How can the common man make better decisions in life? || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2021)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...  ⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates? Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work? Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...   Want to work with Acharya Prashant? Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...  ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 08.08.2021, BW (BuisnessWorld) Session, Greater Noida, U.P.  Context: ~ How to act without expecting fruit? ~ What is Yagya? ~ How to immerse oneself in the right action? ~ What is real meaning of sacrifice? ~ How can the common man make better decisions in life?  Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 But I also see a paradox in how we live our life.

00:07 We get born, we get inducted in the societal norms, situations, we start living our life.

00:15 And for a large part of the life, not all of us have the benefit to be aware of how

00:19 we are living our life.

00:21 And then we get into actions which become like a compulsion and we continue to do that.

00:26 Few of us get the opportunity to drift away from this.

00:29 So for a common man, firstly, how does he understand what is karma, what is right karma,

00:35 what is karma, is it only action or is it words, thoughts?

00:39 So what is the algorithm for him to be aware?

00:42 It is not so difficult at all.

00:44 While I fully concur with what you initially said that given the way our societies, our

00:51 families, our education system is, we just keep drifting along.

00:57 And yes, we do in that drift, often take decisions that have very far-reaching effects and obviously

01:04 they are irreversible and then one thing sits upon the other and they get multiplied and

01:09 so much happens that just captivates us.

01:13 All that is alright.

01:14 But the thing is wisdom is so easily available at every point in life.

01:19 Especially in India, the question, what to do, what to choose, what's worth living for

01:29 has been at the heart of all spiritual pursuit.

01:34 So it's not merely about Krishna.

01:38 You go to any of the scriptures, you go to sages, saints, seers and you will get the

01:46 same idea.

01:47 It's not difficult at all.

01:49 So if a person comes and says that this book feels very very new, it means that there has

01:59 been a lot of misguidance.

02:02 The fellow has either never willingly gone to the great books that are so ubiquitous,

02:12 so easily available or he has been willingly choosing the wrong kind of teachers.

02:20 He maybe has gone to books but the wrong kind of books.

02:24 So either of the two cases has happened.

02:27 Otherwise it's not difficult.

02:29 I mean, you don't have to know Sanskrit, you don't have to follow philosophy.

02:36 Even if you can go to the couplets of the very common sages, even the folk songs, the

02:49 regional folk songs, even they are imbued with wisdom.

02:53 So how can somebody say that the concept of right action has totally eluded him, but it's happening.

03:04 While at one hand I express surprise and disappointment, on the other hand I see it happening.

03:10 Obviously it's happening, which means that there is an abundance of the false kind of teaching.

03:20 And that's dangerous.

03:23 Sure, and in the book it very clearly lays out how to choose the right action, will the

03:30 right action give the right result and lastly action that reforms the actor.

03:35 And across chapters there is a lot of focus on why and what, but if somebody is in this

03:41 vicious circle, he is in a loop, he is acting out of his condition, the results are wrong,

03:45 he is again acting out of his condition, so it's a vicious circle for him.

03:48 How does he come out of the whirlpool?

03:52 What is that one thing that he could do for himself to come out of this whirlpool?

03:57 You see, even if I tell you the way to get out of this room, that would only mean that

04:07 you emerge intact out of this room and the entire purpose of the spiritual demolition

04:14 process has been defeated.

04:18 Similar to what, how is a very mischievous question.

04:28 What is there makes us look squarely at the actor.

04:35 Who is the actor?

04:37 What's his nature?

04:38 Now you are looking at the actor.

04:42 When you say how does the actor reach a particular goal, as you said emerge out of the situation,

04:50 then we are not challenging the actor, we are letting the actor stay as she is and we

04:57 are guiding her to emerge out of her predicament, staying as she is.

05:04 Now that's exactly what the actor wants, to not change.

05:08 So all methods and all advices that focus on how to, are not only bound to fail but

05:21 actually deteriorate the situation.

05:23 A while back we were talking of bad teaching.

05:27 A lot of bad teaching comes from this point.

05:30 You know, how to be better, how to make the right decisions.

05:35 Eleven ways to choose in a tricky position.

05:43 So even if you have taught me how to choose, I as the misled one, I as the false one, have

05:58 remained at my place.

06:01 What's more?

06:02 I now have two more tricks in my hands to continue with my mischief in an even more

06:10 vicious way.

06:13 Is that not so?

06:14 Yeah, I got the perspective, yeah, indeed.

06:16 So the ego is not to be reformed or given methods and tricks.

06:25 The ego is to be introduced to its own reality.

06:30 The ego needs to look at itself, look at itself in the mirror and see that it is needlessly

06:35 both ugly and suffering.

06:39 And it takes a lot of courage as well.

06:41 It takes a lot of courage if we are accustomed to doing the things the other way.

06:47 Otherwise it's a fairly simple thing.

06:48 And if we have a deep desire to let go of our suffering.

