Knowing Vidya and Avidya together || Acharya Prashant, on Isha 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 Satsang, Month Of Awakening  24th July, 2019  Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida   Context:  What is the significance of Vidya in our lives?  What is the role of Avidya in our everyday errands?  How do these two flow in our lives?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

00:00The Isha Upanishad, verse 8, He the self-existent one is everywhere, the pure one without a

00:16subtle body, without blemish, without muscles, holy and without the taint of sin, the all-seeing,

00:26all-knowing, the all-encompassing one is He. He has duly assigned their respective duties

00:32to the eternal Prajapatis, cosmic powers. Acharya ji, can you please explain what is

00:38meant by the Atman duly assigning duties to the Prajapatis? What are these Prajapatis?

00:44Do we need to worship them? Thank you Acharya ji. Prajapatis are just the forces of Prakriti,

00:52nothing else. What is being implied here is Prakriti works as per the dictates of Atma.

01:04So, all the forces of physical nature that you see around you, the Upanishad is saying they

01:18operate as per the law set by God. He has assigned their respective duties to the air,

01:32water, sun, moon, earth, body, fire. The Upanishad is saying He has told the sun to keep providing

01:47warmth and brightness. He has told the earth to hold and support you. He has told the soil to

01:58bring up food for you. He has told the trees to bear nice fruits. That is all that is being said.

02:10Do we need to worship them? Knowing them is enough. If you know Prakriti,

02:26you cannot be violent towards her. It's a strange thing, Devati, but you must understand it. The

02:33more identified you are with Prakriti, the more violent you would be towards her. The body is

02:51Prakriti. For example, if you are very very body conscious, very body identified, then for the

02:59sake of the body you will not hesitate in bringing down a tree or cutting down an animal. Now because

03:11you are body identified, so you can wipe off an entire jungle. Because you are body identified,

03:20so you can consume away an entire species. The more you take yourself as Prakriti,

03:30the more you will consume and devastate her. The only way to therefore help Prakriti is to

03:44stay clear of her. Who is the one who will be able to help Prakriti? The one who does not take

03:54himself as Prakriti. Abhilash from Chennai, quoting from the Isha Upanishad, verse 9 to 11.

04:06Those who worship Avidya go to pitch darkness, but to a greater darkness than this go those who

04:16are devoted to Vidya. Different indeed they say is the result attained by Vidya and different indeed

04:25they say is the result attained by Avidya. Thus we have heard from the wise who had explained it

04:31to us. He who knows both Vidya and Avidya together transcends morality, transcends

04:39mortality through Avidya and reaches immortality through Vidya. Pranam Acharyaji, in these verses

04:56are indicating that one should know both Vidya and Avidya together. Worshipping one without the

05:04other will lead us to darkness. While reading these verses, I am considering Avidya as worldly

05:11knowledge and Vidya as understanding of real self. I have a 6 years old kid who is going to school

05:20and spending most of his day in school. The entire school environment focuses on worldly

05:26knowledge. They teach social science, maths etc. They also consciously or unconsciously teach kids

05:34to compare themselves with others, compete, go after rewards, fear punishments etc. At home,

05:41we encourage the kid to question everything, not to compare or compete with other kids,

05:46not to be afraid to express himself. But for a child who spends most of his day throughout his

05:52childhood in such a school environment, I feel in the process of giving worldly knowledge to him,

05:58he will lose touch with his true self and become materialistic. Acharyaji, please help me

06:05understand what should be my approach towards such young kids while exposing them to the worldly

06:10knowledge. I can't introduce scriptures to him at such a young age. How do we ensure Vidya and

06:16Avidya go together right from childhood. With loving gratitude, Abhilash from Chennai. First

06:24of all, Abhilash, Vidya is not the understanding of the real self. Vidya is the understanding of

06:31the false self. The real self is not available to be understood. The real self transcends all

06:44understanding. It is the solvent. You disappear into it. Now, you are asking,

07:07the school environment is focusing on Avidya and also conditioning the kid to compete,

07:18compare, go for rewards, be afraid of punishment, etc. So, that's what the school is doing. That

07:35surely is Avidya. What is Vidya then? Vidya is to take the kid inwards. Ask the kid to describe

07:48what happens to him when he is threatened or what happens to him when he is tempted. Vidya is about

07:59knowing who you are and that does not mean knowing Brahm or Atma. They are Agye, they are Aprame,

08:10they are beyond mental faculties and that is the reason why Vidya and Avidya must go together.

