When you meet beauty, pay attention || Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2021)

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: 31.07.2021,  Shastra Kaumudi, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh  Context: ~ What is spiritual love? ~ What is the definition of beauty? ~ On what merits choose a life partner? ~ What is attachment? ~ What is the difference between love and attachment? ~ How to be free from attachment?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~ .

Transcript

00:00When you come upon something beautiful, try to understand it.

00:08That's what is meant by watching.

00:14The worldly bird, the engaged bird would have surely glanced at her neighbor many a times.

00:25That's not really called looking.

00:27To look is to understand.

00:29Do you really understand or do you just keep looking?

00:35We said that if you are looking and not understanding, then something in you is just looking to avoid.

00:50And it's very possible, be warned that you might keep just looking at something or someone

01:00for years, for decades and yet be a total stranger to the reality of that person.

01:12Just as several people keep reading holy books all their life and yet really understand nothing

01:18because nothing shows up in their life.

01:27Similarly, you could be looking at the person of the savior bird for months, years and decades

01:44and yet gain not an inch of real closeness because you just keep kept looking and never

01:51understood anything.

01:55You never approached the secret.

01:59You never had any love for the bird's core.

02:05You kept looking at all the external actions, the words and all the fluff.

02:17There is no bird without fluff.

02:23You kept looking at all the fluff, golden-hued, big, small.

02:37You kept noticing the twitter, you never knew the center.

02:55And I am repeating the warning, it is not merely possible, it is very, very probable.

03:09You will be very, very close and unimaginably far, further than you can ever imagine.

03:30As most people in the world are, you stand in front of a statue of Krishna.

03:42How close are you to the essence of Krishna, are you getting it?

03:58Everything in us does not want to acknowledge the truth because the truth is so poignant,

04:12falseness will melt.

04:16If not in heat, then in tears.

04:32When you really look at the truth, there is not merely illumination, there is a deep pathos.

04:44One is humiliated, almost ashamed, there is a recognition of suffering.

05:09Why did the saviour bird even have to sit on the same branch as the worldly bird?

05:25After all she has nothing to do with fruit.

05:28What's she doing on that branch?

05:32Tell me please, why does she have to enjoy the company of a foolish flock?

05:48The worldly bird we can understand, she has a purpose, what's the purpose?

05:53The fruit is the purpose.

05:56But why is the other one sitting adjacent to her?

06:02Think and that's where the pathos lies.

06:09One is there to consume, the other is there just to oversee, with no purpose of her own,

06:24that's witnessing.

06:28The fruit is right next to her, all around her, she doesn't consume.

06:39In the psychological sense, please, obviously if the bird exists as a mortal bird, she would

06:44be taking in some nutrition, some food.

06:50But in the psychological sense, she is not consuming anything, yet she is present, why?

07:04When you really look at the truth, that's when you have an explosion of appreciation,

07:11an explosion of recognition.

07:15Something very, very important has been happening very, very close to you and you have been

07:22totally blind, insensitive, indifferent, and that's what breaks you down into pieces.

07:40That internal explosion of recognition.

07:52The ego needs a certain pride to survive, that pride is gone and the ego has been humiliated

08:05here, not by a display of power, but by a recognition of love.

08:26I sit here to eat, she sits here for me.

08:47I am here for the fruit, she is here for me.

09:08I am calling it an explosion of recognition and it is bound to happen.

09:16If you look a bit carefully, so you will avoid looking.

09:44Long back, almost a decade back, I wrote witnessing is love and the so-called paths

09:55of knowledge and devotion are not at all separate from each other.

10:07It requires tremendous love to witness, Parbraham is not even a witness, Parbraham, Nirgunbraham

10:32is Turiyatit, even beyond witnessing, the one who is here to witness has taken upon

10:44herself a lot of suffering.

11:09You may not have anything to do with what you know of in witnessing, but why would

11:20you ever want to know of something you have nothing to do with, isn't it a kind of punishment

11:32to keep knowing of random stuff, useless garbage that you are anyway not at all concerned

11:42with, that's the suffering the witness knowingly inflicts upon herself for the sake of her

11:55sister bird, do you get this, ask yourself why the hell must you be perched on a tree

12:16you have nothing to do with, why must you keep sitting next to a foolish bird tied to her greed.

