Video Information: Vishranti Shivir, 06.10.2019, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Description:
In this enlightening session, Acharya Ji delves into the concepts of liberation and the importance of disassociation from external values when choosing a life mission. He distinguishes between "want" and "must," emphasizing that true fulfillment comes from recognizing what one must do based on a deep understanding of responsibilities rather than fleeting passions influenced by societal conditioning. Using the example of Mahatma Gandhi, Acharya Ji illustrates the significance of preparation and observation in identifying meaningful actions. Ultimately, he advocates for a life driven by duty and sincerity, where actions are rooted in knowledge and a commitment to making a positive impact on the world.
Context:
~ What is the significance of disassociation in achieving liberation?
~ How do external influences shape our passions?
~ What is the difference between "want" and "must" in decision-making?
~ How can we identify what truly needs to be done in our lives?
~ Why is preparation important before taking action?
~ What can we learn from Gandhi's approach to understanding societal issues?
~ How can we ensure our actions are sincere and meaningful?
~ What does it mean to live a life of duty?
~ How can observation enhance our understanding of our responsibilities?
~ In what ways can we apply these principles to create a positive impact?
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
#acharyaprashant
Description:
In this enlightening session, Acharya Ji delves into the concepts of liberation and the importance of disassociation from external values when choosing a life mission. He distinguishes between "want" and "must," emphasizing that true fulfillment comes from recognizing what one must do based on a deep understanding of responsibilities rather than fleeting passions influenced by societal conditioning. Using the example of Mahatma Gandhi, Acharya Ji illustrates the significance of preparation and observation in identifying meaningful actions. Ultimately, he advocates for a life driven by duty and sincerity, where actions are rooted in knowledge and a commitment to making a positive impact on the world.
Context:
~ What is the significance of disassociation in achieving liberation?
~ How do external influences shape our passions?
~ What is the difference between "want" and "must" in decision-making?
~ How can we identify what truly needs to be done in our lives?
~ Why is preparation important before taking action?
~ What can we learn from Gandhi's approach to understanding societal issues?
~ How can we ensure our actions are sincere and meaningful?
~ What does it mean to live a life of duty?
~ How can observation enhance our understanding of our responsibilities?
~ In what ways can we apply these principles to create a positive impact?
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
#acharyaprashant
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, we were talking yesterday, you were mentioning yesterday about liberation being, liberation
00:14is being disassociated with things around and keep doing what needs to be done, but
00:18not get, not assign value to stuff in life and be, you know, give too much important
00:26thing that it is, there is something too big to do, you know.
00:29So, generally when one has to choose the work in his life, so students generally are advised
00:39figure out what your passion is, think about what you are so passionate about, do some
00:44work which you do not really feel like it is a work, you know, it is, you do not think
00:50that you are doing a job, it is, you will, you will do this work even if you are not
00:53paid.
00:54So, something you are passionate about, so disassociation and passion do not seem to
00:59go together and for me I do not, I do not see how passion and disassociation can happen
01:03together.
01:04So, if I have to choose, like for example, the foundation, the foundation has got a mission,
01:12the path has got a mission, you have a mission, like you, you are, you are running, you are
01:17doing all this for so many years with a, with a mission.
01:23I also understand that, like from the example of the, that YouTube channel getting hacked,
01:30there could be things happening, you are disassociated to the extent that things would not hurt you,
01:36you will keep going on doing your mission.
01:39So, if I have, without any passion or attachment or assigning a value, I am not able to understand
01:47how do I choose a mission for my life, what do, how do I know what, what should be the,
01:55what should I be doing over, like for my life?
01:59There are few things in this regard.
02:07One thing is choosing work under external pressure, which many people do, under the
02:13pressure of peers or situations or market forces, or choosing it by dint of just coincidence.
02:27One happened to get placed in a particular industry in the campus placement process.
02:32It happens so many times, right?
02:34One just happens to get placed and then one's career starts rolling on in that particular
02:39direction.
02:42And that is one thing that happens, where your career is being determined by so-called
02:48external situations.
02:51Then there is the other case of your career being determined by your passion.
02:58It is just marginally superior a situation compared to the previous one.
03:10Because what we call as our inner urge towards a particular work is again something very,
03:19very conditioned, right?
03:26It is difficult to be born in India and be passionate towards ice hockey.
03:37You will have very few kids saying that they want to make rugby or ice hockey their career.
03:42Whereas so many kids are very passionate about cricket.
03:48So we know where passion comes from.
03:49It is not internal.
03:52Passion too comes from surroundings.
03:55But passion becomes dangerous because it presents itself as if it is something internal.
04:00Not only does it present itself as something internal, it decorates itself as something
04:08of the heart.
04:09The fellow will say, you know, my heart beats for cricket.
04:13You must ask him, why doesn't your heart beat for ice hockey?
04:17Just because you have had no conditions favorable to ice hockey, right?
04:26You have not been conditioned towards ice hockey.
04:31You are conditioned towards cricket.
04:34Because there was cricket on the TV, there was cricket in the journals, on the radio,
04:40in the park in front of your house, your elder brother put a cricket bat in your hand when
04:46you were just three years old.
