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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/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00046
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00046
📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00046
➖➖➖
#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita
➖➖➖
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,
00:59this is because of the conditioning that is happening in this society today, wherein media
01:04is, you know, bombarding us, bombarding us with a lot of these negativities, etc, in
01:09different forms. That's where my conditioning is also changing in one form or the other.
01:14So could you help me understand, I mean, if there is some way that we can really get the
01:20experiencer, which is me, to be separated from the experience that I'm seeing in all
01:26across my, you know, throughout my throughout my daily life, and how can I live a better
01:31life and I kind of see all these things happening and surrounded by all these negativities all
01:36across all around me. So how could how could I deal with it?
01:42It's a small trick does not always work, but you may try it out. Just try figuring out
01:49where the thing is coming from. You'll not always succeed. It's a bit of a guesswork,
01:57but it at least tells you that the thing is not original or authentic. It is coming from
02:01somewhere. So you find, for example, the descendant, some descendant of an aristocratic lineage
02:10talking to you, and he's talking in a particular manner. And if you can see that the manner
02:16belongs to his great-grandfather, that brings a smile to you. Where is the thing coming
02:23from? That's not him talking. That's his great-grandfather talking. And why is the great-grandfather
02:29still talking through him? Because this fellow today has neither money nor authority, no
02:34standing in the society. But his great-grandfather was actually a Raja. 100 years, 150 years
02:43ago. He was actually a Raja with some real power over the society and the ego wants power.
02:54So this fellow is acting like his great-grandfather and he might not even know that. It's just
03:01that when you look at his mannerisms, his behavior, his accent, it appears a little
03:07odd and then you want to see where is this coming from. And you might be totally mistaken
03:11because you don't have all the facts. But it pays to see that people are not original.
03:17Everything is coming from somewhere. It used to be quite fascinating, intriguing.
03:32When I was young, I was surrounded by young friends, young people and I was young for
03:37quite a while. Some people say I still am. And the way people would propose, propose
03:48as in a love affair, was so heavily dependent upon the latest romantic flick. And they would
04:00not even know why they are proposing that particular way. That's coming from that movie.
04:07Sometimes entire dialogues were copied. And the fellow would think it's original. The
04:13fellow would say, I am bearing my soul to my sweetheart. That's not your soul. That's
04:18a script writer there. What are you doing? I am crooning something. That's Anand Bakshi, not you.
04:24Are you getting it? So just trying to see where the thing is coming from. Even the expressions
04:34that people wear are sometimes the expressions of their favourite movie actors. And people
04:44will say, I just like this, I just like this. There is nothing original. There used to be
04:49something called Sadhana cut. There was this actress, many decades ago, Sadhana. And she
04:56would wear her hair in a particular way. And if you look at the pics of ladies of that
05:03era, you would find almost all of them have Sadhana cut. And if you can look at your dad's
05:09pics from the 60s till the 80s, they all have these, what do you call them, these pants with
05:20bell-bottoms. And where are the bell-bottoms really coming from? They are coming probably
05:28from America and the hippie culture. From there they came to Amitabh and Vinod Khanna and from
05:34there they came to your house. But Daddy Darling says I am fond of my bell-bottoms. And the side
05:45burns. And all the heroes would have two or three buttons open till here. You could watch their
05:53navel. Where is all that coming from? And people will say, that's me. That's not you. That's
06:02somebody else. That's not even somebody else. That's nobody. That's a process. There is just
06:12nobody. There is just a crowd you could say. There is no person. There is no individual. That's
06:19where spirituality begins from. There is no individual. So observe that. Where are things
06:27coming from? Where are things coming from? Where is the behavior coming from? Where is the accent
06:33coming from? Where is even the emotion coming from? Look at how people are. You know, the
06:40fellow is weeping and you start feeling that sympathy for him and you go close to him. And the
06:46first word he utters, you know the flick it's coming from. And all the sympathy is dropped along
06:53with the tears. He is dropping tears and you have dropped your sympathy. Because you see that he is
07:00coming from that latest tragedy. I am choosing films because they impact us. You could choose
07:12anything else.
07:23Understanding this, dropping everything which is not the authentic self. You also mentioned
07:30about something which is compassion. I just wanted to understand a bit on what compassion is
07:37and how exactly it helps in really separating us from maybe the other species or maybe the other
07:47objects in the world.
