~~~~~~~~
Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 13.10.2019, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India
Context:
What is it to be Great?
Why do we choose smallness instead of Greatness?
What is the price for Greatness?
Who is a great man?
What does 'Little Man' mean in "Listen, Little Man"?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 13.10.2019, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India
Context:
What is it to be Great?
Why do we choose smallness instead of Greatness?
What is the price for Greatness?
Who is a great man?
What does 'Little Man' mean in "Listen, Little Man"?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The first question from Anup. He says, when I read how the little man thinks and operates,
00:23most of the thinking could be due to the experiences he went through and the environment he was
00:29brought up in till date. How does the little man come out of the conditioning he has been
00:39already subjected to? Does he have to strive to become a great man? Because both are similar
00:49when it comes to background and ambitions apparently. In a world where you come across
01:02daily, people who are focused on their goals, their personal well-being, their ambitions,
01:15how can we remain part of the day-to-day life unaffected by external situations? Then some
01:35personal issues and additional comments are there. Do we get the crux of the matter? The little man
01:50seems to be little for a reason. The reason lies in his upbringing, in his background, in all that
02:00he has gone through. So the questioner is saying, what does he now do? Does he strive to become a
02:13great man? And then he says, when you daily come across people who have their own little ambitions,
02:27little plans, little personalities, little beliefs, how do you maintain a certain greatness within?
02:37Let's understand this. All are born little. All are born little. Just as we are born physically
03:01little, we are also born mentally little. What do I mean by mental littleness? It's only within
03:14a certain zone, a certain predefined zone that the mind operates. The child brings with herself
03:31an entire tranche of embedded conditioning. So it has been symbolically and poetically said
03:57that the child is not really born. What is born is a bundle of conditioning. So all are born little.
04:11Therefore, nobody can be faulted for being little. Kindly absolve yourself of all guilt related to
04:23your fundamental background. As far as we are concerned, we take ourselves to be born and mortal
04:34beings whose story begins with the moment of birth. So that's the background, right? Birth.
04:39Against that background, our entire life story plays out. Nobody need be ashamed of his background
04:52littleness. You didn't ask for it. You didn't opt for it. Conscious, unconscious, you had no choice
05:04whatsoever in this matter. So we are born little and we have very little choice with respect to
05:13our littleness for many long years. You are born little, what can you do about it when you are 2
05:23years old? What do you do about it when you are 5? What do you do about it once you are 8 or 10?
05:30It could even be said, again very symbolically, I am not referring to any physical phenomena,
05:39it could even be said that the body is born at t is equal to 0, the soul starts taking birth at t
05:50is equal to 10 years. Please, I am not peddling superstition here. I am not saying that something
05:55actual, real, material or physical starts happening within the body or the brain at the age of 10
06:03years. What I am saying is just a pointer. So what is happening then till the age of 10 years,
06:14there is really no soul. When I say soul, I mean an internal locus of control. I mean something
06:23within that is purely yours. Something within that is truly original and authentic. That is
06:30just not there till you are let's say 7 or 8 or 10. The time may vary. It could be 6, it could be 12.
06:39But you get the drift, right? You get the idea. The child is in a sense almost 100% automatic.
06:50The child has nothing separate from his automaticity. He is his bones, he is his muscles,
07:08he is his DNA. He has nothing to observe the whole process. He has nothing that stands apart
07:18from his physical apparatus. He has no capacity then for self-observation or reflection. We are
07:32talking of young kids, 5 or 7 year olds. And then comes a point when the brain starts maturing enough
07:46and when I say maturing, I just mean physical maturity. Man is constructed in a way that his
07:56consciousness is dependent on the physical thing called brain. So the brain has to be ripe enough
08:04to be the seat of consciousness. If the brain is not ripe, if the brain is yet very primitive,
08:14then consciousness will be forced to be primitive. Are you getting it? You cannot have Buddha
08:21consciousness in an amoeba. Very difficult. An amoeba is bound to have an amoebic consciousness.
08:30Similarly, a child is constrained by the limitations of her brain to have a childish
08:42consciousness. Are you getting it? Then comes a point when the brain is ready. Now there is
08:54free will or at least the possibility of it. Now it is possible to see what is going on,
09:02not outside. Outside the child starts seeing even at the age of 15 days. The ears start
09:12receiving inputs, the eyes start seeing something faintly. All that starts happening when the child
09:16is just a few days old maybe. But around the age of 8 to 10 years, the child starts developing a
09:26watching consciousness. And there is no magic involved in it. It's just that the number of
09:36brain cells has multiplied. The right areas of the brain have become developed enough,
09:44big enough. You can measure their mass. You can measure their size, the number of cells,
09:50the quantity of blood flow. All these things can be measured and you can know now that the
09:54brain is ripe enough to have now a watching consciousness. A consciousness that can know.
10:01Know what is really going on. Going on outside, doing on within itself. The process continues
10:08till the age of let's say 13, 14, 15. By that time approximately the brain is fully ripe to
10:20receive any kind of inputs. Now the brain is in a position where it cannot merely have knowledge,
10:30it can also have realization. So till the age of 8 or 10, nobody has any responsibility to be free
10:39of littleness. Only till the age of 8 or 10. Till the age of 8 or 10, you simply do not have the
10:48wherewithal to look at yourself. You therefore cannot be blamed or faulted. Are you getting it?
