Video Information: BITS, Pilani - Goa, 28.01.2022, Greater Noida, India
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
~ When we can say, "Life is sorted":?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #BITSPilani
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
~ When we can say, "Life is sorted":?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #BITSPilani
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Swami Vivekananda has said, first of all our young men must be strong.
00:13Religion will come afterwards.
00:14Be strong my young friends, that is my advice to you.
00:18You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.
00:23These are my bold words but I have to say them for I love you.
00:27You will understand Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little stronger.
00:33You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of Krishna better with
00:38a little of strong blood in you.
00:44And then Ilmari says, I have observed that doing physical exercise certainly has an energizing
00:50effect on both the body and mind.
00:54On the other hand, fitness seems to bring in the danger of becoming even more body centric.
01:01So my question is, to what extent is physical strength useful on the spiritual path?
01:08Thanks for the guidance, Ilmari.
01:12It is peripheral, Ilmari.
01:31Do you really find Liverpool or Chelsea players really spiritually inclined?
01:41If football were such a liberating force, does that happen really?
02:00Then let's have the Messi's and Ronaldo's and Ronaldinho's as the ideal figures for
02:12the next mad session.
02:28Let's take the case of Swami Vivekananda himself.
02:30When he went to Ramkrishna Paramhansa, did he offer him a football?
02:40I understand it's a thing with the Bengalis, football.
02:51But I have not heard that Ramkrishna was particularly fond of soccer or was he?
03:06It is not the central thing.
03:10It is one of those things that enable you further, that stoke the fire.
03:24But to stoke the fire, first of all, you need a fire.
03:30Football cannot bring about that spark.
03:40Football cannot raise that fire.
03:46Once the fire is there, once a man's consciousness says, I want to be liberated, I want freedom,
03:57I want to know, I want to understand, I want to actualize this birth, then he says, what
04:02is it that I need to reach the destination?
04:13I know the goal is far away and I very strongly feel I must reach there.
04:21What is it that I need?
04:23And there would be many a thing, many resources that he would find himself lacking in.
04:32He would say, I need knowledge.
04:35He would say, I need some money.
04:39He would say, I need guidance.
04:42And he might also say, I need physical strength.
04:46I need health.
04:48I need vitality.
04:50I need long years.
04:56One of those things that you need as resources to reach the destination.
05:07But just because you have those things, it does not mean you will reach the destination.
05:16If you want to reach a particular city from here, you need your car to be fueled, right?
05:28But there are a million cars in Delhi that are parked with a lot of fuel.
05:35Are all of them going to reach that city?
05:40So fuel is an ancillary requirement.
05:47Fuel will not automatically make the car reach the destination.
05:52In fact, you are right.
05:54An abundance of fuel could also mean that the car is roaming about rather aimlessly
06:00and wasting itself away.
06:12It must be remembered who the recipient, the original recipient of a particular quote is.
06:19These words of Swami Vivekananda are golden.
06:23Golden to whom?
06:26I am pretty sure at this time he is talking to well-meaning lads, sincere youngsters who
06:35are failing in their mission because they are physically weak.
06:41He is not talking to people who are anyway already lost.
06:48He is talking to people who are all set to pursue the spiritual path.
06:56They have the intention, they have the determination, what they lack is health and vitality.
07:02So he is telling them, why are you reading the Gita at this time?
07:09You have already had enough of Gita.
07:13Your bottleneck is not spiritual ignorance.
07:18Your bottleneck is physical vitality.
07:24Are you getting it?
07:36You pull into a petrol pump, a gas station.
07:44Your car has half its tank full of fuel.
08:01So half the tank is empty.
08:09And at the same time, the engine oil levels are 10% of the ideal.
08:22You have money either for petrol or engine oil.
08:28What would you ask for?
08:30Why?
08:31Even the tank is half empty, why don't you get the tank filled up?
08:39This is called commonsensically determining the bottleneck.
08:46You have two variables and both are slack, both are in lack.
09:00But which of these must you address first?
09:03You will address the one which is the bottleneck constraint.
09:08So you will say, I want engine oil.
09:11Similarly, a spiritual seeker may not have complete understanding of the Gita.
09:23And he might be physically very weak.
09:27His understanding of the Gita is like the fuel in the fuel tank, 50%.
09:35And his physical strength is like engine oil, 10%.
09:40So Swami Vivekananda is telling him, keep Gita away.
09:47It is at least 50% of the desired level.
09:51Focus on your health.
09:52It is only 10% of what you need to have.
09:56It is a special case that he is talking of.
09:59Swami Vivekananda was no soccer evangelist.
10:04His mission was not to promote the cause of football in India.
10:08He did not start with Mohan Bagan.
10:15His great mission was to bring the FIFA World Cup too.
10:27But this is one quotation from him that I find touted most often.
10:34Keep Gita away, play football.
10:38People love it.
