♂️ 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: 26.04.2022, IIT-Hyderabad, Greater Noida, U.P
Context:
¬ How to maintain a good relationship?
` What is the right time to be in a relationship?
¬ What is relationship?
¬ How to make relationships healthy?
¬ When and how does a relationship turns into a toxic relationship?
¬ How to choose a life partner?
¬ What is real love?
¬ Is live-in relationship sign of degradation of our culture?
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: 26.04.2022, IIT-Hyderabad, Greater Noida, U.P
Context:
¬ How to maintain a good relationship?
` What is the right time to be in a relationship?
¬ What is relationship?
¬ How to make relationships healthy?
¬ When and how does a relationship turns into a toxic relationship?
¬ How to choose a life partner?
¬ What is real love?
¬ Is live-in relationship sign of degradation of our culture?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I have a question, sir. Like you said that we know that when we have that, say lustful,
00:12an example, we have that lust, and we know that it's like animal, we are animal now.
00:17And you say, you said this, we need not be an animal, I need not be animal. But the thing
00:23is when we are in that situation, it is very difficult to get reminded of ourselves that
00:31we should not be an animal like that. Take an example of any negative feeling,
00:36not only lust, say anger, or being egoistic, or having any powerful negative feeling,
00:44when we have at that time, how to remind ourselves how to be conscious and come out of
00:51that animalism? That is my question, that how to?
00:58You see, there is a pleasure that lust or anger or envy
01:11or hatred or possessiveness offer you.
01:14And there is another pleasure that is offered by the high stuff of life.
01:27It says that the ego is not convinced that there is any pleasure at all in the higher things.
01:36Why is the ego not convinced? Because the ego has a history of deriving pleasure from all the lowly
01:42things. The child is born, where does the child get its first pleasures from? From the Bhagavad Gita?
01:54No, it gets its first pleasures from skin to skin contact, from something very sensual.
02:03From something very bodily, right? So the ego is convinced of that dimension.
02:13In the sensory dimension, in the dimension of flesh, there indeed is pleasure and I can
02:21experientially verify that. It is in my history, I know of that. Nobody need to come and convince me.
02:30Since the moment of my birth, I have derived pleasure from all the sensory things.
02:38The mother wants to put the baby to sleep. She need not tell the baby stories from Upanishads.
02:51She has to just hum some meaningless tune and pat the baby a little.
02:59And it sleeps off. So there is pleasure and that pleasure is not coming from any
03:06higher domain. That pleasure is coming from something very basal. So the ego is convinced.
03:15Now the Bhagavad Gita comes into the picture and someone says,
03:21well there is higher pleasure in the Gita. Why must the ego believe that?
03:26The ego has derived pleasure only from food, from the bed, you can have a comfortable sleep,
03:35or from sex, or from other things like snatching something away from somebody.
03:42There is pleasure there. The ego knows all of that. And now suddenly you are saying,
03:47no, no, no, you go to the Bhagavad Gita and there is higher pleasure there.
03:51Why should the ego believe you? So the ego needs to be given a taste.
03:58And that's a difficult thing to do because the ego already knows where to get its dose of pleasure
04:04from. So how to lure the ego away from that place? Something has to be done, some trick,
04:11some method, sometimes a little force has to be applied.
04:19Something has to be done. That's why the world of religion has been so colorful, you see.
04:26Do you see how colorful our religious practices are? Do you see how religious festivals have
04:31been designed to offer you pleasure even to the kids? Throw colors on someone.
04:38Now the festival is arising from a spiritual core, but care has been taken to add an element
04:46of very normal pleasure to it so that the normal public can be attracted.
04:52No, you come, you come, you come. And as you come closer, you find that now the spiritual core
05:00starts beckoning. So some trick has to be used, something has to be done.
05:06Somehow the mind has to be brought close to Vedanta. And once the mind has sufficient proof
05:15that pleasure need not necessarily come from all the lowly things only,
05:20it can come from a higher place too, then it becomes easier for the mind to make a better
05:26choice. Well, you see, there is pleasure in envy, greed, whatever, anger, lust, but there is pleasure
05:37in solitude. There is pleasure in reading something sublime.
05:43There is pleasure in singing the couplets of saints. Why not go for that pleasure?
05:52The ego is a calculator, you see. It calculates. It is very animalistic and it is very calculative.
06:03If you can display clearly to the ego that a higher quantum, a bigger dollop of pleasure
06:15awaits at a higher point, then it will be possible for the ego to rise higher.
06:24Otherwise, you can keep ceremoning. You can keep lecturing. The first experience, that first
06:32glimpse has to be given. Sometimes that glimpse comes not by way of a book. That glimpse sometimes
06:40initially comes in the form of a person. A person stands in front of you and that person is a living
06:48proof of spiritual joy or spiritual power. And then you say, well, well, well, there is something
07:00important. There is something rather magnetic in the personality of this person.