04:49You are seeing all these things.
04:52And all these things are having an influence on you.
04:56The result is you didn't even get to know when you absorbed and internalized all these
05:01things and you have started saying, well, my heart beats for cricket.
05:07Were you born in Brazil, would your heart still beat for cricket or Russia, let's say?
05:17So passion is as much an external thing as, let's say, peer pressure.
05:23Somebody chooses his work or occupation going by market forces or peer pressure or family
05:29pressure.
05:30And then there is someone who says, I am choosing my passion for my livelihood.
05:37These two are hardly different.
05:39Even if one is better than the other, it's only marginally so.
05:46Then there is a decision that comes from the center of understanding.
05:53You realize what is valuable.
05:57You realize what is life affirmative.
06:02And you find it missing.
06:03You find that there is something that needs to be promoted, something that needs to be
06:06done.
06:09And then you do it not because you want to do it, but because you must do it.
06:15You don't do it because it is something quite attractive or remunerative.
06:21You do it because it needs to be done.
06:25There is no option.
06:27It is a call.
06:32It is a sacred duty.
06:34You cannot avoid it.
06:38And only then is the work chosen by you really appropriate.
06:43Are you getting it?
06:48These are two words that you must be very careful about, want and must.
06:56I want to do this thing versus I must do this thing.
07:02These are dimensionally different statements.
07:09All want is conditioned.
07:15Mustness is an entirely different thing.
07:20This must be done.
07:24And in front of this, it doesn't matter what I feel, how I think, what my ideals are, what
07:30my situations and conditions are, this must be done irrespective of everything.
07:41The one who starts living, abiding in this mustness, starts living in the pinnacle of
07:49life.
07:50Now it's a different zone of existence altogether.
07:56Now you have just silently achieved all the spiritual goods.
08:06Detachment you have achieved, renunciation you have achieved, witnessing, yes, you are
08:12there, dispassion, yes, you are there, commitment, determination, surrender, yes, all of them
08:24become available to you, all the so-called spiritual goodies.
08:29They just come to you in a bunch as if they are all shadows of mustness.
08:39Where there is mustness, there is the climate of spiritual benevolence.
08:56This mustness is classically called as dharma.
09:00Are you getting it?
09:04Doing not what you desire to do, doing that which you must do.
09:13And that is the only thing that makes all the difference in life.
09:18Are you doing something because you desire to do it or are you doing something because
09:23you must do it?
09:26And remember this mustness is not a thing of duty or external pressure or moral responsibility.
09:36This mustness does not come from those places.
09:40It's not about saying you must help your neighbor or you must be kind to people, no.
09:51Not that kind of mustness.
09:52We aren't talking moral science here.
09:59It is a very different mustness.
10:00It comes from realization.
10:03We said it proceeds from the core of understanding.
10:08Having really understood, now a few things become totally unavoidable.
10:14Once you know you are helpless, you must do.
10:21You may even have a desire to roll back the reel and say well I don't know at all because
10:31I do not know so I am now free from the obligation of mustness.
10:37But now you know and you cannot unknow what you know.
10:41That is the thing about understanding.
10:45If you really understand then you cannot roll back the process.
10:53Once you really understand then you don't own the understanding.
10:55The understanding owns you.
11:01Once you are owned by understanding then obviously your own personal desires hold no value.
11:12Now the value belongs to the owner.
11:16When will I be able to recognize the world?
11:33You will have to look at yourself and the world.
11:35If everything is perfect then there need not be anything to do.
11:43There is a stain on the wall and fire in the kitchen.
11:47Both need to be taken care of.
11:51And Shweta is asking but you know both need to be taken care of.
11:55How do I decide which one needs to be first?
11:59There is a stain on the wall and there is fire in the kitchen.
12:03Everything is burning.
12:04Do you need to ask me which one holds a higher importance?
12:09There is fire in both the rooms.
12:14Then you figure out which room has the baby.
12:17Or you figure out which room are you trapped in.
12:23Or you figure out which room has more people.
12:26Or you figure out which room contains the gas cylinder.
12:33That is what is meant by observation.
12:37Observe the world and observe yourself.
12:39And you will know what is it that must be done.
12:46And then give up the right to un-choose what deserves to be chosen.
13:13Once you know what is right, then surrender your right not to choose the right.
13:23If you continue to hold that right, then inevitably at some point you will use that right and
13:31un-choose the right.
13:37This is what is meant by surrender.
13:41Trustness necessarily involves surrender.
13:49And I will choose to do it irrespective of whether I believe I will be able to complete
13:59it or not.
14:01Because it has to be done.
14:03It has to be done.
14:05And I may have a very clear idea that I will not succeed, but it needs to be done.
14:18It must be done.
14:23I have no option but to do it irrespective of the situations, irrespective of the conditions
14:31and obviously irrespective of the outcome.
14:39And it is not that I will blindly rush into doing it.
14:41I have my resources.
14:43Now I know what needs to be done.
14:46I will marshal my resources in the most intelligent way possible.
