Nothing is right or wrong, says today's pop spirituality! || Acharya Prashant,on Bhagavad Gita(2020)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, verses 29-32.

00:18Hear thou the triple distinction of intellect and fortitude according to the gunas as I

00:24declare them exhaustively and severally, O Dhananjay.

00:29That which knows the paths of work and initiation, right and wrong action, fear and fearlessness,

00:38bondage and liberation, that intellect, O Parth, is sattvic.

00:44That which has a distorted apprehension of dharma and its opposite and also of right

00:50action and its opposite, that intellect, O Parth, is rajasic.

00:56That which, enveloped in darkness, regards adharma as dharma and views all things in

01:03a perverted light, that intellect, O Parth, is tamasic.

01:12The question reads, Sir Namaste, today's pop spirituality says there is no right and wrong.

01:19They claim that everything is fine as it is and it is one's way of looking at it that

01:26is making things seem right and wrong.

01:29However, here Shri Krishna specifically talks of knowing about right and wrong action for

01:34sattvic intellect.

01:36What is it that pop spirituality is missing?

01:40No, the pop spirituality isn't missing something, it's carrying a lot.

01:47It's carrying a lot that it needs to drop and miss.

01:53What is it carrying?

01:54It is carrying the obligation to defend itself.

01:58Pop spirituality is carrying the responsibility to defend the ego and that's what makes it

02:06come up with outrageous and amusing claims and principles.

02:14You see, as you said, there is a neo-cult today that says there is nothing right or

02:25wrong.

02:27For whom?

02:29For whom?

02:33Come to your senses, let's talk life, let's talk facts.

02:41In every situation, isn't there something right or wrong for you?

02:48Will you sip your pizza?

02:57Will you?

02:58Will you eat your drink?

03:02Will you chew your beer?

03:09Something as elementary as this too has rightness and wrongness associated with it.

03:18There is something appropriate, there is something inappropriate.

03:23If right and wrong is too loaded a word for you, isn't there something appropriate in

03:29every situation and inappropriate too?

03:42What is it that decides the appropriateness of something?

03:55Why don't you want to eat your food in an inappropriate way?

04:02Make it clearer.

04:03Why don't you want to have inappropriate food in the first place?

04:09So, suffering is what decides the rightness and wrongness of even something as ordinary

04:37as food.

04:42That's how one has to choose for oneself.

04:45As long as you are prone to suffering, there is something right and there is something

04:50wrong for you.

04:52What is right for you?

04:54That which will relieve you of your pre-existing suffering without adding much to it.

05:05Sometimes it is possible that to relieve you of the burden of your existing suffering,

05:11a little more well-directed suffering needs to be injected, just a little more, negligible

05:22compared to the great frozen mass of suffering you are already carrying.

05:29But that's what decides the rightness of an action.

05:32You have to ask yourself, I am already in bondage.

05:37I am already anxious and desperate and what not.

05:49I am a bundle of 40 kinds of neuroses walking together.

05:58I am certainly not alright.

06:00Can I owe at least this much honesty to myself?

06:06So there is something right for me and there is something wrong for me.

06:11That which would further aggravate my condition of suffering is that which is wrong for me,

06:20obviously.

06:23So when people say there is nothing right and there is nothing wrong, you need to ask

06:27them, for whom?

06:31For whom?

06:32There are two people for whom there is nothing right and nothing wrong anymore.

06:38One people who are physically dead, secondly people who are spiritually dead or liberated.

06:48Once you are physically dead, there is nothing right or wrong for you.

06:52And once you are spiritually liberated, which is also called spiritual death, then again

07:00there is nothing right or nothing wrong for you because now no action can hurt your ego

07:05now because you have gone beyond the ego.

07:08To suffer, you first need to be identified with the ego, only the ego suffers.

07:15Once when you transcend the ego, the very possibility that you could be hurt or suffer

07:21vanishes.

07:25Hence now nothing is right or wrong for you.

07:28Now things are just as they are.

07:35Now you don't need to change anything, now you don't need to modify anything, now you

07:39don't need to target anything, now you don't need to be purposeful.

