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Video Information: 31.12.20, Shastra Kaumudi, Greater Noida, U.P
Context:
What is knowledge?
What is devotion?
Which path is better: Knowledge or devotion?
How true knowledge brings light to the life?
What is real knowledge? And how will it be useful to us?
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?...
📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: 31.12.20, Shastra Kaumudi, Greater Noida, U.P
Context:
What is knowledge?
What is devotion?
Which path is better: Knowledge or devotion?
How true knowledge brings light to the life?
What is real knowledge? And how will it be useful to us?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00These two kinds of knowledge and all the Vedas and Chand, and Rukta, and Jyotish, and Vyakarana,
00:18they form part of lower knowledge which is a Vidya or a Paravidya.
00:30Then there is Vidya or Paravidya.
00:42Its characteristic is that it leads to Akshar, that which is indestructible.
00:53Real Vidya leads you to that which is immortal, timeless, indestructible, Akshar.
01:04Akshar means prone to destruction.
01:09Akshar means that which time cannot destroy.
01:16Well, those were the days, you know, the king needed to be told of only these two levels
01:30of knowledge.
01:32Times have changed.
01:33We need to talk of a third level which is below, way below a Vidya.
01:43Most of us are well-versed only in that kind of knowledge.
01:55That is the knowledge that fills up the common mind.
02:01It is the knowledge that constitutes 99% of all that we know.
02:08Look at the contents of your mind.
02:11Are the contents coming from books of wisdom?
02:19You can read the Vedas as generally representing wisdom literature.
02:28So what is Angiras saying?
02:30Lower knowledge consists of wisdom literature and Jyotish and grammar and poetry and all
02:42these things.
02:43Getting it?
02:44So, all that is lower knowledge.
02:48Books of wisdom and astrology and grammar.
03:04But what proportion of the contents of our mind actually comes from books of wisdom?
03:14And as far as Vidya is concerned, it is in no way content of the mind.
03:27But the mind is indeed carrying content.
03:30Where is that content coming from?
03:34Vidya cannot be stored in the mind.
03:38Vidya is that which comes from worldly disciplines.
03:45You know, in those days, these were the worldly disciplines Kalpya, Karan, Niruk, Chand, Jyotish.
03:53Today you have other worldly disciplines as well.
03:58All the departments and stuff you have in the universities.
04:02Tell me how much of your mental content is coming either from books of wisdom or from
04:12things the universities teach you?
04:14What proportion?
04:15Give me a number, please.
04:20You keep thinking of a lot, right?
04:23And you say you know a lot.
04:25All this that you know of, how much of it is coming from books of wisdom or the university
04:34curriculum?
04:37How much of it?
04:385%?
04:39I might be exaggerating.
04:405%?
04:41Where does the remaining 95% come from?
04:50And therefore, I propose to have another layer of knowledge far below avidya.
05:00Most of the content of our mind is not even avidya.
05:04Vidya cannot be the content of mind and the content that we carry is not even avidya.
05:12It is something absolutely special.
05:16It comes from no university.
05:18It comes from no book of wisdom.
05:20It comes neither from contemplation nor from reflection.
05:28It comes from, you bet, it comes from the worst place possible.
05:42It comes from gossip.
05:45It comes from the TV screen, comes from the movies.
05:50It comes from all that we put into our head in the name of entertainment and culture.
06:03But such is the standard of this conversation, such is the sublime setting of this conversation
06:10that the Rishi need not talk of that third and bottom most level of knowledge.
06:19He is referring to only the two higher levels because he is talking to a very worthy candidate.
06:30For example, if I am sitting next to an accomplished driver, I tell him, please change the gear.
06:40I need not tell him, press the clutch first and then change the gear.
06:44All that I say to him is, change the gear.
06:48It is understood that he will know that if the gear is to be changed and the clutch pedal
06:53needs to be pushed first.
06:55A lot of things can be happily left unsaid when you are talking to a worthy listener.
07:06And that is the delight of the speaker when he is talking to a deserving audience.
07:11He need not say a lot of things, he can just take them as understood.
07:21Here the sage can rightly take as understood and discarded the bottom most level of knowledge.
