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00:00What is Prakriti?
00:11Prakriti is the freedom of Brahm.
00:24Brahm, being absolutely free, is free even to express itself in a dualistic way.
00:52Brahm, being absolutely free, enjoys the freedom to even express itself in an unfree
01:11way.
01:14It's a part of the freedom of Brahm.
01:21Brahm is obviously non-dual.
01:27Prakriti is another name for duality.
01:31Prakriti carries two ends.
01:42At one end is the perceiver, and at the other end is the perceived environment or objects
01:59or the world or the universe, whatever you may call it.
02:06That's Prakriti.
02:12So the knower of Prakriti is actually inside Prakriti.
02:28Brahm is not even a knower.
02:36Knowledge in Prakritic terms is dualistic because it requires an object to be known.
02:48Brahm, being non-dual, obviously can have no object to look at, perceive or know.
03:04In Prakriti, there continues an unending game of the seer and the seen, the experiencer
03:18and the experienced, the attracted one and the object of attraction, the knower and the
03:37known.
03:44All this game is within Prakriti.
03:56At one end of this game sits the I.
04:10At the other end of this game sits all that which makes it possible for the I to survive
04:24and exist and have a meaning.
04:30Without the other end, I will have no identity or at most it will have a fractured and untenable
04:45identity.
04:51The I that exists at one end of Prakriti says I am and no more.
05:03The other end provides name and meaning to the I am, the ego self.
05:24Why does the other end exist then?
05:28And mind you, when we usually use the term Prakriti, we talk of the second end only.
05:41When you say Prakriti, you talk of the entire universe but not the perceiver of the entire
05:47universe.
05:48You are looking at the mountain, the trees, the animals, the river.
06:01What do you call as Prakriti?
06:04The animals are Prakriti, that stream is Prakriti, the clouds are Prakriti, the hills are Prakriti.
06:11But generally you will not say that along with all these, I too am Prakriti, you too
06:22are Prakriti.
06:24The seer, the perceiver is very much within Prakriti.
06:32So why do all these perceived objects appear at all to the perceiver?
06:39What is happening within Prakriti?
06:44There is I and there are things, the world, the universe.
06:58Why does the Prakritic world exist to this I?
07:07The Prakritic world exists to this I for the sake of its enjoyment and liberation.
07:27And these are not two different things really.
07:31If you can understand this, you will know the purpose of life, you will know how to
07:36live, you will know how to relate with everything around you including your body, your mind,
07:43your thoughts, your own self.
07:49All this exists not so that you get entangled with it.
07:55All this exists for the sake of your enjoyment and liberation.
08:01Remember, this is not the enjoyment of the pleasure kind.
08:11I am using the word enjoyment in a very precise sense.
08:22When I say enjoyment, I mean the capacity to bring you to joy.
08:34How else will this little fractured ego self come to joy?
08:42Because it is not in joy at all.
08:53It is shivering, it is suffering.
08:59Do you see it squirming as you do every day?
09:08What else will bring you to joy?
09:16This universe.
09:19This universe should bring you to a joy that liberates you from the universe.
09:27So I said enjoyment and liberation.
09:32This universe should bring you to a joy that liberates you from the universe.
09:38But that can happen only if this ego self applies that which the verse talks of, intellect.
09:53The purpose of intellect is not the enhancement of the ego self.
09:57The purpose of intellect is to wisely find out what is it that will bring to you the
10:05kind of joy that leads to liberation.
10:11That's why the ego self is intellectual.
10:28Given that you have a consciousness that suffers, you also have an intellect that can
10:41be used as a tool to be redeemed from suffering.
10:45Prakriti carries both.
10:51You cannot complain.
10:55You have been given both an adverse condition in which you are locked up in some kind of
11:16confounding prison.
11:20Equally, you have been gifted a key to unlock the doors, a map to find your way out of the
11:45prison.
11:46And that is called intellect.
11:49That is called discretion.
11:51The key, the map.
11:55Still, you must have the intention to break free of the prison.
12:07If that intention is not there, the key and the map will remain either unused or misused.
12:14Is that not the condition of the bulk of mankind?
12:20The intellect is either unused, people don't apply their brains, or it is misused.
12:30Very very sharp minds dedicated towards just the wrong values, the wrong spaces, the wrong
12:42objectives.