07:43But only when you have transcended the ego, only the liberated one has the right to say

07:50there is nothing right, nothing wrong because it's a statement in the absolute.

07:55And statements in the absolute and of the absolute must not be uttered by those who

08:02are still deeply living in the relative and dualistic domain.

08:10It doesn't befit you, it will harm you badly, certain things are not for you, not yet at least.

08:22Let the sage say there is nothing right, nothing wrong, who are you to say that?

08:30Have you paid the price as fully and as honestly as the sage has?

08:39And it's quite unbecoming and a misdemeanor on your part to be boastfully talking like a sage.

08:56Are you getting it?

09:00And 999 out of a thousand people are not liberated, that's an understatement obviously.

09:10You could say 999.99999, there can be no stats in this, but we know for ourselves.

09:21If we look at the world around us, we could easily see, yes, people are in bondage.

09:28And if people are in bondage, then there is something right for them and something wrong for them.

09:35What's pop spirituality trying to do?

09:37It's trying to convince you of something very imaginary.

09:49It is trying to convince you that you have a billion dollars when actually you are a pauper.

09:58It is trying to convince you that you have arrived when the fact is that you have not even properly begun the journey.

10:09And if you convince a beginner that he has already arrived, then you are inflicting upon him a delusion that will totally destroy his power and resolve the journey.

10:34This fellow who has just commenced his journey needs to be informed of the utter criticality of his journey.

10:49He needs to be told to shed some luggage, some baggage, some weight and hurry up.

10:57He needs to be told to sleep a bit less and eat a bit less and be more agile and speedy.

11:08Instead of that, if you tell him and convince him that he has already arrived by doing him a favor, that's what pop spirituality does.

11:23That's the, in fact, center of pop spirituality to convince you that you are already all right when you are not.

11:34Somebody is going around saying, Oh, I am Braham.

11:37Somebody is happily brandishing that he has disappeared.

11:51Somebody is proclaiming that he is absolute silence.

11:57Nobody is coming up and admitting that he is just a dirty bundle of egoistic tendencies.

12:05Just nobody.

12:06Because their teachers, their gurus are all busy minting money and followers, convincing them that they are all right as they are.

12:18And that's music to the ego's ears.

12:21That's exactly what the ego wants to hear.

12:25So I am okay as I am.

12:26Yes, you are.

12:27And I am certifying that I am the biggest guru.

12:31And why am I the biggest guru?

12:32Because this is what I certify.

12:37And people come flocking to me.

12:40Sir, me too.

12:41Am I already all right?

12:42Oh, yes, you are.

12:45You are perfect Satchitananda Braham.

12:48You are not even an ordinary Braham.

12:52You are hyper Braham.

12:55Sir, me, obviously you.

12:57And if you want to exceed your hyperness, you can come and donate a little more.

13:05You will then be somebody who has transcended Braham.

13:17Sir, me, look at me, sir.

13:19I am there in this corner, sir.

13:20I am a wretched soul.

13:21I am a criminal.

13:22I have been doing all kinds of obnoxious things.

13:25And I am already planning my next murder.

13:29The guru doesn't respond.

13:31Why doesn't the guru respond?

13:33But I can't hear you.

13:34You are perfect silence.

13:35You are mauna.

13:39There is nothing.

13:40There is just silence.

13:43He is a wretched murderer, planning the next shootout.

13:50No, no, no.

13:53Only silence is the truth.

13:56Even if you fire a gun, there will be no sound because only silence is there.

14:04But, sir, that fellow will bleed and die.

14:05No, nobody dies.

14:08Only the truth is all that lives and dies is anyway false.

14:20The court might now indict him and convict him.

14:28But the guru has granted him mauna.

14:34Silence.

14:38So for all the wretched ones, this pop spirituality is a great refuge.

14:50You are already okay.

14:55Who wants to hear the truth, especially if it is bitter?

15:04The teacher and the students are co-conspirators, hand in glove, driven by the shared mutual

15:12agenda of upholding the ego and maintaining the status quo.

15:25It is a dirty game.

15:38Watch out.

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