How to minimise greed, fear, violence within ourselves? || Acharya Prashant, with IIT-Kanpur (2023)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  Video Information: 07.06.23, with IIT-Kanpur (Online-talk), Greater Noida  Context: When can you say you are greedy and not ambitious? Do you agree that greed is really a deadly sin? If you are content with what you have, how can you improve? Are you a greedy person by nature? What other bad behaviors do you associate with greed? Is it bad to be greedy for learning?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Pranam Acharya ji. Sir, I have a question. As we are getting advanced in material progress

00:11and technology, still at the same time we see there are rapid increase in suicide cases,

00:17depression, mental health issues, climate change. And I think this is due to our action

00:22coming from our natural tendency such as greed, consumption, fear. So sir, my question is

00:28how can we minimize this tendency in order to create a better living for ourselves?

00:37You don't have to criticize or minimize these tendencies per se. You have to understand

00:46these tendencies. Fear says something will be taken away from you. What is fear fearful

01:01of? Greed says, come on, go get that thing. What is it that greed actually desires? Because

01:16if fear were only with respect to one object, then fear would have been eliminated with

01:25the elimination of that particular object, but that never happens, right? Let's say you

01:30are afraid of the cat and somebody shoos away the cat. The cat is no more there. The

01:39cat has gone. Has the fear gone? The fear is still there. After the cat you will be

01:45afraid of the monkey, then of something else, then, then, then, then, then. Fear continues.

01:51Let's say greed was with respect to only one object. You get that object. Has greed disappeared?

01:58The greed is still there. So what greed wanted has not been obtained with that object. Greed

02:06definitely wants something else. Fear definitely is apprehensive of something else. Does consumption

02:17ever satiate you fully? You want more, more, more. What does that tell you? There is something else

02:24that you want. You do not know your urge to consume, therefore, you are consuming the wrong things.

02:31And when it comes to greed and consumption, you also have words like lust, like the tendency

02:43to accumulate and hold. They all belong to the same family. Irrespective of what you consume

02:50and how much you consume and how much you want to secure by your consumption, by holding or

02:57storing or securing the object of consumption, still there lingers a fear. I'll never be able

03:07to consume fully. I'm still not feeling fulfilled. Irrespective of the quantum of consumption,

03:15I'm still much at the same place internally. So we have these instincts and those instincts

03:26are telling us something about ourself. And that's the way of self-knowledge. How will

03:34you know yourself? There does not exist any tangible entity called I within you. Go get

03:43yourself x-rayed, dissected. You'll never be able to locate the I within you. It's not there

03:57in the heart. It's not there in the brain. Where will you find that I? And that I is all-important.

04:04It exists in every bit of your existence. You cannot have a thought sense I. You cannot

04:13utter a sentence without I. Even if you do manage to construct a sentence that does not

04:21contain I, you will find you are still related to that sentence. So the I has indirectly come in.

04:27That I is ubiquitous, yet it is nowhere to be seen within you. How will you know the I? I can

04:40be known only in these tendencies. What is it that you are afraid of? What is it that you want? What

04:47is it that you have been avoiding? Why does envy arise so much with respect to that person?

04:56What is it in that person that I covet so much that I am forced to become envious? Are you

05:09getting it? So life is the name of these tendencies. If the I, that invisible I is not

05:20there, there is no life either. But life becomes beautiful when you know who you are. And life

05:29remains a blind rush, a series of staggering stumbles, if you do not know who you are.

05:38Never suppress these things when they arise within you. It's not without reason that you

05:56feel attracted towards any single thing in the world. There is a reason. However, that thing is

06:07not the reason. That thing is just an indicator of a deeper thing within yourself. That's where

06:16we all miss the point. If you feel attracted towards something, it could be a job, it could

06:24be a car, anything, a house, a woman, anything, a party. If you feel attracted towards something,

06:32you feel that the attraction is towards that thing. No, no, no. It's not that thing that you

06:41want. Nobody wants the things that he desires. No thing has ever managed to satisfy any person.