12:52So that's the model that the Upanishad is presenting us.
12:58There is this variegated universe consisting of all kinds of things.
13:08And numbing diversity.
13:13A formidable challenge.
13:16Here you are seeking redemption, you are not feeling alright, you want some treatment,
13:23you want to go out, but you have been put in a very difficult place.
13:33That's half the story.
13:36The other half is, you have been gifted intellect.
13:41That's the Prakriti story for you.
13:44Objects and intellect.
13:47Things and things and things.
13:48People and people and people.
13:51Options and options and choices and choices.
13:55You could do this, you could do that, you could go that way, you could go that way.
13:59You could drop this, you could pick that.
14:03That's Prakriti for you.
14:08And how do you make these choices?
14:11You have intellect.
14:15You have intellect.
14:16That's Prakriti.
14:17Are you getting it?
14:21So it's almost as if Brahm is playing a game with himself.
14:26Brahm is saying, let me create obstacles for myself.
14:31You see, I have nobody else to play with.
14:33I am alone.
14:36I alone am.
14:40So I create obstacles for myself.
14:45And then I give myself a few tools to overcome those obstacles.
14:52Now let me see whether I can overcome the obstacles I raised.
14:58Like chess players playing against themselves, they often do.
15:02Like tennis players practicing against a wall and keeping the score as well.
15:10You can do that, can't you?
15:18You can have, as a cricketer, a bowling machine throw the balls at you and you are the one
15:27who sets the program.
15:31You tell the machine the pace to bowl at.
15:35You are the one who determines the pitch.
15:39You are the one who is setting everything.
15:42And yet you might be the one who gets a nasty one on the chin.
15:49How did this happen to you?
15:53Did somebody else do it to you?
15:55No.
15:56That's our situation.
16:00You are the one who's carrying the bat as well.
16:05You are the one who must apply his attention as well.
16:15If you are the one who set the machine to bowl at 140, you must be the one to be very
16:25very attentive against that little red missile coming at you, else you get it right on the
16:37cheek or the chin and you have no God to blame.
16:45Please.
16:48Brahm is playing a game against himself.
16:53That's our situation.
16:57Who wins, who loses?
17:00Nobody can lose.
17:03There's only the one.
17:06If he loses, he wins.
17:09He's playing against himself.
17:15Sometimes it's a part of his freedom to let one part win.
17:23Sometimes it's a part of his freedom to let the other part win.
17:29Paraprakriti can win a few times.
17:35Aparaprakriti can win a few times.
17:41What is paraprakriti?
17:42The ego self.
17:44What is aparaprakriti?
17:46All these objects, you know, the bowling machine.
17:53The batsman is paraprakriti.
17:56The bowling machine is aparaprakriti.
17:59Both are expressions of Brahm's innate freedom.
18:06If you hit the ball for a six, who wins?
18:11Brahm wins.
18:12If you get bowled out, middle stump uprooted, who wins?
18:17Brahm wins.
18:19Brahm bowls, Brahm bats.
18:21There is nobody else.
18:26Getting it?
18:30Who are you?
18:33It depends on your freedom, what you decide.
18:35You are nobody.
18:37You are absolutely everybody.
18:41It's your call.
18:46You can decide to be the worst loser.
18:51No problem.
18:53And you can decide to be instantaneously liberated.
18:58That will happen.
19:02There is no compulsion.
19:04There is no bondage.
19:06There is only you and you.
19:07It's all happening as per your will.
19:21You are playing against yourself and you are the one keeping the score.
19:25How can you lose?
19:28How can you even win?
19:30Therefore, spirituality keeps on telling you both these things.
19:35When you get a little too boasted and inflated and stiff, then to your boastful self, spirituality
19:47says, come on, go down, be humble, prostrate, surrender your ego.
19:54Have you not heard that?
19:57The fact is that you cannot win.
20:00Why do you pretend to be a winner?
20:05But you are strutting around like that conceited chicken.
20:13Have you seen those chicks?
20:19In such vanity they walk, especially if they have grown a little adult.
20:29The crown and all, you know.
20:34That's how the normal human being walks about.
20:37Especially after an event of some worldly success, then spirituality teaches humility
20:47and surrender.
20:49Please surrender.
20:53Equally spirituality says, you are that.
