How to be less reactive and more responsive? || Acharya Prashant, at Cummins College, Nagpur (2022)

Acharya Prashant

🧔🏻‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00056  📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00056  ~~~~~  Video Information: 21.11.2022, Cummins College, Nagpur  Context: ~ How to control my emotions? ~ How to be less reactive? ~ How to not feel easily hurt? ~ Why are women easily fooled? ~ How to be a better human being?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant #emotions #womenempowerment #women #hurt #reflexes

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon sir. I am Nikki Singh. Sir, my question is how can I be a more responsive

00:08person rather than a reactive one? Good one. Thank you. Thank you sir.

00:18Responsive rather than reactive. First of all, do we see that there is a difference

00:23between these two? What is the difference? Response and reaction. Is there a difference?

00:40How do you know when you have reacted rather than responded? How do you know? Yes. Reaction

00:55is a? Good one. Nice. That is something we can begin with. So, she says reaction is something

01:06like reflex action. So, where do these reflexes come from? Does a little baby have reflexes? Yes

01:22or no? Yes. So, where do these reflexes come from? They come from mother nature. They come

01:31the mother's womb. You don't have to be taught reflexes. They exist right in your body. You

01:42bring a finger towards a little baby, just let's say a month old. You bring a little finger gently

01:49towards his eyes and what will he do? Nobody taught the baby to do this. Instinctively the

02:03baby knows that you know some foreign object is coming towards the eye. So, the eyelids have to

02:10be shut. Similarly, heat or cold or wetness, the baby knows how to deal with it. At least the baby

02:27knows that these are not nice things, so I need to cry. The temperature is 35, not pleasant,

02:36so the baby will cry. Or the temperature is 15, again not pleasant. Or the little bed is wet,

02:44again it will cry. How does it know all these things? How does the baby know how, for example,

02:51to take feed from the mother's body? The baby knows, you don't have to educate it. These are

02:58reflexes. What do these reflexes exist for? All these things that we just talked of, do they turn

03:09the baby into a better human being? Do they? Do they? No. Still they serve a purpose. What's the

03:20purpose? The purpose is physical security. Physical security. Now the hand that is coming

03:33towards the baby might be of a well-meaning relative and yet the baby might resist it and

03:44cry out or turn her face away because all that is needed for physical security. All that is

03:56needed for physical security. And nature through its very very long process of evolution instilled

04:08these reflexes within us. They now sit in our DNA and once upon a time they had an important

04:17function to perform. The function was physical security. Now what has happened is that over the

04:29last three four thousand years mankind has progressed remarkably and very speedily. But

04:40evolution is a very very slow process. In the dimension of evolution four thousand years mean

04:47nothing at all. So our body and the conditioning embedded in the body has remained just the same

04:57as it was 10 lakh years ago. Now compared to 10 lakh years how much is 4,000 years? Nothing. But

05:05all that which you call as your knowledge, your development, your civilization has come in the

05:10last 4,000 maximum 6,000 years, not more than that. But the instincts that you carry in your

05:18body they are millions of years old. Because they are so old so they will take time to change. Not

05:25that they cannot change but they will take time. So internally we are still as we said that caveman,

05:32that old caveman with his cave-like instincts. Our instincts belong to the jungle because all

05:40our life we have lived just in the jungle, right? How old are we? We are millions of years old. And

05:45where were we living all this while? Where were we living all this while? In the jungle. Only

05:54very recently have we moved out of the jungle into the village or the city. So our body still

06:02belongs to the jungle and that's where our reflexes come from. You could say our reflexes

06:10are very jungly. That's what is reaction, a wild thing, an uneducated thing, a very animalistic

06:23thing. But something very powerful because you don't even need to think about it. It sits in

06:29your body. Let's say your arm touches something hot. Do you have to think whether or not to jerk

06:37away? No. You immediately flinch, don't you? Why is that needed? Because mother nature said that if

06:48you think, thinking will take time. And in that time, your skin, your arm will be damaged. So let

06:57me give you something that bypasses thought. That's what reaction does. It gives you no time

07:02to think. It just happens. It's like switching on an electric bulb. Instantaneous reaction,

07:13it's like pouring water over sodium. Instantaneous reaction. No time to think,

07:18just happens. Something very chemical, very biological. That's what reactiveness is. There

07:24is no thought, no consciousness involved in this. Mind this word, consciousness. Reflex action does

07:32not involve consciousness. Reflex action does not involve thought. Reactiveness does not involve

07:40consciousness. It only involves your wild, wild cave-like instincts. Are you getting it? Now,

07:49those instincts we said are useful because they help the animal survive. We were an animal,

07:54right? Living in the jungle, we were just like animals. And those instincts have surely been

07:59beneficial because they have helped us survive over all these millions of years. So definitely

08:05have, at least they had a good use. Are you getting it? You must ask yourself, do you still

08:15need to live by the code of the animal, by the rules and the constitution of the animal,

08:23or as evolved human beings? You need to live more by thought and even more by understanding.