07:34That is not even knowledge.
07:36But I am forced to call it knowledge because that's how we take it.
07:40We do take it as knowledge, don't we?
07:45All the nonsense that enters our mind from the various kinds of social and other influences,
07:52we don't really call it nonsense.
07:56We value it as knowledge.
08:00In fact, all our values are coming from all the wrong places.
08:07If the value system itself is coming from the wrong places, how will you value the right thing?
08:16Therefore you cannot even admonish somebody for not valuing the right thing.
08:24He is not getting it.
08:30If somebody's eyesight itself is weak, do you chide him for not walking straight?
08:46If a tailor has a wrongly calibrated measuring tape, what do you accuse him of?
08:58Wrong measurement?
09:01But he hasn't measured wrongly.
09:03His problem is that his measuring tape itself is wrongly calibrated.
09:09That's the utter danger with having a wrong value system.
09:18We do not know what is really valuable and all the wrong things have been fed to us as valuable.
09:30And to varying extents, each person has internalized those values.
09:35Therefore, things that have absolutely zero value, things that are absolutely rubbish,
09:42keep on occupying important places in our minds and therefore in our lives.
09:48Stuff that you would never value at all if you were not so heavily conditioned,
09:58comes to become the center of your life.
10:02And when you are asked, but why is this important?
10:08You have no answer. You just say, but it is.
10:12The moment somebody comes to a point in discussion where he is left with just this line,
10:24but that's how things happen, but that's how it is supposed to be.
10:29That's the way the world runs.
10:34You know that the fellow is heavily conditioned and doesn't even want to acknowledge that.
10:41He has no answer as to why such a thing must be important, why such a thing must be done.
10:47All that he can say is, but that's the way things run.
10:52That's the way things run.
10:57We belong to that level and therefore no Angiras would meet us.
11:07An Angiras meets only someone who first of all is worthy of being lectured in avidya at least.
11:27Most of us are not fit candidates even to receive avidya.
11:39Avidya is a big thing.
11:42Do you know what avidya comprises of? Repeat to yourself.
11:46All the wisdom literature and all the university curriculum, that's avidya.
11:53How many of us live by that?
11:58We don't.
12:05We live neither by science nor by mathematics nor by the literature.
12:15We read in our school and college books and obviously we don't live by the scriptures.
12:25All these have been clubbed together into one category.
12:30What the Rishis tell you and what the professors tell you has been bracketed into one and that is avidya.
12:40And we have listened neither to the Rishis nor to the professors.
12:49We have listened to radio jockeys and items only.
13:02We are forgetting Patiala Wale Tauji and YouTube influencers.
13:11How do we ignore them these days?
13:16These are the people who are our teachers.
13:21These are the people who sit at the driver's position in our minds.
13:36They run us.
13:39They drive us.
13:44As slave drivers.
13:54So even when you manage to rise above that trash, you come to avidya.
14:01Not to vidya but to avidya.
14:14All the worldly knowledge and all the knowledge in the scriptures.
14:18It's all avidya.
14:20And it's very very useful.
14:22Extremely useful.
14:24Avidya is not a negation of vidya.
14:27Avidya is just the lower level of knowledge.
14:32There are two kinds of vidyas you could say.
14:37Higher vidya which you call as paravidya.
14:40And the lower vidya which you call as aparavidya.
14:43In fact aparavidya puts it more clearly than avidya.
14:52When it is said avidya you feel as if it is the opposite of vidya.
14:55It's not the opposite of vidya.
14:58It's the lower kind of vidya.
15:02Lower kind of vidya.
15:08Your socks don't oppose your caps.
15:12Or do they?
15:14They complement your caps in winters.
15:18Right?
15:20Your socks complement your caps.
15:26And therefore the seers go on to say you need both avidya and vidya.
15:33Just as you need both socks and caps.
15:36This is lower, that is upper.
15:39But you need both.
15:41You need both.
15:43What you don't need is
15:45that ugly and shattered shoe called worldly knowledge.
16:03Below everything.
16:13Not worthy of being worn.
16:19Socks never hurt.
16:33Shoes do.
