Talk later of the Truth, first rebel against the false || Acharya Prashant, on Katha Upanishad (2019)

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?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl... ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information:  Shabdyog session, 24.07.2019, Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India   Context:  What is the real price of fearlessness? Why is wanting security an impediment for freedom? How to realize the Truth? Why do we support wrong when we know the truth? How to rebel against lies?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Parameshwari is asking, Dear Acharyaji, Pranam.

00:14In Kathopanishad, the young boy in Echiketa attained the highest wisdom and immortality

00:21by the virtue of dispassion and the firm resolve to know the truth.

00:27Unless I resolve to know the self, there is no other way, it seems.

00:32Jayaji, kindly speak on the virtues of determination and dispassion Echiketa had.

00:38Thank you very much.

00:39Love and gratitude.

00:40Parameshwari.

00:41Yes, obviously, Echiketa had determination and dispassion, but do not think of that as

01:08merely the stuff this boy exhibited in front of the death god.

01:24It is common for readers to say that Echiketa's fearlessness and glory lie in standing unperturbed

01:40in front of death.

01:46Not quite so.

02:02The story of Echiketa is more flesh and blood.

02:06Story of Echiketa is more like our own story.

02:16And if it is more like our own story, then we have to keep the encounter with death god

02:26aside for a while and look at the more mortal aspects of Echiketa's story.

02:39Echiketa is a mere boy dependent on his father and he has the honesty and the guts to go

02:55to his father and say, of what use is all this that you are doing?

03:04Who will benefit from these old and sick and milkless cows?

03:21I assure you, Parameshwari, that was more difficult than facing Yamaraj.

03:34We glorify Echiketa's encounter with Yamaraj and that keeps things safe for us.

03:46Glory to Echiketa who stood unflinching in front of Yamaraj.

03:52Nice, because we very well know that this encounter is a myth.

03:59We very well know that we will never have the occasion in our own life to stand face

04:06to face with the death god.

04:11At least not in the way the Upanishad narrates.

04:17We all will die, in that sense we all will face the death god one day.

04:23But not in the way Echiketa faced, not in the way of having a conversation in words

04:33and sentences.

04:37So nice and safe.

04:40Say glory to the one who can stand unflinching, unflappable in front of Yamaraj.

04:52I will put it differently, Parameshwari, I will say glory to the one who is dependent

05:03on somebody close to him and yet has the guts to utter the truth and the guts to leave

05:16his home.

05:17That's where Echiketa's glory really lies.

05:26Yamaraj is fictitious.

05:29What danger is there in facing fiction?

05:33Echiketa's father is not fictitious.

05:38There is great danger in facing someone real, especially when you are dependent on that

05:44real person.

05:55And at first father, who is an influential person, keeps dismissing the boy away.

06:13But Echiketa keeps pestering him.

06:21Immediately annoyed by the boy's pesky behaviour, the father says, I am giving you away to death.

06:34Obviously the father is just uttering some nonsense in a moment of rage.

06:46The boy has been annoying him.

06:52The boy has been questioning his moral authority.

06:56The father does not really want to put away the boy.

07:01The father just wants the boy to leave him alone and not irritate him.

07:09After all it's a big ceremony that is going on, thousands of cows are being given to Brahmins.

07:18The father is busy overseeing the arrangement and the boy is chasing him.

07:26And the boy is saying, father, hold, what the hell is going on?

07:31These are useless cows, you are donating them.

07:34What is the worth of such a donation?

07:39Father is saying, stay away.

07:44Can you visualize all this?

07:45Oh, the Kathopanishad does not explicitly tell of all this.

07:50That which I am narrating consists of a lot of my own construction.

07:59But this is how it would have happened.

08:04He is barely a teenager and he is chasing the father, father, what really is going on.

08:13Look at that cow, look, look, father, look, half dead.

08:24So the father says, you keep shut.

08:30The boy does not relent.

08:33Finally the father says, I am giving you away to God, Death God.

08:44And now comes the moment of glory, real glory, Vaisakheta says, fine, if you are giving me

08:50away to Death God, then here I go away to death.

08:57Parneshwari, that's dispassion, that's determination.

09:07After that, what happens is smooth and natural.

09:14Vaisakheta has already cleared the big test.

09:21Facing Yamraj is the smaller test.

09:23Having cleared the big test, obviously he'll emerge with flying colors in the smaller one.

09:31The big test is to leave the home.

09:36The big test is to give up all dependency.

09:41And after that, obviously, you will be blessed with the truth.

09:48And look at Vaisakheta, the first thing he asks Yamraj is, let my father be alright.

10:01Please bless my father.

10:04Please don't let him stay angry.

10:12His father has done the unthinkable and Vaisakheta still has no bitterness.

10:23He says, God, first of all, you bless my father.

10:31About truth, he asks right in the end.

10:34That's his final query.

10:35What does he ask?

10:38Tell me that by which immortality is achieved.

10:44What really is immortality?

10:47He doesn't directly ask about death.

10:49He asks about immortality.

10:54And Yamraj says, boy, you can have expensive toys if you want.

