Balancing Studies and Relationships: Is It Achievable? || Acharya Prashant, IIT-Hyderabad (2024)

Acharya Prashant

#acharyaprashant #relationship #study&relationships    Video Information: 02.02.24, IIT-Hyderabad (Online), Greater Noida  Context: How to maintain a good relationship? What is the right time to be into a relationship? What is relationship? How to make relationship healthy? When and how a relationship turns into a toxic relationship? How to choose a life partner?  What is real love? Is live-in relationship sign of degradation of our culture?

Transcript

00:00 Life and death depend on this discourse. That's what makes the Gita special. That's what is

00:10 happening on the battlefield. Beautiful, breathtaking, real.

00:16 A very good afternoon, sir. This is Harshita, a first year B.Tech student, who has always

00:28 been a fan of your talks. And my question is, can someone be in a healthy relationship

00:34 along with their studies? A healthy relationship here means that both the partners are very

00:38 supportive and understanding in each other. Thank you.

00:44 Welcome, Harshita. First year student. Nice. See, when you talk of a relationship, let's

01:02 look at it very objectively. It's always between two entities, right? A relationship implies

01:10 there is X and there is Y or A and B, whatever, right? Now, when you talk of relationship

01:17 in the context of your life, one of those entities is always you. Right? So, you are

01:29 the one who is the experiencer of all relationships. So, you are the one who has to choose the

01:39 relationship very wisely. You are the subject. And everything else that you relate to or

01:49 can potentially relate to is an object. Now, what all do we relate to? It's not necessarily

01:59 people alone that we relate to. So, in your day-to-day life, for example, what is it that

02:07 you relate to? Do you have a mic with you?

02:13 We can relate to like… The thing is that my actual question is, the person is… maybe

02:20 the person is understanding and supportive, but there may be distractions, time-waste

02:25 and all. Yes, yes. We are coming to that. But before we come to that, we need to set

02:31 the theoretical framework for that. Just as before you can approach a JEE problem to solve,

02:37 you must be clear with the theoretical fundamentals, right?

02:40 Yeah. The problem could be about a person, a boy

02:45 throws a stone at a crow and the stone is to hit the crow and the crow is sitting at

02:51 an elevation of 50 meters and at a horizontal distance of 100 meters, at what angle and

02:57 what velocity must the stone be thrown? So, that might be about the boy and the crow and

03:04 the stone, but you need to understand the fundamentals of projectile motion first.

03:09 Yes, sir. Right. Okay. So, what is it that we relate

03:15 to in our day-to-day life? I don't think I have adequate knowledge to…

03:23 No, you are, for example, at this moment relating to the mic. There is a relationship between

03:29 you and the mic. There is a relationship between you and the screen you are looking at. Though

03:36 we usually do not use the word relationship in such a sense, so it might sound a little

03:44 unfamiliar or even awkward. But you are relating to the mic right now.

03:52 So, if you are there, you are relating not only to people but also to objects, inanimate

04:01 objects like the mic or your clothes or the chair you are sitting on or the screen you

04:06 are looking at and also to thoughts and feelings. Because all of them are to us. Whatever is

04:17 to us is an object that we relate to. I want to bring you very strongly to yourself. All

04:27 objects are to you. You are the one at the center of all relationships because you are

04:35 the one you would be choosing the object to relate to, whether consciously or unconsciously.

04:41 And you would also be the one who would be experiencing the results of your choice.

04:51 For example, if you instead of the mic, if you pick up a red hot piece of charcoal to

05:01 hold in your palm, the result would be for you to bear. So, the choice has to be conscious,

05:11 there has to be discretion. Now, if I am at the center of everything that I relate to,

05:17 then every choice is for my sake, is it not? So, I have to see very clearly what is it

05:26 that I am getting from a relationship? What is the impact that the relationship has on me?

05:32 So, that's the reason why the wise ones have advised us to be very, very careful about

05:40 what we admit in our mind and in our life, because whatever you admit will have an impact

05:46 on you. And in fact, it is for the sake of a particular impact that one establishes any

05:53 relationship. For example, you are not holding that mic for nothing. You want a particular

05:59 benefit to be had by holding that mic, no? Yeah. Now, suppose this mic is dysfunctional,

06:06 would you still keep holding it? No, not. Right? So, please understand, the mic is for your sake.

06:14 You have to see whether the mic is serving any constructive purpose in your life at all.

06:22 Yes, sir, it is. Else you drop it. Else you drop it, right? If the mic is dysfunctional

06:30 and can't even be repaired, you say, right, get me another one. Now, studies. Studies too

06:40 are something that you relate to. Your curricula, your books, the knowledge that you are exposed

06:48 to, these are objects. Similarly, people are objects. A tennis racket is an object. Right?

07:02 Equipment in the laboratory is an object. A new piece of thought you come across while

07:11 reading a book is an object. Because all of them are to you. You will be the experiencer

07:17 of all those things. So, when you say that the choice is between studies and relationship,

07:24 no, no, no. The choice is between relationship one and relationship two. Relationship one

07:33 is with, let's say, knowledge or the syllabus or books and relationship two is with a person,

07:40 a particular person. Both are relationships. And you will be the one, I repeat for the

07:49 first time, who will be experiencing the result of that relationship. So, how do I assess

07:58 if I have to choose if it's an either or situation, whether to go for R1 or R2. R1 is relationship

08:05 with your books or syllabus or something. And R2 is your relationship with a person.