06:55However, you do want, the want is real. The thing is not. You cannot say I do not want because you

07:09experience the want. The want is what makes you the person that you are. The want itself is existence.

07:18But it's not that thing. You must be thankful to the thing, for it can be the means to open your

07:35own interiors to you. If you can understand why you are attracted to that thing, you will know

07:42something about yourself. So fine, thank you. Looking at you, I realized a thing or two about

07:51myself. But it would be a mistake, sometimes a life-defining mistake, to assume that the

08:10thing holds importance. Your central urge is different. Figure out that urge. It's a delicate

08:24thing we are saying here. One, you cannot know your own urges in absence of the urges. If you

08:39want to understand greed, first of all greed must be there. You are the greed. When you know greed,

08:46you know yourself. And whenever there will be greed, greed will be with respect to an object.

08:53So greed is something you need to understand because you are the greed. The object of greed

09:04is not all that important. Please understand, objects have varied across cultures, across human

09:14beings, depending on the stage of life. Objects of greed, they vary, right? You were so very drawn

09:23towards an ordinary piece of chocolate when you were five. Now you are drawn towards something

09:32else. A monthly five-figure dollar salary maybe, right? So the object of greed has kept changing,

09:44which simply means that there is no need to pay great attention to the object of desire. The

09:53object of desire has kept changing, desire has not changed. Use the object of desire to penetrate

10:02desire itself. See what do you want. You do not want that object. When you are able to neutralize

10:17yourself with respect to an object, it's a favor to both the parties, especially if the object is

10:29a conscious entity. You are relieved of the object and the object is spared of your desire. Both of

10:40you can then heave a sigh of relief as they say. Climate change, overpopulation, biodiversity loss,

11:05depletion of resources. What is it? When you do not understand yourself, you do not know what

11:20you want, then you simply indiscriminately, violently consume all that you can. Classically,

11:31the entire universe is called as Prakriti. Everything, including man-made objects,

11:37everything is called Prakriti. Man too is a part of Prakriti. When you do not understand yourself,

11:48that is when you do not understand Prakriti, you simply destroy Prakriti. There can be no love

11:57without understanding. That which you do not understand, you will never be able to love.

12:02However, you can be desirous, even without understanding. Today, if you see glaciers

12:11melting and the coral reefs being destroyed and the AQI levels are beyond tolerance,

12:23the reason is very simple. We have no self-knowledge, so we do not know this universe

12:32we are living in. I am not talking of science, I am talking of the relationship that we have

12:37with the universe. We do not know what is the right relationship to have with the world around

12:45us. So, all we do is consumption and destruction. We have simply destroyed everything. There can

12:54be therefore no scientific or technological solution to this problem. The solution is

13:01self-awareness. Otherwise, technology will be used simply to consume and you cannot halt the

13:11march of technology. Man is gifted with intellect and technology will keep improving. It must.

13:19Technology is a neutral thing. There is no harm in technology per se. Technology must

13:25improve in all ways possible. The problem is in the application of technology. Because you do not

13:33know yourself, so you will use all kinds of technologies just to fulfill your blind instincts

13:41and those instincts can never be fulfilled. So, the solution to all these problems has to be

13:48spiritual. When I say spiritual, I just mean self-knowledge, no mumbo-jumbo. Unless our

13:56education very wholeheartedly embraces knowledge of the self and life, there is no hope for man,

14:10for our various species and for this planet. And let's keep aside all that nonsense of man

14:20migrating to other planets and colonizing them and starting new life altogether. All that is

14:25childish fantasy. Not that that is not possible, but that's not the solution.