20:59You are nothing less than the absolute truth.
21:08How can you be smaller than anything or anybody when you are immeasurable?
21:17How can you be smaller than anything or anybody when you are immeasurable?
21:22Now how do you put these two things together?
21:25Sometimes they are telling you, there is nobody smaller than you, lie down, just lie down
21:34and keep lying, disappear, dissolve, you are such a fool.
21:39That is being said to you when you are all puffed up.
21:48Because you cannot win this game, remember, you are playing against yourself.
21:52How come you are pretending that you are a winner?
21:55If you pretend that you are a winner, then you have not understood the game.
22:01Equally you cannot lose the game because you are playing against yourself.
22:04So when you pretend to be a loser, then again spirituality chastens you.
22:11What are you doing?
22:13How come you are looking so sullen?
22:17How come you are so disappointed and depressed?
22:21How come defeat is marked on your face?
22:26This can't happen to you, don't be mistaken.
22:32When spirituality tells you, you can't be defeated, don't take it to mean that you are
22:39a winner and when spirituality tells you that you cannot be a winner, don't take it to
22:47mean that you must act as a loser, what is being told to you is that your true reality
22:56is beyond victory and defeat.
22:58You can neither win nor lose, there is only you, there is nobody else to be beaten or
23:08to be beaten by.
23:29Do you see what prakriti is?
23:31Do you see where you stand in prakriti?
23:45You stand at the centre of all this.
23:49See that, see that right now.
23:57All this exists actually so that you can play with it in a wise way and ultimately call
24:10it a day and be liberated of the play.
24:21You see this, none of it exists to harass or exploit you, equally none of this exists
24:31to inflate you or build you up.
24:39It's a game.
24:43It exists for the sake of your enjoyment.
24:52It's another matter that most of us suffer unspeakably in this game.
25:02Why?
25:04Because we do not apply our intellect.
25:10Mind you, intellect is lame without intention.
25:17You may have great intellect, but if the intention to use the key and map is not there, then
25:28you will never be liberated.
25:32So who deserves to be really called an intellectual?
25:40The one who uses his intellect for the sole purpose of liberation.
25:47He is the only one deserving to be named an intellectual.
25:55Otherwise everybody has intellect.
26:01If you are using your purpose, your intellect for a purpose, any purpose other than liberation,
26:09then you are not intellectual.
26:13So most of these people who walk about carrying the tag of intellectuals are actually not
26:25intellectual at all.
26:29Because they use their intellect mostly just to enhance their ego, not to be liberated
26:40of their current state.
26:44And that is not an intellectual motive at all.
26:50It does not behoove an intellectual to use his intellect to enhance his ego, to dominate
26:58others, to prove a point, to further an ideology, to brandish his credentials, or to attain
27:10worldly accomplishments.
27:14None of this is intellectual.
27:26Do you realize where you have come?
27:28Who is a real intellectual then?
27:32The authors of these verses, they are the real intellectuals.
27:36The saints are intellectuals.
27:40Not most of these professors in these universities, no, they are not.
28:00If the rider knows where he must go, then the intellect is like a galloping horse.
28:15A galloping horse obeying the commands of the rider.
28:27Double pleasure.
28:29First of all, the horse is great, tall, muscular, speedy, swift as wind.
28:38And to top it, it obeys you to perfection.
28:50You don't even have to whip it.
28:52Just indicate and it will move accordingly.
28:57If you know where you want to go, then intellect is like this horse.
29:03Else, intellect is like a stubborn ass.
29:12First of all, it's an ass, secondly, it's stubborn.
29:20It won't move easily because it's stubborn.
29:24And even if it moves, it will move like an ass.
29:29Think of the speed.
29:31Think of the greatly rhythmic movement.
29:35And you can't blame the animal.
29:39You determine the animal.
29:44If the intention is right, the intellect is horse.
29:46If the intention is not right, the intellect is an ass.
30:00So, what are we here for?
30:17We are not here to suffer.
30:20Equally, we are not here to have pleasure.
30:26We are here neither to suffer nor to have pleasure.
30:33Neither suffering nor happiness are the objective.
30:39None of these is the reason why we are here.
30:44We are here to play the game wisely, which is enjoyment.
30:50And if we play the game wisely, the reward is liberation.
30:55That's the purpose of human life.