08:25It's a basic necessity. Avidya means understanding the world, Vidya means understanding yourself.

08:34Even if you want to have deep Avidya, you will need Vidya because you cannot know the world

08:42beyond a point without knowing yourself. Spiritual seekers face that hurdle, even contemporary

08:52physics is facing that hurdle. The last problem it appears in front of physics is the problem of

09:02consciousness. Physics has come to a point where it cannot proceed any further without going into

09:12what consciousness is. So, even to know the world, you have to know yourself. Avidya and Vidya must

09:22go together. The world will tempt and threaten and allure and you have to ask yourself what

09:37happens to you when the world allures you or frightens you. You don't have to teach scriptures

09:43to the kid, not needed. You just ask the kid to describe himself. Just ask the kid to know what

09:53is happening in his mind and that's easy, is it not? So, how did you feel when the teacher said,

10:02very good. So, how did you feel when the teacher said, I'll throw you out of the class if you are

10:08caught gossiping once again. How did you feel? What happened in the mind? How did the body react?

10:17Did it stay with you? So, yesterday the teacher had scolded you. How did that impact your

10:28relationship with the teacher today? These are the questions that you must ask the kid. This is Vidya.

10:33So, which teacher do you like the most? Why? Who is your best friend? Who is the one you avoid? Why?

10:49What do your choices tell about you? It's an easy thing to ask and it becomes a great adventure. The

11:02kid starts loving it. You can actually train the kid to be a lover of Vidya. Just as kids love to

11:14describe how the world is going about them, you can educate the kid to love to describe what is

11:24happening inside him. That is Vidya. It's fun and Vidya doesn't have to wait for a right age. If the

11:46kid is old enough to absorb Vidya, he is old enough to begin exploring Vidya. Vidya and Vidya

12:02have to go together. That is why the Upanishad said so beautifully, he who knows Vidya and Vidya

12:09together transcends mortality through Avidya and reaches immortality through Vidya. What does that

12:23mean? Transcends mortality through Avidya and reaches immortality through Vidya. There are two

12:30deaths. There is the physical death and then there is the death of the ego. If you know the world,

12:43it will help you avoid physical death. If you do not know the world, you will quite likely and

12:51literally die young. The average age expectancy, the life expectancy used to be no more than 25 or

13:1035 till a century back. Why? Because man did not quite clearly know the world. We did not know how

13:25the pathogens operate. We did not have depth in our medicine. So the mortality rates were high.

13:36To overcome physical mortality, you must know the world. You must know how Prakriti operates,

13:47how the physical elements operate, what the bacteria are, which chemicals would act upon

14:02a certain virus. These are the things you must know. And to transcend inner death, you must have

14:14Vidya. What is inner death? Inner death is when the ego does not get what it is really looking for.

14:31You have heard some wise man say that, there are so many, I think it was Voltaire, that most people

14:47die at the age of 25 but keep walking till 75. The inner death has already happened. You need

15:05Vidya to avoid the inner death. You need Avidya to avoid the outer death. You need both to avoid

15:17death altogether. If you won't have Vidya, what you will have is a healthy and strong body but no

15:28life within. No joy within, no love, no beauty, no compassion, no love. Outwardly, you will be

15:39quite stout. All the physical indicators of health would be alright. Blood pressure alright,

15:47liver alright, kidney alright, heart alright, everything alright, still you would be lifeless.

15:53To have real life, Vidya is needed so that you can be internally lively.

16:03This post-modern world is in the danger of being greatly healthy from the outside but being totally

16:18dead inside because it has a lot of Avidya but very little Vidya. It is a strange thing. We think

16:34a lot of Avidya can help us without realizing that these two always go together. And if they

16:46are not going together, then we will have walking corpses.

Category

Transcript

Recommended