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Video Information: 13.07.2023, Gita Samagam, Greater Noida
Context:
Are we all just conditioned?
The understanding of Free Will
How to have love in life?
Where do our interests come from?
What is compassion?
Why does real compassion look very ugly?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/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...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
#acharyaprashant
Video Information: 13.07.2023, Gita Samagam, Greater Noida
Context:
Are we all just conditioned?
The understanding of Free Will
How to have love in life?
Where do our interests come from?
What is compassion?
Why does real compassion look very ugly?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaste, sir. Sir, what I understood today is we are governed by set principles. We are
00:11nothing but algorithms, just chemicals flowing in our body with the accumulation of all these
00:17preconditioned, you know, conditioning that we are kind of, we are kind of living and,
00:24you know, basically our upbringing and everything that what we are essentially, it's all the
00:29accumulation of things that we have gathered all our, all our lives in the past. Along
00:36the lines, I also understand that if all these things are conditioned, even my emotions are
00:42conditioned as well. So for example, what I'm saying is, I really see the choice between
00:47love and joy, hatred, you know, pain and sorrow, and all these things and my deviation, my
00:54affinity towards the negative is more as opposed to the positive. And, and I guess, this is
01:00because of the conditioning that is happening in this society today, wherein media is, you
01:05know, bombarding us, bombarding us with a lot of these negativities, etc, in different
01:09forms. That's where my conditioning is also changing in one form or the other. So could
01:15you help me understand, I mean, if there is some way that we can really get the experience,
01:21which is me, to be separated from the experience that I'm seeing in whole, across my, you know,
01:27throughout my throughout my daily life? And how can I live a better life when I kind of see all
01:32these things happening and surrounded by all these negativities all across all around me?
01:39So how could, how could I deal with it?
01:41It's a, it's a small trick does not always work, but you may try it out.
01:47Just try figuring out where the thing is coming from.
01:51You'll not always succeed. It's a bit of a guesswork, but it at least tells you that the
01:58thing is not original or authentic. It is coming from somewhere. So you find, for example,
02:04the descendant, some descendant of an aristocratic lineage talking to you
02:10and he's talking in a particular manner.
02:15And if you can see that the manner belongs to his great-grandfather, that brings a smile to you.
02:22Where is the thing coming from? That's not him talking. That's his great-grandfather talking.
02:27And why is the great-grandfather still talking through him? Because this fellow today has neither
02:33money nor authority, no standing in the society, but his great-grandfather was actually a Raja.
02:41100 years, 150 years ago, he was actually a Raja with some real power over the society.
02:49And the ego wants power. So this fellow is acting like his great-grandfather and he might not even
02:59know that. It's just that when you look at his mannerisms, his behavior, his accent,
03:06it appears a little odd and then you want to see where is this coming from. And you might be
03:10totally mistaken because you don't have all the facts. But it pays to see that people are not
03:16original. Everything is coming from somewhere. It used to be quite fascinating, intriguing.
03:30When I was young, I was surrounded by young friends, young people and I was young for quite a while.
03:39So some people say I still am. And the way people would propose,
03:48propose as in a love affair, was so heavily dependent upon the latest romantic flick.
04:00And they would not even know why they are proposing that particular way.
04:05That that's coming from that movie. Sometimes entire dialogues were copied.
04:11And the fellow would think it's original. The fellow would say I'm bearing my soul
04:16to my sweetheart. That's not your soul. That's a scriptwriter there.
04:20What are you doing? I'm crooning something that's Anand Bakshi, not you.
04:24Are you getting it? So just trying to see where the thing is coming from,
04:29even the expressions that people wear, are sometimes the expressions of their favorite movie actors.
04:39And people will say, you know, I like just like this. I just like this.
04:43There is nothing original. There used to be something called a sadhana cut.
04:47There was this actress, many decades ago, who was a sadhana cut.
04:51There was this actress, many decades ago, sadhana, and she would wear her hair in a particular way.
04:59And if you look at the pics of ladies of that era, you would find almost all of them have sadhana cut.
05:08And if you can look at your dad's pics from the 60s till the 80s,
05:14they all have these, what do you call them, these pants, bell bottoms.
05:22And where are the bell bottoms really coming from?
05:27They're coming probably from America and the hippie culture. From there and from there they
05:31came to Amitabh and Vinod Khanna and from there they came to your house.
05:37But daddy darling says I'm fond of my bell bottoms.