07:49See, you will not find this written anywhere. But this is what life has taught me. Compassion is at
07:56two levels. Ordinary compassion is when there is somebody in front of you who wants to exercise a
08:03choice but is just 50-50 sitting on the fence. And you lend a helping hand. And extraordinary,
08:13magnificent compassion is to awaken the chooser within him. That's almost like bringing the dead to
08:27life next to impossible. So we will not talk too much about that. Ordinary compassion is about
08:41lending a helping hand to someone who is stuck in a burning house and wants to come out. He wants to
08:49come out. He just needs some help. And you extend that help. That's compassion.
08:55Where compassion would totally fail is when the fellow has no idea that the house is burning or that he
09:07needs to come out. He just has fancy imaginations. He thinks that the burning house is some kind of
09:17fancy palace or heaven or some 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 you insist and
09:46you keep trying. But that's difficult, to put it mildly.
09:57So would this be the same compassion if Karan would have shown in front of his friend Duryodhan?
10:04It would have actually stopped a lot of these war outcries that happened.
10:11Definitely. Compassion is not good looking. Compassion can look very ugly.
10:21Compassion could look like heartlessness, ruthlessness.
10:31Compassion could look like torture, cruelty.
10:41What you ordinarily see in the name of compassion is just old-fashioned mercy.
10:49That's not compassion. That's again something very prakritic. Do you know,
10:53we are very selectively merciful. People often talk of how animals help each other.
10:58No, they don't help each other. That's chemicals at work.
11:11In high school, we talked of the covalent bond where two of them get together to share their
11:16electrons and then their needs are fulfilled. Some kind of a symbiotic relationship.
11:23The covalent bond. You remember, right? Yes, sir. 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's nothing much there. Animals also. They say, you know, animals see how one monkey had
11:48fallen almost 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.
12:08All species are programmed to save their own species.
12:16Monkeys won't do this to a lion cub.
12:24If the mother monkey does something for the baby monkey, that's not compassion.
12:29That's biological instinct. Programmed, replicable, chemical. Nothing in it.
12:43Mercy appears so enchanting, so pretty,
12:46so divine. Compassion, even the ordinary one would not look so pretty and real compassion
13:00would definitely look very ugly. Real compassion, we said, looks almost like cruelty.
13:11So, had Kern displayed real compassion, he would have been called a traitor.
13:17As Vibhishan was. Nobody names his kid as Vibhishan. We are still angry with him.
13:34The fellow must have been a truly spiritual one, no? 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. Even 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 person.
15:30So, Gali Khan is a bad person.
15:34So, Gali Khan is a bad person.
15:36I think it was in Hindi that I had once quoted or tweeted.
15:43Or probably it's the title of a video.
15:51That's what compassion begets.
15:57But if you are really compassionate, then you also are wise enough to know all that is just chemical.
16:07So, it's like some toy that's been programmed to hurl abuses.
16:13You have toy robots or toy machines who speak.
16:18Or a parrot that has been trained to throw invectives.
16:24We have a pair of parrots like that. People play pranks and teach parrots all kinds of nasty things.
16:31And when someone comes and the parrot starts abusing him,
16:37you can't take that seriously, right?
16:41So, if you indeed do grow compassionate, then don't take all those things seriously that will then happen to you.
16:52Sure, sir. So, in case of Vibhishan, because he was so compassionate about his brother,
17:00he was perceived as very cruel. But from Vibhishan's standpoint,
17:04he actually rejected his first life to be born twice again, as you said.
17:08So, is my understanding correct in that regard?
17:10We do not know the facts. We do not know where history ends and fiction begins.
17:17We do not know. But from the account that we get, Vibhishan is truly an extraordinary person.
17:26The narrative is different in different versions of the story.
17:30In different versions of the story, if you look at Valmiki's version versus the version from Tulsidas versus the other versions,
17:39the narratives do not completely agree. So, we do not know the exact facts.
17:45But just the thing that Vibhishan crossed over, he 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.
18:13But it was easier for them because they were being led by Ram.
18:18It's mighty difficult for someone to cross over to Ram because he is not being led by Ram.
18:26And 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.
18:38Getting it, sir. You mentioned that the miracle is deviating from the conditioning.
18:47So, all these examples that you gave while explaining the verse.
18:55For example, Rishi is walking on a river and then he is violating all the laws.
