Video Information: 22.11.2022, LIT - Nagpur, Maharashtra
Context:
~ Aftab-murder mystery
~ Can mental disease be an excuse for crime?
~ Seeking privileges in the name of depression?
~ Is depression a hoax?
~ Are we so helpless?
~ Looking for compensation?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #youth #depression #motivation
Context:
~ Aftab-murder mystery
~ Can mental disease be an excuse for crime?
~ Seeking privileges in the name of depression?
~ Is depression a hoax?
~ Are we so helpless?
~ Looking for compensation?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #youth #depression #motivation
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Pranam, Acharyaji. I am Ritu Tiwari. I am an alumnus of this college. My question is
00:13related to defamation of mental health problems. I will give you three examples. First comes
00:20from a recent murder case that happened in the capital of our country where a man named
00:26Aftab killed his live-in partner and chopped her body into 35 pieces and spread them all
00:32over in the forest. There were some people that I saw on Instagram, few of them were
00:39psychologists and psychiatrists and they were supporting his deeds under the name that he
00:47was mentally ill. He did not do that deliberately. So that was one thing. Then secondly, there
00:53are people I have met and they do not have a genuine problem. They are just lazy about
00:59the things that they have to do. They procrastinate a lot or maybe they just don't want to do
01:06it. But then they will color all of this with the paint of depression or some other names
01:11like ADHD, OCD and all other diseases, disorders. And what they do is they search like I have
01:17fatigue, I have anxiety and what do I need to do about this and Google will give them
01:22a result that you have this disorder and they will make sure to tell it to everybody
01:28that I have this disorder. Though they do not want to come out of that situation. And
01:33third scenario happens with people who have actually went through some trauma in their
01:37childhood or in their teenage and because of that they suffer from depression or some
01:43other disorders, mental disorders and they aren't hurt. They are not given the treatment
01:49that should be given to them medically as well as on therapy and spiritual level. I
01:53was one of them and through ads and other things I came in touch with you and Prashant
01:59Advait Foundation since 1.5 years and I have seen what transition has been there. But then
02:06due to this defamation of tarnishing of the word depression or mental health or mental
02:13illnesses by so many people at so many levels like you are covering crime of a criminal,
02:19a heinous crime under the name that he was just mentally ill which is not at all justified.
02:25This I think shouldn't be done and my question to you is how can we just make a normal definition
02:36of mental health and mental illnesses and help can reach the people who actually need
02:42it and it is not misused. That's all. Thank you.
02:45Ritu, see it's just not about mental disease. People have been exploiting all kinds of diseases
03:04since long because when you declare yourself as diseased, you become eligible for certain
03:17privileges. If you are hale and hearty, you will be asked to do your quota of household work,
03:27right? Go to the market and fetch some goods and behave in the responsible way,
03:42a healthy individual must. But the moment you are declared sick,
03:51first of all, you gain privileges that give comforts. Secondly, you are absolved of all
04:02responsibility. She is sick. How can she make tea? So the younger brother has to now do your
04:13part of the work and does that not happen even in normal households? So that's good old ego for you.
04:24It does not take its situation as something it should very quickly get rid of. It takes
04:38its diseased situation that it should make use of, not get rid of, but make use of.
04:48I have a headache. So, you know, I can't speak. I'm getting up and leaving. Guys,
04:59you can have an off today and all the students are very happy. Something goes bad. It's a matter
05:10of celebration, right? You remember when it used to be a rainy day in school times and kids used
05:17to pray, let it rain, let it rain. Let the entire school building collapse. Full two months off.
05:28That's ego. It celebrates what should not be celebrated. It deprecates what deserves to be
05:44celebrated. Are you getting it? So someone can throw a lot of tantrums and say, you know, that's
05:57because I have a certain mental illness. You can abuse someone, you can hit someone, you can throw
06:06stuff around. You can do all kinds of unimaginable things and later on get away saying I am.
06:16And as far as mental illness goes, it is not something that can be very accurately,
06:28absolutely conclusively proven in a pathology test. It is always an inference that your doctor
06:37draws. It is never a fact really. A blood report or any other report of the body cannot just prove
06:47that there are borderline cases. There are gray areas and the ego loves to make use of these gray
06:55areas. See, let me clarify. I am not talking of people who are genuinely ill. Depression is not
07:04a hoax. There are people who are genuinely depressed and require medical care. There
07:11are people who suffer from other disorders, mental disorders, and it's not as if they
07:18are just pretending. They are genuinely suffering. So we are not talking of them
07:23here. Your question is about people who are either faking it or misusing their illness.
07:33I'm saying it's an age old tendency of the ego. Don't do that.
07:42The fundamental observance should be to not treat your weaknesses as your assets.
07:54And it's a great temptation to use your weakness as your asset.
08:00If your weakness becomes your asset, please tell me, will you ever get rid of your weakness?
08:07And think of the various ways in which we try to use our weakness as our asset.
08:13There is just one chair and the two of you are vying for it. Who gets the chair?
08:26The one who claims that he has pain in the knee. Weakness becomes an asset. Don't do that.