16:34Ever heard of socks that pinch?
16:43But at least in my times you used to have shoes that had things jutting out.
16:49They were not made properly either.
16:58Or they had grown too old and too used.
17:04And therefore if you wear them you actually run the risk of hurting your feet.
17:11Wear them and walk for long and you might actually find yourself bleeding in the feet.
17:19Throw that shoe away.
17:33Get it?
17:41It gives you nothing.
17:47It just makes you feel belonged to a huge mass of unworthy people.
17:59Huge mass of unworthy people linked together by their common center of knowledge.
18:13That's what makes them relate to each other.
18:17All of them have trash sitting at their mental centers.
18:23And therefore all feel a kinship to each other.
18:30Like in a railway compartment.
18:34You see how swiftly kinship grows?
18:36How does it grow?
18:40Two or three people are discussing some nonsense and three more will join in.
18:45And then probably three more.
18:48What connects them?
18:50What makes them relate to each other?
18:52Nonsense.
18:54And that's the benefit that nonsense gives you and that's why you remain steeped in nonsense.
18:59It helps you feel connected to a lot of people and therefore secure.
19:07He talks nonsense.
19:10He talks nonsense.
19:12He talks nonsense and therefore if I talk nonsense I'll belong to the family.
19:18Happy big family.
19:20Feels so warm and cozy.
19:22Whereas if you shed nonsense, the doors of this happy family are closed on you.
19:30And then there is insecurity.
19:33And then it requires courage and faith.
19:38Most people don't prefer that.
19:44Therefore the family of nonsense is huge.
19:48And the family of nonsense has a lot of members who know that nonsense is nonsense.
20:04And still don't dare to walk out.
20:09They are in the family not because they love nonsense but because they don't have the guts to walk out.
20:20So very unhappily they stay in the happy family.
20:31They know things for what they are at least partially.
20:36But they can't call out things by their real names.
20:44They feel the price is too steep to pay.
20:50So they say fine let's pretend that we too are a part of the nonsense.
21:00Let's engage in trivia.
21:06Just to keep others happy.
21:08And if others are kept happy, they'll not trouble us.
21:19At least they'll not throw us out of the trivia family.
21:29Are you getting it?
21:36The only problem with that trivia mention is that no sage, no Angiras would ever be found there.
21:53Yes, you will have hundreds of people in that mention.
21:56But you will never have a sage.
21:59So you can either choose the comfort and security of being with and belonging to a large number of people.
22:10Or you can choose truth and beauty where they lie.
22:21And they never lie within the trivia mention.
22:30Are you getting it?
22:38Spirituality is in a sense extremely elitist.
22:49Not for the swarming populations.
22:53Not because spirituality refuses them but because they refuse spirituality.
23:14Getting it?
23:17It is dangerous to even passively participate in nonsense.
23:29That you are not actively participating is no excuse.
23:37That you are only intermittently participating is no excuse.
23:47That you are just being worldly and diplomatic is no excuse.
23:58That you are with them just to tick the boxes is no excuse.
24:03Passive participation is not much better than active participation.
24:18In fact, in your passive participation now you are guilty of couragelessness as well.
24:33Those who are actively participating are at least being true to their convictions.
24:39They are doing what they think is right.
24:42They think trivia is right.
24:43So they are engaging in trivia.
24:47But if you are someone who knows somewhere the trivia needs to be abhorred and are still participating actively or passively.
25:00Then you are guilty of the worst kind of cowardice.
25:11And your punishment would therefore be far sterner than that of the active participant.
25:21You knew that you should not have been there and yet you were found there.
25:27You cannot be excused.
25:33You knew.
25:47You know all these active participants.
25:52Who sustains them?
25:55The passive ones.
25:59The silence of the passive participants sustains the ruckus and the noise and the ugly music of the active ones.
26:13The active ones would fall dead in their tracks immediately.
26:18Immediately.
26:21If all the indirect and passive support they receive is withdrawn.
26:36Cooperation is cooperation even if it's passive.
26:39Is it not?
26:41You will have to refuse cooperation.
26:48You have to stop balancing things out.
26:52You have to stop apportioning them a part of your life and mind.