14:52Not that I will blindly present myself for massacre.
14:56Not that I will walk into a slaughterhouse.
15:02Getting it?
15:03I have intellect.
15:04I have memory.
15:05I have capability.
15:08I can analyze.
15:09I can think.
15:10I can plan.
15:13All these are gifts available to me.
15:15This is my ammunition.
15:16And I will use all of this towards that which must be done.
15:42Just continuation of what she is asking, there are a lot of things which must be done.
16:06Take into account the criticality of the situation.
16:13And you know that your job is to do something about it.
16:20And that something is not just a token contribution.
16:26It has to be something very meaningful, as effective as you can make it.
16:34Weigh in all these things and see how you must start.
16:44You know, when you are asking that there are so many things and what is it that needs to
16:50be done.
16:51I am reminded of the time when Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa to India.
16:59And he had been in South Africa at the center of a civil movement for quite a while, almost
17:11two decades, more than two decades.
17:15In between he had kept coming to India to attend Congress sessions and to visit and
17:18these things.
17:21But there was not much depth in those visits.
17:25So finally when he left South Africa for good and landed in India in the middle of the second
17:35decade of the last century, Gopal Krishna Gokhale told him, no public life for you for
17:45at least one year.
17:49Yes, you have been an outstanding leader in South Africa and you had victories and you
17:57have the capability to mobilize people and rally them behind you.
18:02But no public life in India for you for at least one year.
18:07Just abstain.
18:08Observe, watch, travel, know.
18:14First of all, read this country because there are just too many things at too many places.
18:19You cannot blindly rush into anything.
18:22At the same time, you cannot wait for long, Gandhi.
18:26You are already in your forties.
18:30You are already in your forties and you are well equipped to do something.
18:35The kind of experience, the repository that you have cannot be allowed to go waste.
18:39It must be put in the service of the nation.
18:42But it cannot be immediately rushed.
18:48So have some kind of a sabbatical for one year.
18:52Gandhiji considered Gokhale his teacher and he followed the advice.
18:59He just kept studying.
19:01He said there are so many things happening in this vast land, from Burma till Afghanistan,
19:12from Tibet till Lanka.
19:24And then he started to get a handle on things.
19:34Then came the Champaran movement.
19:37It's not that he had consciously selected to be in Champaran.
19:42That too was a kind of an accident.
19:44But then when you are prepared, then very solemn accidents happen with you.
20:01Even accidentally, the right things can happen to you only if you are prepared.
20:10So Gandhiji knew that there was something that needs to be done, but I don't yet know
20:15what is it that needs to be done.
20:16Just like your question, there are so many things happening everywhere.
20:21It's a very vast country, it's a subcontinent.
20:26What do I put my hand into?
20:30So he was reading, he was meeting people, he was traveling extensively, he was studying
20:36the Indian landscape.
20:40And then the accident happened.
20:47Somebody from a godforsaken village, a district in Bihar came to him and kept shadowing him
21:00and said that such a thing is happening there and we need you to come and support us and
21:07defend our rights.
21:11The British masters are forcibly asking us to grow opium on 15% of our land and that's
21:19exploitative.
21:20Are you getting it?
21:25If you are serious about the whole thing, what would you do?
21:29You would do what he did.
21:31You would read, you would meet, you would travel.
21:35You would observe.
21:38You would be all the time alert.
21:42You would want to find out an opportunity.
21:46And it's far easier today, you know.
21:50It's information age.
21:52Even traveling is far easier today.
21:55At that time, to reach Champaran, you had to travel on an elephant back.
21:59That's how Gandhi reached.
22:07Today all these things are available.
22:10You can fly to the masons if you want to.
22:15And you don't need to fly because all the information is available.
22:19The videos are there.
22:20The perspectives are there.
22:21What is it that you want?
22:33So your sincerity is judged by all the background work that you are doing.
22:42You cannot say you want to do good to the world.
22:44You cannot say that, for example, you are very concerned with climate change.
22:50And you do not know the scientific basis for all that is happening.
22:57You cannot just rush into some activity or the other.
23:01You cannot become a social media warrior or a placard soldier without knowing the fundamentals.
23:14Don't you want to study the science first?
23:18Don't you want to know what kind of actions are best suited if you want to fight this
23:25catastrophe?
23:27And if you do not know what action is best suited to fight it, how are you taking any
23:32action?
23:33I am asking you, with no bias against tree plantation, how do you know that planting
23:38trees is the best way to counter this menace?
23:42Do you have the numbers?
23:45Without having the numbers, why do you just want to offer a nominal service to the cause?
23:58Must you not first of all study the UN reports?
24:01And there are so many other organizations keeping a watch over the climate.
24:05Should you not take out time to go through those reports and know what the whole thing
24:10is really about?
24:13Or do you just want to be a do-gooder, a society man?
24:19It is often fashionable to do all these things.
24:39Study and then act with total commitment and determination.
24:46If your action is founded on the basis of understanding, then your action becomes irreversible.
24:54But if your action is coming from some flimsy point, then such action has no momentum.
25:02It doesn't have longevity because it doesn't have sincerity really.