05:44And the sideburns, you remember them?
05:48And all the heroes would have two or three buttons open till here. You could watch their navel.
05:58Where's all that coming from? And people say, you know, that's me. That's not you. That's somebody else.
06:03That's not even somebody else. That's nobody. That's a process.
06:07Process.
06:10Process. There is just nobody. There is just a crowd you could say. There is no person.
06:17There is no individual. That's where spirituality begins from. There is no individual.
06:26So observe that. Where are things coming from? Where are things coming from?
06:32Where is the behavior coming from? Where is the accent coming from? Where is even the emotion coming from?
06:37Look at how people are. You know, the fellow is weeping and you start feeling that
06:43sympathy for him and you go close to him and the first word he utters, you know the flick
06:48it's coming from. And all the sympathy is dropped along with the tears.
06:56He's dropping tears and you have dropped your sympathy because you see that he is coming from that
07:02latest tragedy.
07:10I'm choosing films because they impact us. You could choose anything else.
07:23Understanding this, dropping everything which is not the authentic self. You also mentioned about
07:30something which is compassion. I just wanted to understand a bit on what compassion is and how
07:37exactly it helps in really separating us from maybe the other species or maybe the other objects
07:48in the world. You will not find this written anywhere but this is what life has taught me.
07:55Compassion is at two levels. Ordinary compassion is when there is somebody in front of you who
08:01wants to exercise a choice but is just 50-50 sitting on the fence
08:08and you lend a helping hand. And extraordinary, magnificent compassion is to awaken the chooser
08:19within him. That's almost like bringing the dead to life next to impossible.
08:31So we'll not talk too much about that. Ordinary compassion is
08:41about lending a helping hand to someone who is stuck in a burning house and wants to come out.
08:49He wants to come out. He just needs some help and you extend that help. That's compassion.
08:55Where compassion would totally fail is when
09:02the fellow has just no idea that the house is burning or that he needs to come out. He just has
09:12fancy imaginations. He thinks that the burning house is some kind of fancy palace or heaven or
09:20some gods that are testing him or divine responsibility put upon him. That's when
09:28compassion fails. Compassion depends a lot upon the willingness of the other to make a choice.
09:39Extraordinary compassion is when the other is not even willing to make a choice and yet
09:44you insist and keep trying. But that's
09:52difficult to put it mildly.
09:57So would this be the same compassion if Karan would have shown in front of his friend
10:02Duryodhana? It would have actually stopped a lot of these war outcries that happened.
10:10Definitely, definitely. Compassion is not good looking. Compassion can look very ugly.
10:21Compassion could look like heartlessness, ruthlessness.
10:29Compassion could look like torture, cruelty.
10:41What you ordinarily see in the name of compassion is just old-fashioned mercy.
10:47That's not compassion. That's again something very prakritic. Do you know,
10:51we are very selectively merciful. People often talk of how animals help each other.
10:57No, they don't help each other. That's chemicals at work.
11:10In high school, we have talked of the covalent bond, where two of them get together to share
11:15their electrons and then their needs are fulfilled. Some kind of a symbiotic relationship.
11:21The covalent bond. Do you remember? There is no consciousness in that.
11:30But it appears as if the two are getting together and sharing things like husband and wife.
11:35As they say, we share our lives and that leads to betterment. That's just a covalent bond.
11:40There is nothing much there. Animals also. They say, animals see how one monkey had fallen
11:49almost dead on the railway track and then other monkeys came and saved and revived him.
11:55The baby monkey was saved. And all those videos keep floating and we say,
11:59see even animals have compassion. No, that's not compassion.
12:03Monkeys would do only what monkeys are biologically programmed to do
12:07and all species are programmed to save their own species.
12:12Monkeys won't do this to a lion cub.
12:20If the mother monkey does something for the baby monkey, that's not compassion.
12:25That's biological instinct. Programmed, replicable, chemical. Nothing in it.
12:33Mercy appears so enchanting, so pretty, so divine. Compassion,
12:44even the ordinary one would not look so pretty. And real compassion would definitely look very ugly.
12:50Real compassion, we said, looks almost like cruelty.
12:55So, had Karna displayed real compassion, he would have been called a traitor.
13:03So, we have to understand that compassion is not just a form of compassion.
13:08Compassion is not just a form of mercy. Compassion is not just a form of compassion.
13:14Karna was called a traitor, as Vibhishan was.