26:58You cannot say, you know, 26 days of the month I belong to the right thing.
27:04But just four days let me escape away to trivia.
27:09You cannot be pardoned.
27:11Four days is just too much.
27:14Four hours is too much.
27:19There have to be absolutes in the way of the absolute.
27:28Right?
27:29Isn't it obvious?
27:31Why do you call the truth absolute then?
27:34If nothing in your life is absolute, if everything is diluted and corrupted and mixed and balanced,
27:43then why do you even talk of the absolute?
27:48Shouldn't there be something non-negotiable in your life that's called an absolute?
27:57Right?
27:59There's something I can never, never agree to.
28:03It's an absolute.
28:07For most people there is just nothing in life they can never, never agree to.
28:12Equally there is nothing in their life they can never, ever disagree to.
28:16Everything is negotiable.
28:18Everything is in a gray zone.
28:23They are amenable to anything and everything given the right conditions, the right price.
28:30Everything is for sale.
28:32There's nothing that is not at all for sale.
28:38Everything simply carries a price tag.
28:42The price tag can be very steep.
28:50The number can be very high.
28:52Still, it's up for sale.
28:55This won't do.
28:58If there is nothing in your life that can never be compromised, you are dangerous.
29:08You need to be put away.
29:12Unless there is something that is dearer to you than even life, you are not alive.
29:29There must be something for which you are prepared to happily die.
29:43In that sense, even the misled religious fanatic is better than the well-adjusted common man.
30:04And I say this with due deliberation.
30:08At least the religious fanatic has something bigger and higher than his mortal pleasures.
30:25He at least has an ideal.
30:30He at least has the courage to sacrifice.
30:39But the common man, all that he has is the body.
30:49Give me happiness, give me pleasure, give me comfort, give me a nice cozy body to lie upon and sleep with.
31:09So, I repeat, I am saying this with due deliberation.
31:16Even the misled religious fanatic or the misled idealist, we don't have fanatics merely in the religious domain.
31:30You have people ready to sacrifice their lives for various causes.
31:34I am not endorsing them, but I am saying even they are better than the common man.
31:49They have something here. They at least have courage.
31:52How much courage does the common man have?
31:57The one we call as the common man can sell anything given the right price.
32:04What is the right price?
32:10The price that makes him salivate.
32:14The price that he thinks is too high for his standards and his standards are not at all high.
32:19So, you don't even have to offer him too high a price.
32:24Had he had really a high self-esteem, why would he be the common man in the first place?
32:31He is a common man because he values himself very lowly.
32:37So, you don't even have to offer him an astronomical amount.
32:44Offer him just 500 more than his own self-evaluation.
32:50He values himself at $10,000, you offer him 10,500 and he'll come running after you.
32:58Please, please, I am sold.
33:08I am getting it.
33:11All this would make no sense to the residents of the domain of the third kind of knowledge.
33:28What do we call it?
33:31There is higher, there is lower and then there is basement knowledge, gutter knowledge, sewer knowledge.
33:41What do we call it?
33:42Because higher and lower are taken.
33:44So, something far lower than the lowest has to be coined or invented.
33:53Gutter knowledge.
33:58It still does not quite convey the stink.
34:01But for bond of a better word, until we coin a better word, let's manage with this gutter knowledge.
34:12Grave knowledge, there is too much gravity in it.
34:18And it's something that conveys both the lowliness and the trivia.
34:26Grave is not a trivial thing, or is it?
34:29So, no.
34:35Gutter knowledge.
34:56Vidya and Vidya both are things of the skies.
35:01First of all, reclaim yourself from the gutter knowledge that enslaves you.
35:14I should be doing that.
35:15He should be doing this.
35:17This is the good life.
35:19Now is the time.
35:21You should have that.
35:23He has so much.
35:28The society means this.
35:29The country means that.
35:32The religion means this.
35:37If you do this, you are a good man.
35:39If I do this, I am a bad man.
35:42This is gutter knowledge.
35:50Are you getting it?
35:53To rise above gutter knowledge, use avidya.
35:58That's the purpose and utility of avidya.
36:04The Upanishads talk of avidya very highly.