11:05You can have the best of foods if you want, the latest gadgets if you so please, a brand

11:18new car for you, along with the driving license, it doesn't matter if you are underage, I am

11:24the death God, you see.

11:29All that Nishiketa could be tempted with was tried.

11:34It failed on him.

11:36Parameswari, that's the test.

11:39All the knowledge that you find in the Upanishad is easy to get.

11:46Once you have overcome dependency, once you have stayed true to yourself, once you have

12:03won over the craving for security, stability, the confines of a comfortable palace, the

12:24comfort of a regular routine, once you have been able to go beyond all this, then the

12:37truth is obvious.

12:39That is not at all difficult.

12:42All the great and golden verses that you come across in the Kathopanishad, they will spring

12:52up right from your heart.

12:54They will not be distant or difficult anymore.

13:02You get this.

13:03Those verses are the easiest part.

13:07You start hearing those verses right in your breath, they are the easiest part.

13:11The more difficult part is right in the beginning.

13:16The more difficult part is when you ask your father for the truth, knowing fully well that

13:23he is not in the truth, you say, nothing doing, daddy what is going on?

13:30Daddy says, kid you very well know who provides your pocket money and kiddo says doesn't matter

13:39papa, I am prepared to give up the pocket money, I am prepared to give up the comforts,

13:50but tell me what is all this cow business?

14:03The trouble with most of us Parameswari is that we do not cross the first hurdle.

14:27The death god did not chase Naciketa, Yamraj didn't penetrate into Naciketa's home, his palace.

14:46Naciketa had to take the decision to go beyond the confines and comforts of his home and

14:56then was born in Upanishad.

14:59To me the Upanishad was seeded in the moment Naciketa accosts his father.

15:18Even as Naciketa is leaving the palace, I can see the father calling behind him, son

15:27I was just joking, what the hell are you doing?

15:32I didn't mean it, Naciketa is saying, it's done, deal closed.

15:44Yours is not a palace of honesty, yours is not a palace where I'll be able to break free

15:53and stay free of the falls, I am quitting it.

16:01The father would have initially thought that the son is just kidding, kid's kid, but then

16:12he sees that he is actually walking away and now the father is trembling, the father

16:23is going behind the son and saying, kiddo you can have anything that you want, you want

16:31me to stop this ceremony, I'll stop it.

16:34Where are you going away?

16:36What will you do?

16:37What will you live on?

16:39You have no experience, you have no knowledge, what's worse you have no money.

16:48Naciketa is saying, I am going.

16:54Father says, alright, the sun is setting, stay over for the night, you can leave tomorrow

17:02morning.

17:03What is he hoping?

17:06The mood will change overnight, Naciketa says no, not one breath more in this place, not

17:13that I hate this place papa, I still love you, but I have to chart my own course, if

17:22I keep living on your bread, freedom is not for me.

17:34That's the Upanishad parameshwari, not the dialogue between Yama and Naciketa.

17:40That's how Katha Upanishad is usually presented.

17:44They say Katha Upanishad is the dialogue between Yama and Naciketa, no, Katha Upanishad is

17:53the dialogue between Naciketa and his father.

17:59After that, the dialogue that ensues, I say is natural.

18:08It will happen because the bigger hurdle has been crossed.

18:14So the next thing will happen.

18:16First things first, but the world does not want to put emphasis where it is really due.

18:27Emphasis has to be put on the first few verses of the Upanishad.

18:37Emphasis has to be put on the opening scene, that's where the Upanishad is really contained.

18:43Here is someone who in spite of his raw age, inexperience and dependency and emotional

18:57attachment is still not prepared to come to a truth with the false.

19:13Once he has known that he will not get the truth where he is, he just crosses over.

19:23Crossing over, he meets death.

19:26It's symbolic.

19:27Do you understand this?

19:29That which we call as life, we have defined it as being within the four walls of our house.

19:35We say, I live in my house.

19:39Don't we say that?

19:42So where is life?

19:45In the safety of the house.

19:47So outside the house is death.

19:51That's what Yamaraja represents.

19:53The discomfort, the insecurity that a dependent one encounters outside his house.

20:05No Yamaraja factually exists.

20:09Nachiketa is a fact, a boy in flesh and blood.

20:15In the sense Nachiketa is a fact, Yamaraja is not a fact.

20:20No Yamaraja came to Nachiketa in flesh and blood.

20:25Yamaraja is a symbol.

20:27Symbol of what?

20:30Symbol of the insecurity that awaits you when you leave your house.

20:37Inside the house you say is life.

20:42The house you sometimes refer to as a living space, a space where you live.

20:48So outside the house is death for you, especially if you are weak and dependent.

20:57So outside is death.

20:58Oh my God, everything is unknown, strangers are there, who will feed me?

21:04What will happen to me?

21:07That is Yamaraja.

21:09That fear is Yamaraja.

21:11Nachiketa leaves his home and encounters that fear.

21:16That is his dialogue with Yamaraja.

21:19Are you getting it?

21:23Anybody who is truthful will have to cross over.

21:27Once you cross over, obviously you will meet the one on the buffalo.

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