14:33You are in IIT, see how your education has been throughout your journey from nursery till class

14:5412th, as they say K12 and now in your B.Tech or M.Tech program and after that you might decide

15:03to go for a PhD. See, all the while you have just been prepared to consume. The entire focus of

15:15education has been to make you someone who will earn well, right? People celebrate gaining

15:29entrance into IIT, not because they love knowledge, but because they know that fat

15:36packages are now guaranteed, right? Entire emphasis has been on consumption. If you can

15:48get into IIT, you will get to consume a lot. If you can get into one of the IITs, you will be able

15:57to bite into the Big Apple, the United States. Especially if you can get into computer science,

16:08you will have a fat dollar salary. And that's what is celebrated. That's what the entire

16:21preparation cycle is about, class 8th till class 12th, the entire coaching industry, everything.

16:28Who wants to just know and learn and I'm not even talking of self-knowledge here. I'm talking of

16:37knowledge of the world. Even that is not something that is respected. All that is respected is

16:44consumption. Think of Indians. It's an interesting thing. How many people know of the IISC? And how

17:00many people know of the IITs? And when it comes to their glamour quotient, the IITs far exceed

17:08IISC in the popular imagination, in the common mind. Why? Because that science is technology.

17:17And science is pure knowledge. And technology is to be used to ingratiate your desires.

17:27So education has to change. We have been very badly educated. In the inner sense,

17:47we are all illiterates. It doesn't matter whether you are at an IIT or MIT or Harvard,

17:54doesn't matter. We are fundamentally uneducated people.

18:05How can you call a man educated if he knows nothing about who he is in the first place?

18:10Think of it. It's amusing.

18:24So, sir, why are we not teaching self-knowledge in school? I mean,

18:30if this is what we all need in the first place, what keeps us away from this?

18:37Give me the authority, I'll make the right policies.

18:46How can you answer that question? There are the policy setters,

18:50and they have been deciding the policies and the curricula. And they have not been probably very

18:57wise or insightful people. Or they have simply been responding to the demands of the society.

19:04The society says, we want first of all bread and butter and after that we want

19:12goods of daily use and after that we want goods of luxury. And that's what we want.

19:19We have no patience with all this self-knowledge and what not. We want to consume. And when we look

19:28at our peers in the West, we feel envious. How are they in the West consuming so much?

19:34Their per capita electricity consumption is so high. The number of vehicles per thousand

19:45members of the population is so high there. Iron ore consumption per capita is so high there.

19:51Food consumption, meat consumption, dairy consumption, consumption of all imaginable

19:57goods is many many times there. Why are we just left behind? We want to catch up.

20:07And what does catching up mean? We'll destroy the planet just as much as they do.

20:12We'll destroy the planet just as much as they do.

20:20That's what is happening.

20:28So sir, as an individual, what other steps can we take?

20:32If there are kids in your vicinity, be very responsible towards them.

20:43First of all, you must know what is it that a human being needs to fundamentally learn.

20:54You have to learn it for yourself first.

20:56And then you have to take that knowledge to others.

21:09Helping others, edifying others, with self-knowledge you realize is of much more value than just

21:21ingratiating yourself.

21:27So that's probably the only way.

21:32And that's also been the only way possible historically.

21:40Know it for yourself.

21:41What else is possible?

21:49Utilize your resources, your means, your intellect, your powers.

21:55And then you can help others.

21:57What else is possible?

22:04Utilize your resources, your means, your intellect, your powers, and see how it can be done.

22:13And that would mean walking

22:20an authentic road.

22:24There is no road.

22:27Actually, it's a jungle.

22:31So you will have to make your own road.

22:48I don't know, I'm not in a position to conclusively answer this because even I'm still in the process.

22:57One then must have the faith, the love, the courage to continue to be in the process.

23:06Because there is no laid out road, there is no royal highway

23:15ready-made in advance waiting for you.

23:19You have to proceed step by step and see what's the next thing to be done.

23:27And what you want to, however, always remember is that it's important and it's lovely.

23:39There is no possibility of giving up.

23:43It's just so important and it's joyful.

23:54Thank you, sir.

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