10:58But after that, you are responsible because now you are capable. At the age of 16, if a
11:15youngster is behaving in utterly conditioned ways, then he is to be blamed. Not the 6 year old,
11:25but the 16 year old is to be blamed because the 16 year old now has the capacity for self-observation.
11:31He is just deciding not to use it. Therefore, please understand the matter very clearly.
11:38Nobody is responsible or nobody is to be faulted or castigated for being conditioned. Why? Because
11:50we are born conditioned. We are not merely born conditioned. We are also born with a strong
11:57tendency to stay conditioned and gather even more conditioning. So that's the kind of problematic
12:08hardware with which we are born. The way we are born, we are born not merely to stay conditioned,
12:17but also accumulate more conditioning depending on the already accumulated conditioning. Are you
12:27getting it? It's almost like dv by dt being proportional to v. Your acceleration is proportional
12:40to your velocity. Now, what will happen? The more your velocity is, the more will be your
12:47acceleration. And the more your acceleration will be, the more your velocity will be. The
12:54more your velocity will be, the more your acceleration will be. It's a very dangerous
12:58situation. The curve will now be exponential. So we are born with some conditioning and we
13:08are born with the tendency to create layers and layers upon the kind of conditioning we are born
13:16with. So we must not blame ourselves. The blame does not lie there. The blame lies elsewhere.
13:21You are not to be faulted for being born conditioned, but you are to be surely faulted
13:27for not being responsible for your liberation. Are you getting it? You are not to be faulted
13:38for perspiring. Everybody sweats, but you are to be faulted for not cleaning up, for not washing up.
13:45If you are stinking, it would be wrong to blame you for perspiring. What can you do? Perspiration
13:57is there in the body. But if you perspire, then it is your responsibility to wash up. Why don't
14:08you wash up? The little man is not to be blamed for being little. He is to be blamed for remaining
14:18little. Do you get the difference? It's an important difference. He is not responsible
14:25for not being little. He is responsible to do the maximum that he can to not to remain little.
14:35And therein lies now the difference between the little man and the big man or the great man. The
14:45great man is nothing but the little man who at some point says it's no fun remaining little.
14:54Are you getting it? And he is born exactly similar to the little man. Now that puts the
15:07little man in the dock. If he could say that he doesn't want to remain little, why couldn't you?
15:13It is the presence of the great man that castigates the little man. If no greatness
15:27were possible at all, then there was no justification in pointing fingers at littleness.
15:35But greatness is possible. Greatness is possible and it is materially proven in the shape,
15:44form and figure of the great man. If he could do it, why couldn't you? He had all the vices
15:52that you have. He had all the tendencies that you have. He still has them. Some part of him
16:01will always remain little. Littleness is a congenital condition. You just cannot totally
16:10do away with it. You can tend towards complete freedom. Like in calculus, you can tend towards
16:19the absolute. You can tend towards being absolutely free. But you can never reach absolute freedom.
16:25A little bit will always remain. If he can do what he is doing and what he has done, in spite
16:36of all his littleness, why can't you? That is the question the little one has to answer. So the
16:50little man's charge sheet does not say that the little man is there and the great man is there
17:05and therefore the little man must be prosecuted. The charge sheet says the great man is also a
17:17little man. Read the charge sheet. It says the great man is also a little man. Therein lies
17:29your offense. Had the great man just been great, then the little man is allowed to stay little.
17:42But the great man is not just great. He purposefully, deliberately, effortfully decides
17:51to not to remain little and if he can decide that, if he can impose that kind of determination and
17:58discipline upon himself, why can't you? That's what your charge sheet reads. You are guilty
18:06of failing yourself. You are guilty of not living up to your own potential. Are you getting it?
18:16Now the question is, how does the little man turn into greatness? Littleness is problematic.
18:31Littleness involves suffering and therefore it is not greatness that you target. You target
18:40freedom from suffering. In targeting freedom from suffering, you do not even realize when you have
18:47left your littleness behind bit by bit, bit by bit and when you have left your littleness behind,
18:55one day somebody walks up to you and says, hey Gritty, now that is not what you were aiming at.
19:01You didn't want to be called a great. You just wanted to leave your pettiness behind and that
19:11is an authentic objective. If you target greatness, then you will remain little and use the badge of
19:20greatness to defend your littleness. Do you get the difference between these two approaches? Those
19:28who target greatness are hell-bent on remaining little and they will achieve greatness. What
19:33kind of greatness? The greatness that speaks through medals and honors and podiums and
19:41certifications. That kind of greatness. They will get a sir or something prefixed against their names.
19:52Now we are great. Now we are noble. Where? Outwardly. Inwardly they will remain little.
20:03So, the one who left littleness behind was not really targeting greatness. You cannot
20:15target greatness because greatness is inconceivable. Can you have a conception or an image of greatness?