36:10They say that if you do not have avidya, you will fall in a very dark hole.
36:27Now you know why?
36:28Because if you do not have avidya, what will you have?
36:30Gutter knowledge.
36:33And you just cannot totally avoid gutter knowledge because man is born in a gutter.
36:41Being born in gutter, it is obviously likely that gutter knowledge will find its way into you.
36:53The kid by the time she is five already has tons of gutter knowledge.
37:01Go and talk to any five-year-old.
37:04You will see what I am saying.
37:06Talk to a five-year-old and be astounded by the depth of gutter knowledge she already has.
37:18To take care of gutter knowledge, there is avidya.
37:23Avidya has two aspects.
37:27Worldly, which we can broadly call as science.
37:31It could be the material sciences or the social sciences.
37:36So there is science and there is spirituality.
37:42Both of these things are missing from the minds of the common man because he has gutter knowledge.
37:50This is the hallmark of gutter knowledge.
37:52It will have neither science nor spirituality.
37:55And this is the hallmark of the gutter person.
38:01His words, his convictions, his values will correspond to neither science nor spirituality.
38:11It is coming from an altogether different place.
38:14I mean gutter.
38:17He will talk unscientific and unspiritual stuff.
38:26Check whether his beliefs are scientific and you will find no.
38:34Check whether his words are coming from spirituality and you will find no.
38:40That's the gutter person.
38:43In fact, this gutter person seriously abhors, even hates real science and real spirituality.
38:57To the scientist he will say, oh you are just materialist.
39:00You do not know that there are mystical energies as well.
39:07So he does not like the scientist.
39:10To the spiritual person he will say, you know, you are not quite practical.
39:16You are just taking an extreme position.
39:25And you want to know everything.
39:27You talk too much from logic.
39:29You don't have belief.
39:34It's a strange thing.
39:39We thought science and spirituality are probably likely to quarrel with each other.
39:44That's not the case.
39:46You see, avidya brackets these two together.
39:49The rishi and the professor, science and spirituality.
39:52Both come together under the umbrella of avidya.
39:55Science and spirituality go together.
39:58What rails against both of them is the gutter.
40:05Science and spirituality are hand in hand.
40:09The gutter is the common enemy of both.
40:13Because the gutter is the basement of mental existence.
40:17This mind that understands neither the world nor itself.
40:20It doesn't understand the world, so it hates science.
40:23It doesn't understand itself, so it dislikes spirituality.
40:26All that it likes is vague, nebulous, empty beliefs handed over by generations of foolishness.
40:34And animal-like excitement served by the media.
40:46That's what it likes, the gutter.
40:51Are you getting it?
40:58So now you know why avidya is important.
41:02Now you must know how things are, why science is important.
41:08Now you must know how things inwardly are, why spirituality is important.
41:12If you don't have this, then all that you have is the gutter.
41:18And the gutter is a default.
41:21Avidya has to be learnt.
41:23Gutter comes to you on its own.
41:26In some way, we are born from the gutter into a gutter.
41:35The first gutter, and I again say this with both an apology and due consideration.
41:43The first gutter is the mother's womb.
41:45Because that's what gives you the physical body.
41:49And the physical body is the house of all conditioning.
41:54And so, I with all deliberation call it the gutter.
42:05So we come from the gutter into the gutter.
42:07What do we come into? Man comes into a society.
42:10Man comes from the mother's womb into a society.
42:12We come from the gutter into the gutter.
42:14And the society loads you further with conditioning.
42:24The gutter is the default.
42:26Avidya has to be learnt.
42:29You don't have to put any effort to acquire gutter knowledge.
42:34You might be illiterate, but you'll still have tremendous amount of gutter knowledge.
42:42Even an illiterate person.
42:46But Avidya has to be effortfully acquired.
42:53Are you getting it?
43:05Then, Vidya.
43:10What is Vidya?
43:16The purpose of Avidya is to prepare you for Vidya.
43:21It's obvious.
43:23There is lower knowledge, then there is higher knowledge.
43:25The lower one is obviously meant to prepare you for the higher one.
43:30Why is Avidya needed before you venture into Vidya?