12:33So, this is the compassion, the essence of witnessing, Acharyaji, what is the meaning

12:49of looking a bit more carefully, you told that when you look a bit more carefully, then

12:55you will have that explosion of recognition, so how to look a bit more carefully, we are

13:07constantly looking, but how to look a bit more carefully.

13:11Do not allow your logic to run amok, what does the logic of the first bird say, she

13:19looks at the other bird, she does not need to enquire carefully because the second bird

13:26looks so much like herself, so she very quickly comes to a conclusion, she looks like me,

13:37so she behaves like me, she looks like me, so she desires like me, so do not allow your

13:46mind to come to quick and cheap conclusions, do not think that the place you operate from

14:03is the place the other one also operates from, otherwise you will not only miss but come

14:13to horrendous conclusions, you see, I am the worldly bird, I am here to eat and this one,

14:26obviously she is so much like me, same colour, same breed, she too is here to eat, but she

14:32is such a loser, she cannot even get to eat.

14:37So forget adulation, what you will raise within is humiliation for the saviour bird, are you getting it?

14:52She is here to eat, that's her intention, but she is failing to eat, she is such a loser.

15:02Will you now have adulation for her or humiliation?

15:10What's the fundamental flaw?

15:13You looked at her and you said because she is like me in appearance, in mortal form,

15:24therefore she is internally too like me.

15:31Do not allow yourself to extrapolate a lot, do not posit, assume, imagine, ask, seek to

15:48know, that's called looking, seek to know, your assumptions are no good and you have a lot of assumptions.

16:10That's why a conversation between the knower and the seeker is often quite difficult.

16:30The seeker has assumptions not only about himself but also about the knower and then

16:41the knower finds it very difficult to reach the seeker.

16:54You don't have to assume that the knower is a knower, you just have to not assume that

17:04you know the knower.

17:08I am not asking you to start worshipping any bird that appears like a witness, I am asking

17:20you to check your tendency, to assume that you know about even those birds who behave

17:33differently compared to you, but you will keep positing, why, because the ego does not

17:44love uncertainty, the ego is so fragile, it wants to come to quick and cheap conclusions.

17:59I know what that bird is here for, don't I, I know what you are doing, you know nothing,

18:13you know nothing about that bird, nothing at all, it's horrible and therefore when this

18:26massive ignorance ends, I said there is an explosion of appreciation, in that explosion

18:35you are reduced to pieces and that's the reason why you will not allow yourself to know the

18:43reality of the witnessing bird, it will not allow you to remain intact.

19:06You would rather cocoon yourself in cozy stories, oh this bird is my cousin, just one

19:18month elder to me, I know the name of her father, I know, you know nothing, had you

19:47really known anything you wouldn't have been yourself till now.

20:17Get into the shoes of our shopaholic bird, the worldly one, what's he thinking, the weather

20:45is nice, the fruit is ripe, and what's this one doing here, tell me what's the other bird

20:55doing here, maybe she is melancholy, missing her mate, she just doesn't know how to live,

21:10I can very well imagine her telling the witness, mate go get a life, I know you are not eating

21:23because depression reduces one's appetite, I know that's why you are not eating, you

21:35are just depressed, and in between you can also visualize her sermonizing, dude one life

21:47is all we have, come on why you wasting it, fruit is ripe, juicy, succulent, don't miss

22:00this one grand festival called life, she is trying to motivate the witness.

22:16Coming from a wrong center, our relationship with the truth too is very wrong, not that

22:26the truth isn't available, our relationship with it is very flawed, look at what we have

22:44done with the lives and stories of our saints, sages, avatars, prophets, see what we have

22:52done, we haven't tried to look at their truth, instead we have narrated them as some kinds

23:07of decorated shadows of our own lives, you take your own picture and then you dress it

23:29up, and you start calling it the avatar, that's how we have related to the truth.

23:51We ask for their intentions, their motivations, but why did Ram do this, why did Krishna do

24:02that, we don't even ask actually, we assume that we already know, I know why Ram went

24:12after the deer, I know, I know why Krishna wanted Arjun to kill Duryodhana, I know, who

24:25else will know, after all Krishna was so much like me, because there is no truth except

24:33my ego, so even the truth has to be like my ego, when there is no truth for you except

24:42your ego, then even the truth has to be like your ego, that's our operating principle,

24:57so we miss.

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