Discovering India: A Westerner's Unconventional Journey || Acharya Prashant
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Video Information: 19.06.22, Upanishad Samagam, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Why does knowledge have to precede action?
~ When one can know life?
~ What did one come to India for?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
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: 19.06.22, Upanishad Samagam, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Why does knowledge have to precede action?
~ When one can know life?
~ What did one come to India for?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Pranam. Now I have a question on yarn. As you said earlier that knowledge has to precede action and this knowledge, you mean that this knowledge is the knowledge of the factual state of oneself as the ego, unfulfilled ego?
00:29The knowledge before action has to be of the actor itself.
00:37But it's a constantly moving thing, right?
00:40Otherwise you cannot have knowledge.
00:43This is very dynamic knowledge that you can attain only in the flux of life.
00:51It's like measuring the speed of water flow.
00:56If you want to measure the speed of flow, you have to measure it during the flow, in the flow.
01:10You cannot stop the water or freeze the water and then try to measure the speed.
01:19Similarly life is a constant movement.
01:23So life can be known only in the movement.
01:27I guess that has been confusing me a little because when I came back to Finland, at first it felt a little depressing because I had the notion that coming to India that something would happen.
01:54Something will?
01:55Happen.
01:57Like my motivation or something would get a spike up.
02:02But then I realized that I had a notion that that kind of a motivation could come from somewhere outside of me.
02:12It just took me back to the same fundamental that nothing outside of me can inspire me to really work.
02:20This is going a little off track, but I still want to say this.
02:24But now it's just funny because I'm in the same situation as when I was before coming to India.
02:33But now it seems that I still have work to do in this situation.
02:39I guess it's then just fine because...
02:42See how can soil and roads and brick and mortar give you fresh insight?
02:53What do you mean by India?
02:55India is just an ocean.
02:59When you come to an ocean you will miss the ocean.
03:03No?
03:05So what do you mean that you expected that when you will come to India you will return with your inner gates flung open?
03:15What exactly is India for you? What do you mean?
03:19You probably came to me, right?
03:24And that nearness is not something just physical or geographical.
03:34If anything was to be thrown open that could have happened only if there was a willingness and a realization that it is not the country that counts but the consciousness.
03:58So that's the thing that happens with a lot of people from the West.
04:04They come to India thinking that the land itself will do something magical to them.
04:09The land will do nothing.
04:11In many senses the country you are in is a better place than India.
04:18In many material senses at least.
04:21You know that very well.
04:23Pollution, overpopulation, so many other things you are already better place there than in India.
04:31What makes India special then at least for some people?
04:36The right company, the right environment, the right process of self-inquiry.
04:42Now you have to then ask yourself how much of self-inquiry did really happen?
04:49How much vulnerability did you really espouse?
04:55And it's a choice always to open up, to come close and say I want to speak out, I want to confess, I want to talk about myself.
05:02Not about the experiences I am having in India.
05:05What is the point in coming to India and waxing eloquent about a particular wedding ceremony one sees or a particular thing one sees on the road or a particular thing one experiences in the apartment.
05:22Is that what one comes to India for?
05:26No. One comes to India to probe himself, to know himself.
05:31Ask yourself how much of that did you really choose to happen?
05:37It cannot happen on its own, it just cannot happen on its own.
05:41There is a process and the process is Upanishadic.
05:44The process is of deep discussion and deliberation.
05:48The process involves opening up.
05:50The process involves coming to the teacher, talking nothing about this and that.
05:57Talking only about oneself, who am I, what my life challenges are, what do I do the entire day, how my mind functions, what my fears, my insecurities are, what do I want.
06:09If you talk of this then of course India can bless you with something very magical.
06:15But India's blessings cannot be foisted upon someone.
06:24One has to first of all be prepared for those blessings.
06:30One has to first of all be deeply in love with and desperate for those blessings.
06:36So the more you exhibit your desperation, the more madly you are in love with realization, the more you will find India is working for you.
06:50Otherwise India is just an overcrowded place, not very different from any other place in the world.
06:58But, I mean, I kind of thought about this on my own, but it did require coming there, you know.
07:09I had to see that, as I said, that there was just too much confusion on my side.
07:20I sometimes felt that I didn't know what I was doing there.
07:24It was your virgin attempt. Try again, try again.
07:33You'll have to make yourself land in another India.
07:38India is not one thing, India is a million different things and they are hierarchical.