43:34Because with all the gutter beliefs, you just cannot approach Vidya.
43:41First of all, you need to be scientific and spiritual to even approach Vidya.
43:48And if you approach Vidya, then you move into the one who is indestructible.
43:59What does that really mean?
44:01It means you get rid of yourself because you are the one who is destructible.
44:10Understand this.
44:13In the gutter dimension, you take yourself as a function of everything that is destructible.
44:25What does the mother's womb tell you?
44:27You are the body and the body is destructible.
44:31You are born and you go to the school, you go to the playground, you meet with your peers, the kids.
44:38You go to a community hall.
44:40You go to a wedding.
44:42You watch the TV.
44:44You acquire stuff from your mobile phone.
44:48And what is all this making you feel about yourself?
44:52You are this, you are that.
44:54You are a cool dude.
44:58You are a sexy girl.
45:04You are an atheist.
45:06You are a believer.
45:08You are rich, you are poor.
45:10So, identities upon identities.
45:12And all of these, each of these identities, they relate to something that is destructible.
45:20That is destructible.
45:25You relate to these things because you do not know the truth of those things.
45:29You take those things as holy, sacred, important.
45:33And therefore, you find it respectful and profitable to attach to them.
45:41There is this concept.
45:43It's a great concept.
45:45Ten generations of my families have attached to this concept.
45:50So, I too start respecting to this concept.
45:53This concept becomes my identity.
45:55This concept becomes my answer to who am I.
45:59Whereas, this thing is entirely destructible.
46:01If I am this thing, then I too am destructible.
46:05Now, this is where I stand in the gutter dimension.
46:10Then I come to avidya.
46:12Avidya tells me, but that thing is destructible.
46:14But that thing is destructible.
46:18So, I lose my attraction for that thing.
46:24The charm.
46:26Wings of.
46:31All the romantic notions.
46:33They fade away.
46:35What am I still left with?
46:41A hungry and noisy eye.
46:47This eye was brought up on a diet of gutter nutrients.
46:55How did it get so big?
46:57What was it consuming all the time?
47:01All the stuff from the gutter.
47:03Gutter vegetables, gutter this, gutter that.
47:08All that which goes into the mental self.
47:11Now, all the diet has been taken away or shown to be toxic.
47:18What does the eye do now?
47:22It stands looking for something else.
47:27It has been convinced that all that you so far valued is valueless.
47:35But it has not yet been convinced that your very search for value outside of yourself is foolish.
47:43Please understand this.
47:47It has been told very clearly that you are associated with this thing.
47:51Now, this thing is merely superstition.
47:53So, the thing is dropped.
47:56You are associated with this kind of thing.
47:58This thing is merely money.
48:00So, that thing drops.
48:02The association gets severed.
48:04Broken.
48:06But as the result of the avidya process,
48:10what are we left with?
48:14The hungry and boisterous eye still remains.
48:18It's hungry and complaining.
48:23What is it saying?
48:25All that I had from the gutter,
48:27you have taken away.
48:29Give me something more.
48:31Why does it ask for something more?
48:33Why does it ask for a replacement?
48:35Because one thing has still not been taken away.
48:40Its own self-concept,
48:43its own existence,
48:45that still remains.
48:47That still remains.
48:49Now, for that, there is vidya.
48:54Look at yourself, look at yourself, look at yourself.
48:57And therefore, there can be no book on vidya.
49:00Because it's very real-time.
49:02You cannot do it on instruction.
49:09It's something completely intimate to yourself.
49:17Even the teacher can just respectfully and helplessly
49:22stand at a distance and watch.
49:25Because you have to do it.
49:27Only you have the authority
49:31to accept your non-existence.
49:36Otherwise, look at the absurd contradiction.
49:39How can the teacher convince you of your non-existence?
49:44If you are convinced, you still exist.
49:48So the teacher can just respectfully wait and watch.
49:53The teacher watches for that grand, that sacred and rare moment
50:01when the disciple says,
50:03I see I don't exist.
50:08And falls silent for the last time.
50:14Just this much.
50:17Last words.
50:18I see I am not.