08:39Don't do that. If ever you are asked reasons for your non-performance or failure in any field,
08:49think of the answer you come up with. I did not perform or I failed because I was suffering from
08:58something. It could be a disease. It could be a situation. It could be some foreign party,
09:06some person, something who's trying to pull you down.
09:15I could not clear the entrance exam because the examination center, it was not properly built.
09:24And it was the month of May. 40 degrees centigrade, tin roof. I was sweating so much.
09:33The damn paper got all wet. Nobody could read my answers. Ink was all over the place. The paper
09:46was wet. That's the reason I couldn't be selected. Otherwise, I was all India rank one. No doubt.
10:04The frequency of those who come up, it's my job to meet people every day. And on an average,
10:13if I average it over the month, I'm probably meeting hundreds every day. The frequency
10:22of those who come up claiming they have a certain disorder or disability or great problem,
10:31has simply kept on increasing over the years. In short, everyone likes to play a helpless victim.
10:45Who am I? A helpless victim. Now, what kind of character is this? Everybody is a victim. And
10:58you know why you want to play a victim? Why do you want to act as a victim? Because when you are
11:06victim, there is definitely a victimizer. And if you are a victim, there would definitely be
11:14compensation. It is the greed of compensation that pushes us to play the victim. Sometimes
11:26people do not say that they have been personally wronged by either an internal disorder or an
11:34external entity. They say we have been socially and historically wronged. We are victims of history.
11:42We have been wronged since 500 years or 5000 years. So please pay us compensation. You have
11:52been doing all kinds of wrong things to me. But I have never even seen you or met you. No,
11:57no, it's not you. Your grandparents who did all kinds of filthy stuff. No, but my grandparents
12:04are simple people who they lived in that village and they didn't even know you. No, no,
12:08their grandparents. Finally, the thing is that you should pay compensation. The man wants to
12:18draw compensation from the woman. I work all day. I work so hard. I am the breadwinner and I come
12:27home tired. So you ought to be the massage woman for me. The moment I land in the house,
12:37the massage should begin. A massage of all kinds. This one goes out to my friend with dark humor.
12:48Because nobody seems to be getting it. The woman says, you know, I am exactly as educated
13:07as you are. In fact, I'm more educated. I'm a master's in something you are only a graduate.
13:16If you earn this much, I could have earned even more. But you destroyed my career by making me
13:23pregnant. You forcefully impregnated me. Else I would have been the president of India today. For
13:32sure. All my friends are CEOs. But because you destroyed my career, therefore you must compensate
13:44and how will you compensate? You keep all your salary here. You keep your salary here. Further,
13:53I'll appoint three maids and a cook. I need compensation. My life, my career have been
14:01destroyed by my husband. Had there been no husband, there would have been no kids. And
14:07if there were no kids, I would have had a flourishing career. Now the kids, they come
14:20up and say, you know, these two are psychos. And we are the real victims. We need compensation.
14:35How? The latest Apple, which one? I-14, the latest I-14. We deserve at least that much of
14:48compensation, you know, for living with these two retards. It's a matter of shame if you have
15:03to declare yourself a victim. I'll tell you what all the great people have rather done. Even when
15:10they were hurt, they neither acknowledged nor declared that they are hurt. Forget about declaring
15:20to others, I am hurt and help me. They would not acknowledge even to themselves that they are hurt.
15:28They would say, oh yes, we are wounded. We are wounded indeed. Come on. But not hurt. But not
15:39hurt because it is a sign of weakness to say that there is anything in the entire universe that can
15:46hurt me. Nothing can hurt me. Vedanta teaches you, you are sons and daughters of immortality itself.
16:00How can you be so weak and so brittle, so fragile that just about anything comes and hurts you? How
16:08is it possible? You are sons of immortality. And you are so keen to declare, oh, you know, he said
16:15two bad things to me and I am depressed. What did he say? He said, you know, look at your height,
16:22you are just 5'10", not even six feet. 5'10 is something to be ashamed of, so I'm hurt. All you
16:32have is 91% marks, not even 98%, not even 98%. So I'm feeling so anxious. What will happen to my
16:43future? I have only 91%, so I'm hurt. Somebody entertain me. The real individual is one who takes
16:58no pride in being hurt, who finds it a matter of shame to be hurt. He wants to win over his hurt or
17:08her hurt. If I admit that the other has succeeded in hurting me, then the other has won. I have to
17:24develop myself into someone who is hurt-proof. The body can be wounded. The mind will not receive,
17:37not admit even a bruise. Even if you kill me, I'll still be composed. You cannot hurt me. You can kill
17:47me, but you cannot hurt me. Victim, forget about being a victim. I'll always be the provider.