13:25Nobody names his kid as Vibhishan. We are still angry with him.
13:34The fellow must have been a truly spiritual one to ditch his entire side
13:41and run the risk of being slaughtered physically and also being abused on the pages of history.
13:53But he never gets the credit.
13:56And if the myth is to be believed, the victory would not have been possible without Vibhishan.
14:07But he never gets the credit.
14:10In fact, there is something almost abusive attached to his name, Ghar ka bhedi lanka dhai.
14:29You ask someone, would you rather name your kid Indrajit or Vibhishan?
14:36The choice is obvious. Indrajit is better.
14:40Even if he almost killed Lakshman, still he is a better one.
14:46Indrajit is better. In fact, I am sure there would be people
14:50actually named Indrajit. Indrajit is better. Vibhishan is not acceptable.
14:56If Ram is your beloved, then how can you name your kid after someone who almost killed Ram's brother?
15:07But Indrajit must be a fairly common name, not entirely unknown. You can Google for it.
15:15Vibhishan!
15:17I think it was in Hindi that I had once quoted or tweeted.
15:24Or probably it's the title of a video.
15:26That Gali Khan is a bad name.
15:30Gali Khan is a bad name.
15:33Gali Khan is a bad name.
15:36Gali Khan is a bad name.
15:38That's what compassion begets.
15:45But if you are really compassionate, then you also are wise enough to know all that is just chemical.
15:55So it's not a bad name.
15:58But if you are really compassionate, then you also are wise enough to know all that is just chemical.
16:05So it's like some toy that's been programmed to hurl abuses.
16:10You have toy robots or toy machines who speak.
16:15Or a parrot that has been trained to throw invectives.
16:22We have a pair of parrots like that.
16:24People play pranks and teach parrots all kinds of nasty things.
16:29And when someone comes and the parrot starts abusing him,
16:32you can't take that seriously, right?
16:36So if you indeed do grow compassionate, then don't take all those things seriously that will then happen to you.
16:48So in case of Vibhishan, because he was so compassionate about his brother,
16:55he was perceived as very cruel.
16:56But from Vibhishan's standpoint, he actually rejected his first life to be born twice again, as you said.
17:03So is my understanding correct in that regard?
17:06We do not know the facts.
17:08See, we do not know where history ends and fiction begins.
17:12We do not know.
17:12But from the account that we get, Vibhishan is truly an extraordinary person.
17:17He is a very good person.
17:19He is a very good person.
17:20From the account that we get, Vibhishan is truly an extraordinary person.
17:29The narrative is different in different versions of the story.
17:32If you look at Valmiki's version versus the version from Tulsidas versus the other versions,
17:39the narratives do not completely agree.
17:42So we do not know the exact facts.
17:45But just the thing that Vibhishan crossed over,
17:50he literally crossed over the sea.
18:00It's beautiful. It's very courageous.
18:05We remember all the ones who crossed over to Lanka and we venerate them.
18:12But it was easier for them because they were being led by Ram.
18:17It's mighty difficult for someone to cross over to Ram because he is not being led by Ram.
18:25And Ram won't always come to lead you.
18:30The more difficult thing is to walk your own way to Ram, not waiting for him to come to you.
18:36You mentioned that the miracle is deviating from the conditioning.
18:45So all these examples that you gave while explaining the verse, for example,
18:54a Rishi is walking on a river and then he is violating all the laws.
19:02On a river and then he is violating all the laws.
19:05Even Ram is ordering the river, the sea is showing its way.
19:14Today, what I see is with miracle, it is almost perceived as a superstition.
19:20No, no, it didn't actually happen.
19:24When I talked of miracles, I never said they are physical happenings.
19:31I said you have to stop the flow of the ocean within you.
19:37I hope I am not being misunderstood.
19:40I never said that saints actually walk on water.
19:43No, no, no.
19:45I said all religions place great emphasis on miracles.
19:50But miracles are misunderstood.
19:52Nobody can fly on air or walk on water.
19:57Physically, no, that is not going to happen.
20:00The laws of Prakriti are inviolable for everybody.
20:09So nobody walks on water, rest assured.
20:11And if you find somebody walking on water,
20:14you shouldn't take a second to know that it is some cheap trick.
20:18And there is anyway nothing in it.
20:21Walking on external water is nothing.
20:23It was I think Ramkrishna Paramhansa.