50:20I see I am not.
50:23And after this, you don't even see.
50:25Because you are not.
50:27You are not.
50:29That's vidya.
50:31And therefore, vidya leads you into the indestructible akshar,
50:35as the Upanishad says.
50:37Because now you have nothing left to be destroyed anymore.
50:43Who or rather what took away all the things that the I was attached to?
50:53Avidya.
50:56And who took away the I itself?
50:59Vidya.
51:01Now all that is left is akshar.
51:03Immortal, deathless, fearless.
51:08Neither do I have anything that the world can take away.
51:17Nor do I exist at all in the world.
51:21So even the possibility that I'll ever have anything in the future
51:29to be taken away by the world does not exist.
51:34First level of total security is that I am possessionless.
51:39Who gave me that first level of security?
51:42Avidya.
51:44And the second level of absolute security is that I don't exist.
51:48How will you harm me?
51:50I am not. I see I am not.
51:52How will you harm me?
51:54Now there is total security.
51:57Now there is the absolute.
52:01Now there is fearlessness.
52:04What's there in the gutter?
52:07Vulnerability, chaos, fear, insecurity of the worst kind, depression, anxiety, tension.
52:20What if he takes away that?
52:24Can't sleep properly.
52:26What if that is stolen?
52:29What if that is hurt?
52:31What if that falls?
52:33What if that rises?
52:35All this is the gutter level of existence.
52:44Getting it?
52:46I must say more topical to us than Vidya and Avidya is the gutter level.
53:05Pay attention to that.
53:07Vidya and Avidya are both for Sonak.
53:17We would be better served by investigating the gutter that surrounds us.
53:31Talking of Vidya or Avidya, of Sonak or Angiras
53:39is a bit absurd.
53:42We are not very worthy candidates.
53:49Somebody would call it preposterous.
54:03See where your thoughts, your words, your habits, beliefs, they are coming from.
54:08See, see, please see.
54:10That's you, that's your life.
54:12See why something is important to you.
54:15See why you must receive a particular phone call.
54:18See why you must exist in a particular WhatsApp group.
54:28See why you must visit a certain place.
54:30See why you must spend time the way you do.
54:39Sewage will keep flowing in if you don't block the inlets.
54:49You understand inlets?
54:51From where do you receive all that sewage?
55:03You can't politely let that crap keep flowing in.
55:11And why am I letting all the shit come to my mind?
55:16Because it is, you know, holy shit.
55:22It is my Taoist shit.
55:33How do I be disrespectful to my Tao and tell him not to keep shitting on my face?
55:42So I'll just be a passive recipient, you know.
55:45Tao is sitting and blabbering.
55:47Unending blabber from Tao.
55:51And what am I doing?
55:54As a cultured, respectful relative?
56:01Junior relative?
56:03What am I doing?
56:05Just passively letting all that flow into me.
56:09And what am I saying?
56:10You know, Tao Ji, elderly.
56:12I'm not participating.
56:15I'm just letting him blabber.
56:17You're not letting him blabber.
56:19What do you think of yourself?
56:20Do you think you will remain untouched, unaffected, uncorrupted by all this that is entering your ears?
56:26Not at all.
56:29Your passive participation is turning your life into a massive stink.
56:36And you think you are so smart.
56:39You think you are not participating.
56:41You are just letting her or him urinate into your ears.
56:50Hmm?
56:55Yeah?
56:58Hmm?
56:59That ringing phone was yours, Kagan, right?
57:02No?
57:03Somebody's.
57:05That's how they urinate right into your ears.
57:14Hmm?
57:19Hmm?
57:25We need to understand the world and understand the mind.
57:33World and the mind are covered in Avidya.
57:37And that which is at the center of the mind, the ego self, that disappears through Avidya.
57:46Is it clear?
57:49What forms the content of the mind?
57:53The world and your self-concept.
57:57Both of these are addressed in the domain of Avidya.
58:02And that which is at the center of the mind, the I, that gets deleted in the process of Vidya.
58:15And then what remains is the real you.
58:18The real you without you.
58:28Clear?
58:30Hmm?
58:45Hmm?
58:46Hmm?