08:33Someone comes and says something unpleasant to you. Do you need to just immediately unthinkingly

08:44explode as most of us do? Or can you tell yourself, I'm not an animal. I can wait. I

08:51can be patient. Let me at least think over it. And if I think deeply, the thought will

08:57sublimate into understanding. Even if I can't go to that depth of thought, let me at least try

09:05to think. Let me at least postpone the reaction because the reaction belongs to the jungle,

09:11to the animal, to the caveman. Am I jungly? In the jungle, we didn't have hair cut to begin

09:26with and there was no social media. We weren't brushing our tooth either. No one was wearing

09:34specs. No one wore clothes in the first place. When you have dropped all that, think of all

09:44that happens in the jungle. Someone is just pouncing upon someone else and tearing the

09:49body apart and eating the flesh. When you have dropped all that, why can't you drop your

09:57reactiveness? Are you getting it? And particularly women, you see, because the biological role of

10:09women has a lot to do with the body, right? The woman carries the baby for nine months and then

10:17also raises the baby for several years. Therefore, Prakriti, mother nature, made her even more

10:26reactive. Now that was all okay in the cave times. That is not okay today. Do you want to live as a

10:35body coming from the jungle or do you want to live as a free consciousness? Answer this please.

10:41And if you want to live as a free consciousness, then stop being emotionally reactive. That's the

10:47worst thing girls can do to themselves, living from their emotional center. But you know, the force

10:54of emotion is so strong that when it rises, it feels like just the right thing. That's the

11:02problem. You can resist something if first of all it appears bad. If something appears bad,

11:09then you will even begin to resist it. But when emotion arises, it does not even appear bad. It

11:17appears just the right thing to happen. And you feel like supporting it. And the more you support

11:23it, the more you will remain enslaved. The animal, you know, what do you call animal in Hindi? In

11:33Sanskrit? Pashu. That which is in Pash. Pash means slavery. That which is in Pash is Pashu. If you

11:47live by the code of the animal, you will live the life of a slave. The more reactive and the more

11:53emotional you are, the more easily you will be enslaved. Because emotion is like a button and

12:01everybody knows where your buttons are. Anybody can come and press that button and get the desired

12:07output from you. Suppose I want to make you angry and I know that if I utter a particular word to

12:12you, you get angry. Now it is so easy for me to control you, is it not? If I want to upset you,

12:19I just have to utter that word. You have become a machine and I know the trigger. Equally, let's

12:26say I want to make you happy. I want to please you. And that is something very frequently used,

12:31especially with women. I want to please you. I know what pleases you. I can come and say,

12:35oh, you're looking gorgeous. The button has been and immediately you will be prepared to do me a

12:45favor. It's not so simplistic, but you get the drift, right? If I know what pleases you, I can

12:56enslave you. If I know what displeases you, I can again enslave you. And that is the great danger

13:06in being emotionally reactive. You are predictable. And if you are predictable, you are controllable.

13:12Do you get this? Don't you see how even little kids try to fool their mothers? Mama, the food

13:23is great today. Mama, can I have 500 rupees? Now the father had refused even 100 rupees. But

13:32this rascal manages to squeeze 500 from the mother. Mama, the food is great. And the mama says,

13:38okay, you take 500. Those who have known what womanhood means have had tremendous respect for

13:54women. The topmost Hindi author Premchand, he used to say that when men evolve beyond a point,

14:09it's then that they acquire some feminine qualities. Otherwise, men remain inferior to

14:15women. And therefore, it is an even bigger tragedy that such a fine creature, the woman,

14:26such a fine specimen of evolution has lived life of continuous deprivation and slavery just because

14:39she has been too emotional and too reactive. Ready to shed tears at the drop of a hat. Why

14:53must you weep so often? Not that tears are a problem. I too weep quite frequently and there's

15:00nothing problematic in that. But there has to be some discretion. You must know where those tears

15:11are coming from. No? Remember, if there is an animal sitting in the woman, there is a bigger

15:26animal sitting in the man. And that animal is bloodthirsty and bigger. And he'll eat you up.

15:39He'll tear you apart. And that's what he has been doing since centuries. If you remain an animal,

15:49the male, remember, is a bigger and more powerful animal. The only way you can beat the male animal

15:58is by not remaining an animal. Become a human being. And a human being is not characterized

16:06by her reactiveness or emotionality. The mark of a human being is consciousness, understanding,

16:14depth, freedom of thought. Animals are supposed to react. Human beings are supposed to understand

16:25and then respond. That's the difference between reaction and response. Response involves

16:31understanding. Reaction is just chemical. One molecule meets another and there is a

16:42explosion. That's reaction. You don't want to be chemical. You don't want to be animal.

16:47Whenever you find emotions taking control of yourself, resist, fight. That's the one battle

16:59worthy to be fought. The external battles can wait a little. If you can fight the internal

17:13battle well, you will find the external battles are far easier to win. Be a master of your own

17:24mind.

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