crumble in the middle of the road.
01:18:40And dear father will find himself rolling on the road.
01:18:46And the only thing that will save him is that the maximum speed possible to this specimen of a scooter is 8 km per hour.
01:18:56So even if he rolls on the road, it's not really deadly.
01:19:04He survives.
01:19:07And when he survives, he says, you know why I met this accident?
01:19:13Because foolish youngsters like you are driving new cars at high speeds.
01:19:19That's why I got this accident.
01:19:22Look at my scooter.
01:19:25It never exceeds 8 kmph.
01:19:29That is in fourth gear.
01:19:35And that's how all the nonsense and ritualism survives.
01:19:41And you also remember, you know, once father took grandmother to pilgrimage, Kailash Mansarovar on Bajaj.
01:19:52That was when Aurangzeb was just about to die.
01:19:55That time it happened.
01:19:58So there are fond memories, you know.
01:20:02Your grandmother loved the ride so much.
01:20:09And if it was good for your grandmother, how is it not good for you?
01:20:13What do you think you are?
01:20:16Are you some superstar?
01:20:18You think you are bigger than your grandmother?
01:20:21Your grandmother didn't come from you.
01:20:23You came from your grandmother.
01:20:25Okay.
01:20:29Mind your language.
01:20:30Hold your tongue.
01:20:31Who are you?
01:20:33Today you have become so big, you are showing me this new electric vehicle by the name of Vedanta Technologies.
01:20:39Keep this aside.
01:20:46You want to understand why anything happens.
01:20:50Just look at how things happen in your home.
01:20:53You want to understand what's happening between Russia and Ukraine.
01:20:56Just look at what is happening between your father and mother.
01:20:59Or your father and the neighbor.
01:21:01Or between you and your brother.
01:21:03Or between anybody and anybody.
01:21:05What you call as systemic is actually very personal.
01:21:11There is nothing called systems.
01:21:14There is just consciousness.
01:21:15And consciousness is personal and human.
01:21:17You want to understand anything in the universe.
01:21:21Just see how your mind works.
01:21:23And you will understand the very, very clear basics of anything that is happening anywhere.
01:21:32There is nothing complicated here.
01:21:35It's all very simple if you can look at the self.
01:21:40And that's the reason why they say that the self-realized person is left with no complexes or secrets or mysteries.
01:21:50Nothing is a mystery to him anymore.
01:21:55He looks at the entire world and he sees a very dull uniformity in everything that is happening.
01:22:02The bird is chirping.
01:22:04The river is flowing.
01:22:05It's one and the same thing.
01:22:08Superpower is going to nuke another country.
01:22:12It's just the same thing as the python swallowing the rabbit.
01:22:22It's all so repetitive, so dull, so pattern-based, so formulaic.
01:22:31Why to pretend something new is happening?
01:22:34There is nothing new here.
01:22:36It's all so boring.
01:22:38And therefore the life of the commoner is so dull, so dreary.
01:22:43Spirituality is in some sense the science of constant excitement and youthfulness.
01:22:53Now excitement not in the usual nonsensical sense of the word.
01:23:01Excitement in the sense of not being dull, not looking bored, not looking already dead.
01:23:12You look at the faces of most people.
01:23:21If they just close their eyes, you will say, oh, take him and cremate him.
01:23:25It's just that the eyes are open, so you are helpless.
01:23:33You don't want to, but you have to declare him alive.
01:23:36Just let him close his eyes and you will say, oh, this corpse is lying here since five days.
01:23:43Why doesn't somebody cremate him?
01:23:46Spirituality is the art of coming alive.
01:23:51Otherwise everything is so repetitive.
01:23:55What is happening today was happening 10,000 years back as well.
01:23:59What's happening in your house is happening in the neighbor's place as well.
01:24:03What you did yesterday, you are repeating it today.
01:24:06What's the point?
01:24:08You use the word dull uniformity, Acharya ji.
01:24:19Dull uniformity.
01:24:20So how does it make it exciting to watch a dull, as you said that, you know,
01:24:25the spiritual man is able to see that everything, there's a dull uniformity everywhere.
01:24:29There's just a dull uniformity, so I don't want to be a part of this dullness.
01:24:32The moment you say I don't want to be a part of the dull repetitiveness,
01:24:37something new opens up.
01:24:41But that cannot happen if you remain a victim to Prakriti.
01:24:46All that Prakriti can give you is a dull and repetitive life.
01:24:51You become father once, then again, then again, then again, then again.
01:24:55Women bear 10 kids.
01:24:58They used to do that till a few decades back.
01:25:03And every time they pretend something great is happening, something entirely new.
