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Video Information: 23.12.22, DTU, Delhi
Context:
~ Why do we fail to get happiness in the world?
~ How to get real happiness?
~ What is real happiness?
~ Why are we in frustration?
~ What is the worth doing?
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: 23.12.22, DTU, Delhi
Context:
~ Why do we fail to get happiness in the world?
~ How to get real happiness?
~ What is real happiness?
~ Why are we in frustration?
~ What is the worth doing?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Thank you sir for coming here and enlightening us with all your knowledge that you have shared.
00:09I have two small questions.
00:11I have written this so that I can deliver that clearly.
00:14My question is sir, that I have listened from multiple sources that we should not change
00:19our happiness because happiness is already within us.
00:25So my first question is, is this right?
00:28And another question is, if this is right sir, then what's the purpose of doing our
00:33work?
00:34Like a person wants to become a doctor because after becoming he will be able to serve the
00:41society and he will feel better after that.
00:44But if I am already happy, if I am already powerful, then what's the motivation behind
00:49doing our work?
00:50So these are my two questions.
00:52Good.
00:53Both questions are useful.
00:58It's not that you should not chase happiness.
01:00You should chase great happiness, true happiness, high happiness, lasting happiness, happiness
01:09free of sadness, happiness free of fear.
01:15And this will tell you that usually the happiness that we chase is not high, is not lasting,
01:21comes with fear and comes with sadness.
01:24Does it not?
01:26Does it not?
01:27And that's the problem with the normal kind of happiness.
01:33So the knowers have said happiness is not the goal of life.
01:38Absolute happiness is the goal of life.
01:40They were such super hedonists you could say.
01:48We talk of ambition.
01:49Think of the ambition of the sages and the great philosophers.
01:54They did not even say that you should go for ordinary accomplishment or ordinary happiness.
02:05They said absolute happiness, happiness without a second, happiness without an end.
02:12That's the purpose of life.
02:14And that's the reason they said that the usual happinesses that you chase are all nonsense.
02:24Because those happinesses come on back of fear.
02:27Those happinesses are just shadows of sadness.
02:32Those happinesses won't last.
02:35Those happinesses would leave long periods of wanting and longing and shallowness in
02:43their wake.
02:46So it's a very misplaced notion that wisdom or spirituality are about dropping happiness
02:54or not chasing happiness.
02:55No, no, no.
02:56Have you heard of the word Satchitanand?
03:02Satchitanand.
03:03Getting it?
03:06Truth, consciousness, joy.
03:14If the first two are there, then the third one is the proof.
03:22Your joy is the proof that you are living in truth, that you are living consciously.
03:30How can then wisdom be against happiness?
03:38Do you see the nature of the sages?
03:42They were such greatly ambitious people, they wanted total happiness.
03:49We picture them as serious, grave, almost gloomy old foggies, no?
03:57If I ask you, can you visualize a Rishi?
04:02How do you visualize him?
04:05Serious.
04:08And if you are not told that he is a sage, you will say he is some homeless destitute.
04:20Poor fellow.
04:25My sympathies are with him, right?
04:28It's just because we are culturally conditioned to look at the image of the Rishi as something
04:32respectable.
04:33Therefore, we don't say all these things.
04:36There is a great problem in the way we have thought of the sages.
04:43The sages were very, very joyful people.
04:52Very joyful people.
04:55And that's probably the reason they chose to live in the jungle.
04:59Because our cities and villages are joyless.
05:07Getting it?
05:08And if you exhibit joy to joyless people, they get very frustrated, even violent.
05:16If there are people who have condemned themselves to live morose, dull, boring, dead lives,
05:24if they come across someone who is truly living it, as they say, king size, he gets
05:33very frustrated and envious and therefore violent.
05:39So the sages said, no, no, no, we would rather retreat to the jungles.
05:46And in the jungles, they could freely exhibit their joy.
05:52Now this joy is such a superior kind of happiness that you cannot very easily visualize it.
06:02If happiness in your opinion consists of laughing or is expressed through laughter, then joy
06:09does not mean a guffaw.
06:12You'll say when you know you are ordinarily laughing, then you stretch these two points
06:18by half an inch.
06:21And in joy, obviously, the stretch extends to two inches, which basically means that
06:27joy is not in the same plane as happiness.
06:31Joy is not a linear extension of happiness.
06:34Joy is a dimension different from happiness.
06:40You cannot say two units of excitement is happiness.
06:44And five units of excitement is joy, no.
06:49Happiness if it lies on the x-axis, joy lies on the y-axis, it's a separate dimension.
06:57So the purpose of life is total happiness, total happiness.
07:06Think of your happinesses now, are they total?
07:10If they are not total, don't stick to them, search for something higher, search for something
07:15that won't abate, search for something that is not dependent on others or conditions.
07:23If he smiles, I'll be happy.
07:25But it's not necessary that he'll smile irrespective of how hard you work for him, right?
07:32If I get the right results, I'll be happy.
07:34But the results are not and never totally in your control.
07:41Are you getting it?
07:43So the more you start seeing that our happinesses are all conditional, finite, infested with
07:51sadness, infested with suspicion, the more you become capable of joy.
07:58It's just that in the beginning, it might be a little frustrating, even depressing.
08:04Because we are conditioned to happiness and when that normal happiness is taken away,
08:10there is frustration, you'll have to pass through that period of frustration.
08:16That's the answer to your first part.
08:18The second part he said, but if you are already happy, why would you work?
08:22You would work because you are happy.
08:27Now that's again beyond your conception because so far probably you have worked only because
08:34you wanted something, correct?
08:36Which means your incompletion makes you work, correct?
08:40I don't have something so I work to attain that thing, right?
08:44So my feeling of incompleteness becomes my engine, my driver, my fuel, right?
08:50So it becomes very difficult for us to imagine how is it possible to work even if fully satisfied.
08:57Yes, now a superior quality of work happens.
09:04When you do not work to gain satisfaction, when you work because you already have satisfaction,
09:14then the quality of work is something worth watching.
09:20It is that quality of work that is called Nishkama Karma as well.
09:28That is the only thing worth doing.
09:32Not working to attain something, working because I have something.
09:44Not speaking so that you will applaud for me.
09:50Speaking because I have transcended the need to be applauded.
10:00Do you understand this?
10:02Dancing not because somebody would make a reel or a shot and gain me.
10:11It's very difficult to find somebody dancing without a camera.
10:17If you can dance and particularly if you can dance well, what do you immediately do?
10:24You record it.
10:24You record it even if you dance very badly actually.
10:31But can there be a dance where there is no cognition, no remembrance of the camera?
10:41There is no cognition, no remembrance of the camera.
10:48You are dancing because you just, you know.
10:54Somebody asks, but why are you dancing?
10:56And you say stupid.
10:58He thinks there must always be a why.
11:00There is no why.
11:01I am just, this is who I am.
11:04Felt like dancing.
11:07But what do you get out of dancing?
11:11I am not that kind of a beggar.
11:16What do you think?
11:16I am dancing in the town square to collect alms.
11:29Start practicing this thing.
11:31Start doing things from which you get nothing.
11:35And slowly you will develop some taste.
11:41Better still if you start doing things where you not only get nothing, but actually lose something.
11:49It will appear bitter, almost intolerable in the beginning.
11:55Slowly you will start saying, but there is a strange kind of pleasure in this.
12:03I am loving it.
12:06Happens with practice.
12:08Happens with practice.
12:12Yes.
12:22Yes.
12:41Yes.