07:05How do I refute his fact?
07:09When Gautam Buddha was to deliver his first sermon, he started looking for listeners. There was nobody
07:20to listen to him. So he thought, to whom should I speak? He thought of one person
07:28and started looking for him. It came out that the person had already died. Then he thought of
07:35another person. He too had already died. The Buddha had been searching for more than a decade
07:42and in that period people had expired. And then he thought of the five chaps who had abandoned him
07:51when he was rejecting the path of severe austerity, Kayaklesh. So he said, why not
08:00go to these people? And they were my good friends and they were good listeners. Just that they got
08:08very angry with me because I rejected the doctrine of senseless austerity. So again he tried to
08:17somehow locate them and found them and he went to them. And when he was approaching them,
08:23they saw him coming and they were angry with him because he had refuted their doctrine.
08:31So they thought among themselves, when he comes to us, we will not offer him any respect.
08:37We will not even talk to him. It is considered courteous to take the other's belongings
08:49when he approaches. When a senior one approaches, then you go and you take his luggage as we still
08:54do in India, don't we? So they said to each other, when he comes close, we will not offer
09:02to take the luggage or whatever stuff he is carrying. We will be very obviously disrespectful
09:10to him. We want to make a point loud and clear. But literature says that as the Buddha approached them,
09:22they forgot all that they had planned.
09:25It was the sheer weight of his personality that made them bow down.
09:36And they bowed down to him and they offered him a decent place to sit.
09:41And he sat there and they had nothing else to ask.
09:47You know what was the first question they asked? What did you do sir after we left you?
09:56That's the childlike simplicity that an awakened personality can induce in you.
10:04It was induced simplicity.
10:09So there has to be a proof. Now those five got a proof. They said just by looking at this man,
10:16it becomes obvious that there is something of the truth within him.
10:21So now they opened up to listen to him. They said, please tell us. Please tell us.
10:27We want to listen to you. And he preached to them and it was the first sermon.
10:36So it's a long drawn statement I have made. But the point is, the short and simple point is,
10:44short and simple point is, convince the ego of some higher happiness.
10:53And then you will find that the lower things do not remain relatively that attractive. Relatively.
11:04To the body, the attraction of all the sensory things will remain because that's the way the
11:10body is configured. But something else, something higher in comparison will open up.
11:20And therefore you will lean towards the higher thing.
11:28And sir, one small doubt was there. Can you give some examples of what are those highest things
11:37which we can remember at that time?
11:41See, there are
11:46pleasures that come from the world and there are pleasures that come from the truth.
11:57You sing a beautiful couplet, very insightful couplet.
12:03Insightful, yet very simply put.
12:10And there is a deep pleasure there. It's not as if there is pleasure only in making merry,
12:19eating and frolicking and such things.
12:25There definitely is pleasure in all those things and those pleasures we share with the animal kingdom.
12:33But there are pleasures exclusive to our species. Pleasures that only we can enjoy.
12:42So when you, for example, are witnessing the conversation between Krishna and Arjun,
12:50there is a deep, subtle joy there. The joy of understanding what is going on. The joy of
12:58seeing how Arjun's condition resonates with yours and how Krishna is able to very simply
13:10and yet very tactfully communicate to Arjun who he is and therefore what he must do.
13:18This understanding is something very unique to human beings and in this understanding,
13:26there is that higher pleasure called joy. So, look at the world, look at your condition.
13:35The internal training must be to try to understand and you understand when you are not lost,
13:45when you are not lost, when you have the intention to know and that is called attention.
13:52The intention to know, attention. And then you do not need
14:02those little filthy pleasures. Equally, those little pleasures actually now become little to you.
14:11Therefore, you do not despise them either because you cannot despise something so small
14:18and then things are put in their place. It's not as if you started a question by talking of lust.
14:25It's not as if you read the Bhagavad Gita and you will totally abstain from sex.
14:35That does not happen and that is not supposed to happen.
14:40It's just that the thing is put in its right place.
14:46The thing is put in its right place. By the way, that was also the content of the Buddha's first sermon.
14:55He told those five, you know, obviously the ones who are living lives of relentless consumption
15:04are idiots. But look at you five, you have chosen the path of starvation. You have said we want to
15:16simply kill the body through starvation. Now even this is not proper.
15:22Everything has to be put in its right place. Those who are appeasing the body all the time
15:27are body-minded. You too are body-minded because you are hurting the body all the time.
15:35Are you getting me? So when you know of the higher thing, then everything else falls in its proper place.
15:45And that's the yardstick of your humanness, the depth of your understanding
15:55in which there is deep joy.
15:56Okay. Yeah.