08:11 If R1 and R2 are to be weighed against each other, I will have to look at the influence

08:19 they are having on my life. That's the only way you can come to a decision. What do those

08:25 books and that knowledge, what is it that brings to your life versus what is it that

08:31 person brings to your life? When you are with that person, how do you change? What do you

08:39 become? Does your consciousness elevate? Do you start thinking better? Do you start seeing

08:47 better? Do you start understanding better? If that person is having that kind of an effect

08:55 on your life, then obviously you should welcome the person. Conversely, if in company of that

09:01 person, you find that your ability to see clearly, to realize, to understand, to be

09:10 at peace diminishes, then obviously that person is not good for you. It is also possible that

09:20 both the person and the book have a favorable impact on you. Then you don't have to go

09:29 for either or binary. Then you could have both in your life. And there are several toxic

09:37 books as well. If the book is of a nature that it contaminates your mind, it induces

09:49 prejudice or bigotry, then you should stay away even from books. The thing is to see

10:01 that you are important. We forget ourselves when we are in the thrall of an enchanting

10:12 object, especially when we are young. Something very alluring, very tempting, incandescent

10:23 comes and just bewitches us. And in that spell, in that charm, we stop looking at ourselves

10:37 like a small kid who with his eyes wide open is looking in a very charmed way at a colorful

10:47 new balloon in the market. Have you seen kids do that? Wide-eyed little kids? They've

10:53 just seen a new toy or new balloon or something fantastic. And you have seen how their faces

11:00 are. They are all totally mesmerized. They have forgotten who they are. The balloon is

11:09 now everything to them. That's all right when that happens with kids, but that should

11:14 not happen with us. Whenever whatever comes to our life, we have to keep asking what is

11:22 this thing doing to me? It does not matter whether the thing looks beautiful. It also

11:27 doesn't matter if the thing looks terrible. It's not about the sensory appearance or

11:35 the first taste. It is about my life and first of all, I am responsible towards myself.

11:42 What is it that this thing will bring to me? Obviously, the meal is delicious and also

11:50 looks so wonderful. The chef has meticulously dressed it. But what is it that the meal will

11:59 do to me? Pertinent question. So yeah, the new entrant in my life. He might be a wonderful

12:12 speaker or he she whatever doesn't matter. An object is an object or look dashing. Whatever.

12:25 That's about him. That's about the way he is. The question is not about the way that

12:31 person is. The question is what will that person do to this person that I am? Are you

12:39 getting it? Yes. You think of a luxury car. How does it look? It looks very posh and charm.

12:49 Would you want to be run over by a luxury car? If it's in my budget, then of course.

12:55 Run over. You keep budgets for getting run over. Do you want to be hit by a luxury car?

13:08 No. No. So it's not about how great the luxury car is. It's about what that car is doing

13:15 to you. The car might be wonderful. The car is great. But what is it that it did to you?

13:23 It hurt you. It probably put you in coma for your entire life. But when it comes to things

13:30 like cars and other splendid objects that appeal to the youth, we get so enchanted that

13:40 we forget the effect that the thing is having on us. So don't just keep repeating. Oh,

13:47 the car is fantastic. Ask what is it that it will do to me? It does not matter whether

13:55 you are crushed by a road roller or you get squashed under the wheels of a luxury car.

14:05 You are gone. The impact on you is the same. In fact, if one of those cars is coming to

14:12 crush you and instead a road roller saves your life, then irrespective of how bizarre

14:20 the road roller might look to our prettiness hunting eyes, that road roller is a better deal.

14:31 Is it not? Yes, it is. So ask what is the thing doing to me? Do not say how great the

14:40 thing is in itself. The thing in itself means nothing. For a relationship, you have to ask

14:48 what is it doing to me? You are the touchstone of everything. You are the measure of everything.

14:59 You are the decider of everything. You by looking at yourself have to decide whether

15:08 something means anything. Otherwise, things in themselves have no value. Remember,

15:14 everything in the universe has value only with respect to you. Otherwise, things do not

15:26 really have intrinsic values. Tell me, does an asset have any value if there is no buyer?

15:33 No, it does not have. So the value is always with respect to someone. And that is the thing

15:40 we forget. And that's the thing about all wisdom literature. It keeps you bringing back

15:45 to yourself. Look at yourself and ask, who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? What's

15:51 happening? But that's the last entity we look at the self, the I. Because all our senses

16:00 are always directed towards the world. The eyes are looking at the screen. The hand is

16:08 holding the mic. The body is seated on the chair. And the ears are hearing everything

16:15 that's coming from the speakers. So there is no way these normal senses can make us

16:25 aware of ourselves. The body is designed to be externally oriented. So we forget ourselves.

16:35 Yes, sir. So you can have the person and study is both possible. All four combinations with

16:48 two entities, you can have four of them. So maybe both are admissible. Maybe both are

16:54 inadmissible. Maybe X is good for you and not Y. Maybe Y is good for you and not X.

17:01 You have to decide and to make that decision. Be very careful of who you are. Be very aware

17:09 of yourself. Yes, sir. I'm not sure this really is what you wanted as an answer. But

17:18 this gives you a theoretical grounding, which probably you will with time appreciate. Yes,

17:27 sir. I am grateful that you answered my question. I understand you are very young. First semester

17:33 you are 17 or 18. This might not exactly be the time and the age to be receiving this

17:41 stuff. But in another sense, this is exactly the time when you should be receiving this

17:48 stuff. Otherwise, later it might be just too late in life. Irreversible decisions are made.

17:57 And then even if we gain some knowledge or consciousness, we find that it's too late

18:04 to be helped. Yes, sir. Got it. Yes. Thank you very much, sir. Welcome.

18:14 [Music]

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