07:46There can be the greatest India you meet and there can be a very mediocre India you land at.
07:56It depends on your choice. What do you want to take away from here?
08:06Body identification, Julius, body identification.
08:11When one is identified with the body, which is our fundamental nemesis, then one is identified with everything that is physical.
08:21The body is our basic physicality, no?
08:26And when there is body identification, then there is identification with soil because the body is soil.
08:31So, one thinks that by landing in a particular geography, something important will happen that is akin to thinking that the body is important.
08:40If the body is important, then land is important.
08:43If the body is who you are, then the land is the Guru and then you will miss the Guru.
08:53By the way, I was seeing it happen all the time.
09:01I know.
09:03I was seeing it day by day how you were missing it.
09:07I know. Me too.
09:09I know. You are already all-knowing. You know so much.
09:14Yes, yes, yes. Too much.
09:25But it had to go that way, I guess.
09:28Obviously, obviously. You see, it's necessary.
09:32It's necessary that one realizes the immensity of the possibility and one realizes how easy it is to miss it.
09:43How one can be very, very close and yet far from being intimate.
09:50Yeah, I mean, I felt bad for, you know, I just felt like I was wasting your time there all the time.
09:58It was kind of...
10:00My time is wasted when I do not get to solve real problems.
10:08If I am solving real problems, that's the best utilization of my time.
10:15So could you come up with something real? I would have loved it.
10:25But if I'm not coming up with anything real, does that mean that's my lifestyle?
10:31What else is it that matters to you, Julius? What else matters to anybody?
10:39Climate change?
10:41Huh?
10:43What else is it that matters to anybody?
10:46Why do we want to talk about anything else under the sun?
10:50It's your life.
10:53That's the fundamental unit of your challenge.
10:58Everything arises from there.
11:00Even the global problems come from our own misled minds, no?
11:07So one has to talk of one's mind. That's all that is there to talk of.
11:16Think now of all the days you spent here.
11:20And think of what you spent them doing.
11:28And then you'll be surprised big time.
11:33Surprised big time.
11:36How could I miss it so completely?
11:44So near yet so far.
11:53You know the Upanishads put it this way. It's a beautiful quote.
11:57तद दूरे तद वन्तिके
12:02Near and far. That's near, that's very far.
12:08Very very near yet very very far.
12:18I have people who are with me since years.
12:22And they are very very far.
12:25One day when they'll be even physically far.
12:28That's when probably they'll wonder, much like you.
12:32How did we miss it so completely?
12:35How did we waste all our years?
12:44Yeah.
12:46But it was actually funny talking of the distance now because
12:51when I got sick at the later part of the trip
12:56I got most out of the session I was watching from afar.
13:00I don't know why but in the session hall it was really hard for me.
13:04Exactly. That's what.
13:09Nearness is such a deception.
13:13Nearness is such a deception.
13:16It makes you miss even that which you were receiving when afar.
13:25There in Europe you are probably receiving more than what you did
13:30sitting right in front of me.
13:32Yeah definitely.
13:35Because you thought that you were near.
13:37That's what the senses make us feel.
13:43I'm already near.
13:45If I'm already near why do I need to be attentive?
13:49If I'm already near then I'm eligible to expect a miracle.
13:57And the miracle is not happening.
14:00So I'm frustrated.
14:02But you are not near at all.
14:05But you are not near at all except in the physical sense.
14:10Right at this moment there is greater intimacy
14:15than there was over the period of that month.
14:21Because you see it is not the body that matters.
14:24It is mental closeness and availability that matters.
14:30That's why I asked you about what constitutes India for you.
14:35The airport, the city, the roads, the apartment.
14:39What do you mean by India?
14:41Did you come to have a taste of the soil?
14:46Did you want to have an experience of the newly built airport?
14:50That's why you landed here?
14:54That's what we forget.
14:55Just as we don't remember why we took birth in the first place.
15:00We also forget why we have come to a place at all.
15:05You look at the people around.
15:06Do you think they realize why they stand born?
15:11No, we don't know.
15:12We don't know the purpose of life.
15:13Just as we don't know the purpose of life.
15:15We also do not know or we rather forget the purpose of our visit or journey.
15:22And we just get lost.
15:24And then we wonder why such disappointment?
15:28Why am I returning empty-handed?
15:31Just as we die empty-handed.
15:33We also take off empty-handed.