20:23If you cannot have it, how can you target it? What then is a more real and justified and genuine
20:35objective? Freedom from littleness. And why did the great man seek freedom from littleness? Because
20:46littleness hurts. Littleness, doesn't it? Does it or not? It hurts. It hurts. And man is under
21:00no compulsion to tolerate and keep tolerating hurt. The little man, the hurt little man tried and found that it was
21:26possible to be free of hurt and suffering and all the pettiness. He just had to compromise a little
21:35on his identity. He just had to give up a few things which he used to take as valuable and it was possible
21:45to leave a little bit of hurt behind and it encouraged him. He said if even a minor movement
21:57can happen, then great instances are also possible, aren't they? The initial success spurred him on.
22:08He took bigger risks. He imposed greater discipline upon himself. He said the returns are sweet. I want to invest more in this process.
22:18And bit by bit, day by day, decision by decision, event by event, he just kept leaving the littleness
22:33behind. One day, the world started calling him great. Absolutely, he is not yet great because
22:46the absolute is not a point to be ever achieved. Absolutely, no one is great. The one you are
22:52calling as great is great just because he has left his relative littleness behind. Then where is
23:03absolute in all this? Absolute is grace. Without the blessings of the absolute, the little one
23:15couldn't have succeeded. In fact, the little one is succeeding because he is humble enough to realize
23:23that he is little. And because he is humble enough to realize that he is little, he tells himself what
23:30I have done is a big thing. And for sure, the way I was, this big project couldn't have been completed
23:41or taken forward. Surely, it is something outside of my littleness that is helping me. Therein comes
23:51the absolute. Now, he says it is by the blessings of the absolute that I have been able to put my
23:59littleness relatively behind. Not that I have become absolutely great. I haven't become absolutely great.
24:06I am yet only relatively great. But I would attribute my progress, my liberation to the absolute.
24:18Are you getting it? Then the questioner says, but I come across little people regularly, daily. They
24:37are all over the place. They are all around me. How do I remain unaffected? Exactly because they
24:44are all around you. So, their life is verifiable. Is it or not? If they are all around you, they
24:57are available to be observed. If they are all around you, then they cannot hide the facts of
25:05their life. What is the fact of their life? Littleness, hurt, suffering, tension, fear. So,
25:19you are saying because they are all around me, so they influence me. I am saying because they
25:25are all around you. That is reason enough to be not to be like them. He is there and I can see
25:33tension on his face. I can see suffering on his face, fear on his face, discord on his face,
25:39hate on his face. And they are all around me. Now, what will their presence do? What must their
25:48presence do? It should encourage me to not to become one of them. I should say, oh, I see all
25:55them and none of them is a worthy figure. The more I look at them, the more determined I feel to not
26:09to join them. So, I do not really get the question. When you say, I am surrounded by a crowd of little
26:18men, then how do I avoid littleness? Exactly because the crowd is pitiable. Had you said
26:27that you do not know any little men, then the situation would have been dangerous because now
26:32littleness is not available to you for observation. Because it is not available, therefore it can
26:39capture you. It can deceive you because you do not know it. You have not seen it. Now that you
26:50are seeing littleness every moment, how do you fall prey to it? How do you afford to? Tell me.
26:54The right intention has to be there. That's all. Everything that you will present in defense of
27:10littleness, everything that you will quote in defense of your littleness can be just turned
27:19around and presented as a reason to not to be little. It depends on your attitude. Come up
27:33with a reason to stay little. The same reason can be used to not to stay little. You say,
27:41oh, they pressurize me to stay little, therefore I am little. Somebody else may just turn around
27:48and say, I do not like pressures. Therefore, the moment somebody pressurizes me, I do the opposite
27:56of what he wants me to. You are saying, I did what I did because he pressurized me. Somebody
28:09else may say, because he was trying to pressurize me, so I with determination insisted that I will
28:20not do what he wants me to do because I don't work under pressure. So do not try to quote any
28:27reason or any factor in defense of littleness. Littleness cannot be defended. If you are
28:38defending littleness, you are actually saying that you want to condemn yourself to perpetual
28:44suffering, which is indefensible. Is it not? Be compassionate towards yourself and have faith
28:58that freedom is possible and life can be enjoyed really. Life need not be a melancholy song.
29:28It can be a symphony of ecstasy. That faith has to be there. Do not surrender so easily to the forces of
29:42littleness. They will keep telling you, who are you to demand freedom? You are just a petty fellow.
29:47Don't listen to them. By virtue of being conscious, you have all the rights to be
30:02liberated as well. Full stop. Irrespective of what your past is, irrespective of what
30:11your current conditions are, irrespective of what kind of actions you have accumulated over
30:26your lifetime, none of that matters. Till the day you are conscious, you have a right to be
30:40joyfully conscious. Are you getting it? And joy, when I say, I do not really mean happiness or
30:50pleasure. I mean a state of depth in consciousness. So the ball is always in our court. If we do not
31:15hit it right, we are responsible. What's more, you do not just get one chance to hit it right.
31:24Every passing moment is an opportunity to fire in a fresh serve. You cannot even say that I missed
31:46the bus. It's a busy route. There is a bus every second minute. And if you are found never boarding
32:00any bus, then it is not your misfortune. It is your misjudgment.