01:25:08What is new?
01:25:10It's just the same as having periods every month.
01:25:13What's new?
01:25:15Oh, no, no, something greater.
01:25:22Where is that newness?
01:25:26Where is that excitement?
01:25:28It's for want of a better word that I am using, excitement.
01:25:31Do not think that I mean that teenager kind of excitement where you go to a pub on weekends
01:25:41and get into a brawl and puke all over the place and not that kind of excitability.
01:25:51Mind you.
01:25:54When I say excitement, I mean the liveliness of consciousness,
01:26:00a consciousness that is looking forward to the real thing
01:26:04and is energetically vigorously moving towards it.
01:26:08That's what I am calling as liveliness,
01:26:11not nonsensical jumping about on the dance floor.
01:26:21I have nothing against dance.
01:26:23It's just that our dances too are very, very dull and repetitive.
01:26:28Now do this, now do this, now do this, now do this.
01:26:34What is there?
01:26:36What are you doing?
01:26:42I am learning music.
01:26:44What exactly are you learning in that?
01:26:46Patterns, patterns, patterns of sound.
01:26:49No, but that's called, hello.
01:26:56That which you will create will be dull.
01:27:05Will be dulled by time.
01:27:09So create something afresh every moment.
01:27:13Now that's a great responsibility and a great joy.
01:27:17So great that we are afraid to bear it.
01:27:24Once a while you can create something, don't deny.
01:27:29Your forefathers might have created something wonderful once upon a time.
01:27:36It's easier to just take it forward.
01:27:39But to create something anew continuously,
01:27:44it's first of all very demanding.
01:27:49Secondly, more importantly,
01:27:53it subjects you to the intensity of a joy that is unbearable.
01:28:07Does it sound strange?
01:28:11That kind of joy is an inner nuclear explosion.
01:28:23You don't survive.
01:28:26One goes crazy.
01:28:33Tiredness, that is a part of the creative process
01:28:38that we can somehow bear.
01:28:44Because we are used to laboring, we labor through life.
01:28:48But the joy that comes with a youthful life,
01:28:53that is just too much to bear.
01:28:57It sheds us apart.
01:29:00Go back to that, a nuclear explosion continuously in your heart.
01:29:07You are not left alive.
01:29:10That is the intensity of that joy.
01:29:13You don't want to bear it.
01:29:19And that actually does happen, you know.
01:29:22Forget joy, give too much pleasure to somebody, he dies.
01:29:28There was an experiment conducted.
01:29:34Some rats were taken.
01:29:37And they were trained that if they push a button,
01:29:48it activates the orgasmic center in their brain.
01:29:58You push that button and by way of some electronic connections
01:30:04or by way of a chemical injected into their body,
01:30:08it was ensured that the moment they push that button,
01:30:12they get an orgasmic feel.
01:30:16So there were many rats that were put in that place and that button was there.
01:30:20Tell me what happened after just a few minutes.
01:30:25All of them died.
01:30:28Why did they die?
01:30:30They just kept continuously pushing the button.
01:30:33They died.
01:30:36That's the reason why you want to avoid joy.
01:30:38You will die.
01:30:39They died in the physical sense.
01:30:41You die in the psychic sense.
01:30:47That's the difference between pleasure and joy, you know.
01:30:50They had too much of pleasure.
01:30:51They died in the physical sense.
01:30:53But if you have too much of joy, you die in the psychic sense.
01:30:57That great death is at the center of spiritual attainment.
01:31:02You want that death.
01:31:05You want that death but the ego does not.
01:31:08Therefore, you avoid joy.
01:31:11Therefore, you will find the faces of all these ritualists typically very long.
01:31:19You look at their faces.
01:31:21Dark, dull, gloomy, long, sullen, dreary.
01:31:29I'll run short of words to describe their faces but I can see those faces very clearly.
01:31:34Template-based faces.
01:31:38You know those faces, right?
01:31:40Serious.
01:31:41Serious without substance.
01:31:44Honorable with hollowness.
01:31:47Serious without substance and honorable with hollowness.
01:31:53A very hollow honorability.
01:31:58A very shallow seriousness.
01:32:03Nothing to that.
01:32:04Just nothing to that.
01:32:06All this is nothing but avoidance of joy because joy kills.
01:32:11And they are so afraid.
01:32:12They want to keep surviving in their rotten psychic sense, in their old selves.
01:32:27Take a deeply egoist person to an occasion of joy and just look at his discomfort.
01:32:42He will be totally off.
01:32:45He will feel deeply threatened.
01:32:51Where have I come?
01:32:52Danger, danger, danger.
01:32:56This is a moment of joy.