20:27Somebody went to him and said, you know, there is that particular Siddha or Yogi
20:32somewhere in Bengal nearby.
20:34He said, you know, he manages to walk on water.
20:36And Paramhansa said, so what?
20:39So what?
20:39What's there in that?
20:41Even if he manages to do that, there is nothing in it.
20:44Because that's not what spirituality is about.
20:47Walking on water, these kinds of antics,
20:51what do these have to do with liberation of the self?
20:57So I am saying that's not going to happen.
20:58That's not possible.
21:00Paramhansa said, even if that is happening,
21:03so what?
21:04What's there in it?
21:05Does that mean that the fellow is liberated?
21:07Does that mean that the fellow now has compassion?
21:10Does that mean that the fellow is now acting selflessly for the service towards others?
21:18None of that.
21:21All that means nothing.
21:23When I talked of miracles, I meant inwardly there are laws of Prakriti
21:30and the ego just keeps flowing with them.
21:33By flowing with them, the ego somehow manages to assure itself of its existence.
21:40It says, you know, I am flowing with the Prakriti thing
21:46and that means I am making Prakriti flow.
21:49So I exist.
21:51There is an automatic flow of Prakriti within.
21:55The ego is within.
21:56The ego does not sit on the wall.
21:59There is a flow of stuff within
22:02and ego manages to flow exactly with the stuff.
22:08By flowing exactly with the stuff, what does it convince itself?
22:12I am making the stuff flow.
22:15See, it's like this.
22:16Please understand.
22:20You are sitting in a train compartment.
22:38The train begins to move.
22:42Somebody on the platform starts pushing the coach.
22:51Right?
22:52And starts moving with exactly the same speed as that of the train.
23:01It's only if he moves with the same speed as that of the train,
23:07can he fool you into thinking that he is making the train move.
23:13The train is moving on its own.
23:15You are sitting within the train.
23:17And that fellow outside the train wants to fool you.
23:20He wants to fool you into thinking that the train is moving because of him.
23:26If he wants to do that, what condition must he fulfil?
23:29His speed must be exactly the same as that of the train.
23:34So he will say, you see, I am running now at 10 kmph.
23:39And the train too is running at 10 kmph.
23:41What does that prove?
23:43I am making the train run.
23:44You see, I am pushing so hard so the train is running.
23:48Do you get this?
23:48That's what the ego is doing.
23:50The train is running on its own.
23:51The train is Prakriti.
23:53But the ego decides to flow exactly as Prakriti does.
24:02And does not want to exercise any choice.
24:04Does not want any separation.
24:05If there is a separation between this fellow outside the train and the train,
24:09his bluff will be called.
24:11No, it will become obvious that he is not pushing the train.
24:14He is standing on the platform and the train is moving on its own.
24:16It will become obvious.
24:17So what does he necessarily have to do?
24:19Two things.
24:20One, he must keep holding the train.
24:22This is called attachment or identification.
24:26So he must keep pressing against the wall of the coach with his palms.
24:32This is called identification.
24:34Secondly, he must move exactly with the same speed as the train does.
24:40This is called going with the Prakriti flow.
24:44By doing these two things,
24:46this bugger manages to convince everybody and himself that he is actually moving the train.
24:53That's called the ego.
24:54Doing nothing.
24:55It just gets attached to the moving thing and convinces itself, I am the one moving it.
25:05Look at the trick he is playing.
25:10Train is moving on its own.
25:12And it's ensuring that it keeps running with the train at exactly the same speed as the train.
25:23In my example, there is a small defect.
25:25At least the fellow outside is running on its own legs.
25:29In real life, the ego has no legs of its own.
25:32You could imagine that the ego is actually standing on a platform,
25:38jutting out from the train.
25:42A platform towards the bottom of the coach.
25:44So it's not visible from the window.
25:47He is actually standing on the train itself but pretending as if he is pushing the train.
25:55So to the ignorant onlooker, it appears as if there is a doer, as if there is a pusher,
26:04as if there is a mover.
26:05No, there is no mover.
26:06There is just the movement.
26:08The train is doing stuff on its own.
26:10The train is called?
26:13The train is called?
26:16Prakriti.
26:17And that fraud is called?
26:22Ego.
26:23Ego.
26:24And who is the one being cheated?
26:28That too is called the ego.
26:31The ego is fooling nobody but itself.
26:41Understood, sir.
26:44Thank you so much, sir.