17:55Remember the story of Karan? He has been hit and people will say unfairly so, right? One of the
18:13wheels of his chariot was stuck in mud and he was trying to somehow pull it out and Arjun fired the
18:27arrow and Karan is now hit and he's fatally hit. He's about to die. Last few breaths. He's lying
18:38in the battlefield and as one last test, one could say as one last joke, the gods decide to
18:49test him once again or make him laugh once again. So they go to him dressed as a mendicant with a
19:06begging bowl and they please, can you give me something, some bhiksha, something? And then
19:16this Brahmin who had come to ask for alms, he said, oh I see, what can you give me? You are
19:27yourself lying on the ground here in your last moments, so you cannot give me anything. Karan
19:34says, wait, wait, wait. I'm still Karan. I'm lying on the ground. I never admitted defeat and history
19:48will remember that I was never beaten fair and square. The battle was very, very evenly poised
19:57when I had to descend from my chariot and that was the only opportunity Arjun had to hit me right
20:05here in the chest. So I have not surrendered. I'm in a bad situation. That does not mean I have
20:15surrendered and I'm still Karan. I'm still the Danavir. So wait, here is something for you and
20:24it is said that one of his tooth was of gold. Some treatment might be, some surgery, whatever.
20:33So in his last moments, he pulls out that tooth. Ever been to a dentist for a root canal or
20:42something? How does it feel? Even with anesthesia, how does it feel? Horrible. Don't want to remember
20:52that, right? Somebody putting his hand right inside your mouth and doing all kinds of wild stuff.
20:58And Karan pulls out his own tooth and hands it over. He says this. Or is Karan crying? See,
21:08I am a victim. Is he crying? See how fate has unfairly treated me. First of all,
21:15I'm from the royal family and I was abandoned for no fault of mine. My mother mated with the
21:24Sun God and just threw me away in the waters. How was that any mistake of mine? Later on,
21:33I was raised by someone from a relatively lower class and all my life I was mocked as a sooth
21:41putra. How was that any fault of mine? Is he trying to play the victim? Even in his dying
21:46moments, he has his dignity. And when you play the victim, that's the one thing that you immediately
21:54lose. Dignity. Do you want to live an indignified life? Uphold your dignity first thing. When the
22:07ego is little, then it runs after pride. When the ego is great and sublimated, then it says
22:15pride is a small thing. I love, I love dignity. And dignity is not pride. Dignity is something
22:27far higher than pride. Even when you have lost everything in the world, everything material,
22:36everything that can be owned and possessed, still retain your dignity. Never say I am helpless. I
22:46need support. Even when you need support, seek support with dignity. Don't just fall over.
22:57Am I making sense? There is no greatness in playing weak, in acting as a victim. There is
23:20no greatness in that. Therefore, you must read a lot. You must read the stories, the biographies
23:28of the greats from any field. From science, from religion, from sports, from politics,
23:34adventurers, discoverers. And you will see how they fought against adversity. And one
23:45common characteristic is that situations never got the better of them. In fact, I was reciting
23:55this poem, Invictus, Invictus, when I was coming to Nagpur. If somebody could, I will read it out
24:02to you. It's very pertinent. Are we together? Fine. How many of you have heard of this poem,
24:15Invictus, W.E. Henley? I will recite it. And look at the spirit, look at the spirit.
24:24Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole,
24:30I'm not living in illuminated times. My environment is all black, even bleak.
24:39Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole,
24:44I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.
24:49The night is all outside and the night has enveloped me, but the soul within is
24:57unconquerable. The situations might be adverse, but within, I shall always remain unconquerable.
25:09Outside, I might be defeated. Inwardly, I shall always be a champion.
25:14Getting it, that must be the spirit, not the desire, the cheap desire to play a victim.
25:21In the fell clutch of circumstance, in the fell clutch of circumstance, amid adverse situations,
25:32the circumstances are not favorable. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor
25:38cried aloud. Yes, situations are indeed bad. I'm not fooling myself. It's not as if I'm
25:53disconnected from the reality. I know the situations are bad, but I have neither winced
26:00nor cried aloud, but I'm not going to cry. That's not for me to do.
26:09Under the bludgeoning of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed.
26:16Beautiful. You understand bludgeoning? Hammering. When you hammer something,
26:23it is called bludgeoning. Under the bludgeoning of chance, what does chance mean? Fate, circumstance.
26:29It is a matter of chance. Nobody can control life. So many things are unpredictable.
26:39Under the bludgeoning of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed. Yes, the hammer of fate
26:47has bloodied my head, but my head is bloodied, still erect, upright. That's how your head should
26:55be always, irrespective of how the situations are. Even if your head is shattered by the hammer
27:02of time, let it be unbowed. Getting it? You remember the story of that fakir.
27:14Was it Aurangzeb who executed him? Memory ditches me sometimes. So it is said that
27:22his head was cut off because he was refusing to follow the king's orders.
27:28And when the severed head fell on the ground, it laughed. Look at the audacity.
27:38Now this is humor. Can you laugh with your head chopped off? Then you are a humorist, sir.
27:51Getting it? The head is gone and the head falls on the ground and starts laughing.
27:55Obviously only for a few seconds and then it's just silence.
28:01That's how you ought to be as young people, as strong men and women.
28:10Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade and yet the menace of the
28:19ears finds and shall find me unafraid. Does this stir something within you? Yes? Are you young?
28:33Good. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll.
28:42I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. Repeat. I am the master of my fate.
28:53I am the captain of my soul.
28:58I'm not a hapless victim. I'm not a little one being kicked around by chance.
29:04Right?