19:05Even Ram is ordering the river. The sea is showing its way.
19:12Today, what I see is with miracle, it is almost perceived as a superstition.
19:20No, no. It didn't actually happen. When I talked of miracles, I never said they are
19:29physical happenings. I said you have to stop the flow of the ocean within you.
19:36I hope I am not being misunderstood. I never said that saints actually walk on water. No, no, no.
19:44I said all religions place great emphasis on miracles.
19:49But miracles are misunderstood. Nobody can fly on air or walk on water.
19:56Physically, no. That is not going to happen because the laws of Prakriti are inviolable.
20:03Inviolable for everybody. So, nobody walks on water, rest assured.
20:11And if you find somebody walking on water, you shouldn't take a second to know that it's some
20:17cheap trick. And there is anyway nothing in it. Walking on external water is nothing.
20:23It was, I think, Ramkrishna Paramhansa. Somebody went to him and said, you know, there is that
20:29particular siddha or yogi somewhere in Bengal, nearby. He said, you know, he manages to walk on
20:36water. And Paramhansa said, so what? So what? What's there in that? Even if he manages to do that,
20:43there is nothing in it because that's not what spirituality is about. Walking on water,
20:49these kinds of antics, what do these have to do with liberation of the self?
20:54So, I am saying that's not going to happen. That's not possible. Paramhansa said, even if that is happening,
21:03so what? What's there in it? Does that mean that the fellow is liberated?
21:07Does that mean that the fellow now has compassion? Does that mean that the fellow is now acting
21:12selflessly for the service towards others? None of that. So, all that means nothing.
21:23When I talked of miracles, I meant, inwardly there are laws of Prakriti and the ego just keeps
21:32flowing with them. By 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 and that means I am making Prakriti flow.
21:49So, I exist. There is an automatic flow of Prakriti within. The ego is within. The ego
21:58does not sit on the wall. There is a flow of stuff within and ego manages to flow exactly
22:07with the stuff. By flowing exactly with the stuff, what does it convince itself?
22:14I am making the stuff flow. See, it's like this. Please understand.
22:26You are sitting in a train compartment. The train begins to move.
22:40Somebody on the platform starts pushing the coach and starts moving with exactly the same speed
22:52as that of the train. It's only if he moves with the same speed as that of the train,
23:03can he fool you into thinking that he is making the train move.
23:13The train is moving on its own. You are sitting within the train and that fellow outside the train
23:18wants to fool you. He 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? His speed must be exactly the same as
23:32that of the train. He will say, I am running now at 10 kmph and the train too is running at 10 kmph.
23:41What does that prove? I am making the train run. You see, I am pushing so hard so the train is
23:46running. Do you get this? That's what the ego is doing. The train is running on its own. The train
23:51is Prakriti. But the ego decides to flow exactly as Prakriti does and does not want to exercise any
24:03choice. It does not want any separation. If there is a separation between this fellow outside the
24:08train and the train, his bluff will be called. No. It will become obvious that he is not pushing the
24:13train. He is standing on the platform and the train is moving on its own. It will become obvious.
24:17So what does he necessarily have to do? Two things. One, he must keep holding the train.
24:22This is called attachment or identification. So he must keep pressing against the wall of
24:30the coach with his palms. This is called identification. Secondly, he must move
24:36exactly with the same speed as the train does. This is called going with the Prakriti flow.
24:43By doing these two things, this bugger manages to convince everybody and himself
24:50that he is actually moving the train. That's called the ego. Doing nothing. It just gets
24:56attached to the moving thing and convinces itself that I am the one moving it.
25:01Look at the trick he is playing. The train is moving on its own and it's ensuring that
25:10it keeps running with the train at exactly the same speed as the train.
25:19In my example, there is a small defect. At least the fellow outside is running on its own legs.
25:25In real life, the ego has no legs of its own. It is moving on its own.
25:32You could imagine that the ego is actually standing on a platform
25:38jutting out from the train. A platform towards the bottom of the coach. So it's not visible
25:45from the window. He is actually standing on the train itself but pretending as if he is pushing
25:52the train. So 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. No, there is no mover. There is just the movement.
26:08The train is doing stuff on its own. The train is called Prakriti and that fraud
26:20is called ego. And who is the one being cheated?
26:27That too is called the ego. The ego is fooling nobody but itself.
26:42Understood, sir. Thank you so much, sir.