01:32:59Ping pong, ping pong, ping pong.
01:33:10Now you know why the oldies turned enjoyment into a crime.
01:33:18Do you see how much of shame they heap on you if you are found joyful?
01:33:25Have you seen?
01:33:29That's typical of the moralistic mind.
01:33:34You find somebody enjoying and that's the worst crime he can commit.
01:33:41Have you not seen that?
01:33:42And I am not talking of oldies in the sense of old by age or body.
01:33:53The oldie could be as well just 22 years old.
01:33:59The oldie could be your wife or husband.
01:34:05The husband is an oldie and he finds the wife enjoying.
01:34:13And now he buries her under a huge heap of moral indignation.
01:34:21Have you not seen that?
01:34:23All that you care for is your own happiness.
01:34:28You bitch.
01:34:30See how happy you are.
01:34:32How dare you be happy?
01:34:34Not that I am advocating shallow pleasures and happiness here.
01:34:38Please don't quote me wrongly.
01:34:43But have you not seen this happen?
01:34:45We want to go into that.
01:34:46We want to see what is happening and we want to understand the relationship it has with
01:34:51ritualism and the continuation of dead stuff since centuries.
01:34:57The new brings joy with it.
01:35:00We want to be secured against it.
01:35:14The only way you can maintain a relationship with a few people
01:35:18is by being as dead as they are or at least by pretending to be dead.
01:35:23Don't you know that?
01:35:25You sit with Dadiji and if you start guffawing and laughing, the relationship is as good as gone.
01:35:32There you have to be long faced.
01:35:35And if you start weeping there, then the relationship is reinforced.
01:35:40You sit with Dadiji and you say, you know, life is hell.
01:35:44Now you can have a conversation.
01:35:47But if the first thing you utter when she asks, so how are things?
01:35:51How is life?
01:35:52The first thing that you utter is, all is hunky-dory.
01:35:54I am doing great and nothing could be better than how things are.
01:36:02How's life? Couldn't be better.
01:36:04The moment you utter this reply, the relationship snaps.
01:36:09And when I say Dadiji, she need not be 80 year old.
01:36:13She could be as well your 25 year old girlfriend.
01:36:18You are away, she calls you up.
01:36:21And how dare you say, oh I am doing great.
01:36:24What is that you are supposed to say?
01:36:35If he is not missing her, then she is dissing him.
01:36:41Finished.
01:36:42We do not even know how skillful we have become at this art.
01:36:46At this art of inner manipulation.
01:36:50We do not even know that we do it.
01:36:52Even kids, they learn this.
01:36:54Don't be too jovial or joyful in front of Dadi.
01:36:59She will not like it.
01:37:03Four year olds, they know this.
01:37:05You are not supposed to be happy in front of certain people.
01:37:10And if you keep repeating this practice for too long,
01:37:16it gets into your bone marrow.
01:37:19Simple joy is the only reason one can stay alive.
01:37:42Basic wit.
01:37:45Salvation.
01:37:48The fun that is there in everyday occurrences of life.
01:37:53But that cannot be there if you are afraid and repetitive.
01:38:01Salvation or Braham or Atma might be the worthiest target,
01:38:06but it is just too far away.
01:38:08How do I survive today?
01:38:10Today the only thing that can keep me afloat is the fun in this moment.
01:38:15And when I say fun again, don't get me wrong.
01:38:20When I say fun, I do not mean, you know what,
01:38:27it has to be a certain liveliness, a certain lightness.
01:38:29If your face is such that even a buffalo starts weeping looking at you,
01:38:46then why are you alive?
01:38:48And when I say face, I do not mean that there is something wrong with your genetics.
01:38:59Just the expression you carry.
01:39:01Have I come too far from the question?
01:39:18I don't think so.
01:39:32We hate life so much that we keep practicing death throughout our life.
01:39:41And then we say, oh, one day death will come.
01:39:43You are practicing it every moment.
01:39:46Tell me honestly, what in you is alive at all?
01:39:50How dare you say you are alive?
01:39:52Everything that is life affirmative you have disdain for.
01:40:01Is that not so?
01:40:07You are simply contemptuous towards everything that is life affirmative.
01:40:16The only thing that you can do with some pleasure is
01:40:22go to death.
01:40:28In that there is some pleasure, he says.
01:40:33India had become very, very sick, very old.
01:40:42It still is.
01:40:43So there are some green shoots of youthfulness and revival today, but still.
01:40:52There is a reason why this land became the most miserable land on the planet.
01:40:59I don't know how people talk of India as the Vishu Guru or something.
01:41:03You have to first of all look at India as the sick old man of the world.