10:39Even Swami Vivekananda said keep Gita away, play football.
10:45It's another matter that India's FIFA ranking is.
10:50So we neither got Gita and not even football.
10:54I suppose we breached the top 100 for the first time last year or sometime.
11:06Lost on both counts.
11:07Gita kept away, football played and beaten regularly by Nepal and Bhutan.
11:20Even the Sark gold medal is difficult to get.
11:28Yes, you need health, but for what?
11:39When you say a fellow, a young fellow must have vibrant health, I agree, but I'll ask
11:47what for?
11:50What for are the biceps?
11:54Yeah, girls like them obviously.
11:57Yes, a young fellow must be able to run a lot towards chimpanzees run a lot.
12:12But it's again one of those romantic ideals, the youthful, strong, vibrant young man.
12:23Why must one be strong?
12:26Strength is a resource.
12:28If you do not know what the resource is for, why do you need the resource at all?
12:38Before you gain health, must you not gain the wisdom to use health?
12:50Otherwise you will be a very very healthy moron and a rascal to boot.
13:04A giant gorilla, very healthy, make him stand at the goal post and he can dominate the best
13:22attacking players in the world.
13:33He doesn't have to do anything, he'll just stand.
13:45Unfortunately, with rise in income levels, availability of knowledge and food supplements,
14:07average height of human beings are rising across all nations, average weight of human
14:14beings is rising across all nations, colors are getting fairer, everything that can physically
14:35rise is rising, wisdom, understanding, compassion.
14:56So the gorilla is not merely getting more giant, it is also getting more violent.
15:03How does that sound?
15:07It's not a giant yet benevolent gorilla, it is a giant trouble now, a Godzilla.
15:24And they all have kept the Gita aside, Gita is not needed, they are all busy building
15:30their bodies and it's lovely.
15:39That's what Prakriti has trained us for.
15:48It's so nicely and instinctively ingrained in us.
15:53You go to gorillas, they know how to choose a female.
15:59They will look at the body and they will know which one to go after.
16:03And the females, they too know which one to choose.
16:09The body will tell.
16:16And footballers are great draws, they have always been sex symbols.
16:23There is something about their calves, their thighs, the t-shirts coming off, the sweat.
16:49Then the Gita can be kept aside.
16:58Never forget who was being addressed in this quotation.
17:08I tell you I was there, I know who was being addressed.
17:15Swami Vivekananda was talking to someone who was potentially a Swami Vivekananda but
17:20for the physical health.
17:28The fellow had everything going for him, dedication, austerity, simplicity, devotion.
17:37But he was always being pegged back by his physical health.
17:45So that evening, Swamiji went to him and said, please, you are anyway not bad with Gita,
17:58with Upanishads, with Vedanta.
18:02They can wait a little, don't be so harsh upon yourself, rather attach a little more
18:12importance to your physical health.
18:16It was with respect to that fellow and only that fellow that these words were uttered
18:23and it is with respect to only that fellow that these words hold relevance and validity.
18:31To other young men and women, these words are not applicable or valid at all.
18:52This is not a universal message, this is not all applicable, this is not one size fits
19:29all.
19:30When you proceed on a great mission, then you require befitting resources, you deserve
19:39them and you are graced with them.
19:45Help comes from somewhere, those things get bestowed upon you.
19:51You know of the legendary robe of the Swami, right?
19:55The one that you find him wearing in all his photographs, where did it come from and
20:00how did it come?
20:03Do you know the history?
20:12In fact, even his name, Swami Vivekananda, it came quite late in his life.
20:18He was known by many names, ultimately this one stuck and be it the robe or the name,
20:24they came to him partially because they were the need of that time.
20:341893 was the World Conference of Religions, right?
20:47Even Swami Vivekananda was proceeding towards that, that is when a small king got him that
21:04special attire that became symbolic of Swami Vivekananda.
21:22Why was that customized dress made for him?
21:31Because he was on a major mission, he was going to represent India, he was going to
21:39represent Hinduism in that mighty conference.
21:52Because he was wearing very simple clothes that befit a normal monk.
22:04He was not always dressed exquisitely as you find him in his trademark pics.
22:19The normal, ordinary robe of the ordinary monk he would be carrying, health is like
22:29those exquisite clothes.
22:34It befits you only when you are on a large mission, otherwise what are you building this
22:47health for?
23:07Those who are on the way to truth have an obligation to maintain good physical health,
23:22not for themselves but for that which they desire and represent.
23:35And those who are not on the way to truth, if they have good physical health, it is just
23:43a burden.
23:46Because you will have vitality, you will have energy and you will have no purpose, so all
23:52your energy and vitality will be directed only towards nonsense.
23:59It would be a great burden on your consciousness.
24:06You will be like a misguided weapon, having fire, having explosiveness but having no direction,
24:23no accuracy, no purpose.