06:52 Great, it depends on how dearly you firstly love yourself.

06:57 If you really want to be free of suffering, then you will do what it takes.

07:01 Else you will keep finding roundabout routes and such things.

07:05 Sure, and you also mentioned that right action is something which gives you joy and contentment.

07:11 Now like the ego is a false self, so what we continue to get misled again is that we

07:17 consider the momentary gratification as joy and contentment.

07:23 So as a seeker, somebody who is not aware it's simple and you also said one very profound

07:27 thing that if you don't know anything then life is still easier.

07:31 But if you know some bits of it and the more you know, the more suffering you have.

07:35 So what is the advice or what do you guide people from?

07:41 First of all, what's false must be called out and kept aside.

07:47 Joy, the way the word is currently being used, it's been falsely represented as some kind

08:01 of a synonym of happiness, exaggerated happiness.

08:07 Joy is not happiness at all.

08:09 Joy is just freedom.

08:12 So in the name of joy, people continue with their false pursuit of fleeting freedom, of

08:20 fleeting happiness.

08:21 That doesn't take them anywhere.

08:26 Joy is a negation of the kind of happiness that comes necessarily with sadness, of the

08:35 kind of happiness that rides necessarily on tension.

08:41 And that's the unfortunately only kind of happiness that most of us know.

08:48 Happiness that's always feeling threatened, happiness that's always bordered by, shadowed

08:55 by the prospect of misery, happiness that needs to be protected.

09:04 And if we want to act as a spiritual, then we start calling this same petty happiness

09:13 as joy and that's what unfortunately teachers over the last few decades or in the last century

09:20 have been teaching us.

09:22 So the real meaning of Anand, joy is lost upon us.

09:30 And the repercussions are horrible.

09:36 You look at the state of this planet, you look at the pandemic, you look at the mental

09:44 disintegration of population, the neurosis, the very decline in humanness which is affected

10:00 in all kinds of atrocities.

10:02 Today man is inflicting upon various life forms, the depletion of biodiversity, the

10:10 hanging down of woods, forests, the rivers are gone and having burnt the planet to ashes,

10:21 we now want to colonize Mars and all these kinds of stupidities.

10:26 They are essentially because of false spirituality.

10:31 In some sense, everybody is spiritual.

10:35 It's just that most of us have a wrong spirituality, a wrong philosophy we are living by and we

10:46 need a course correction immediately.

10:48 Sure, I think one tip that you've given in the book is the right duty is to find a way

10:54 to help others and you gave Gandhiji's example of what the world needs and would you just

10:59 throw light on that so that, one of the ideas of this session is that people take back something

11:05 which they can apply in their lives, some words of wisdom or your energy.

11:09 So what would you help them take back on this?

11:15 In context of helping others?

11:17 In context of doing one change in our own lives.

11:20 No, first of all we have to realize what our life is like.

11:27 I can't change something without firstly understanding its processes and its actuality.

11:33 I want to change something about this ceiling fan, can I do that firstly without knowing

11:40 a thing about what magnetism is.

11:43 So first of all I must know what this thing called my life is.

11:47 We keep living without knowing a thing about life and we are blinded by names and identities.

11:56 We keep saying fine, so this is my house and that becomes such a strong, not merely an

12:04 identity that becomes a thing taken for granted.

12:09 But what exactly is a house?

12:12 We never ask such simple questions to ourselves, what am I doing here?

12:18 Not that we must run away from our houses but we at least need to know, right?

12:21 That's a place we invest so much of ourselves in.

12:24 So what is this construct called the house?

12:28 What is it?

12:31 I go and I work somewhere and I earn from that place, what is this thing called livelihood?

12:37 What am I doing with all these hours I spend there?

12:41 So that's the first thing.

12:44 Firstly there has to be a very honest, a very ruthless observation of who I am and what

12:54 I am doing and how am I living.

12:57 Once that is there, then light starts glimmering on its own.

13:03 You come to see how much of it needs to be built upon, how much of it needs to be just

13:11 put aside and there is a series of mini epiphanic explosions.

13:24 You keep realizing a thing every hour or so or every second day or so.

13:30 There is something that is there, I never noticed it.

13:34 We don't even look at our faces properly, do we?

13:37 We are so busy running this treadmill of life, we hardly have any time to pause and ponder.

13:48 So that's the first thing that's needed.

13:50 So I am sorry I won't be able to give any quick takeaways for people to drive home or

13:59 carry home.

14:01 Firstly ask them what this thing called home is.

14:05 Which is, I am sure, I never thought about it.

14:09 The saints have kept asking, where is your real home?

14:13 Where is your real home?

14:16 What are you doing here?

14:17 Is this really your home?

14:19 So how do I give them something to carry home when the word home itself stands very nebulously

14:30 defined.

14:31 I am sure, like me, lot of us will think about it today.

14:38 And you also mentioned, like we always hear in scriptures, our dharma is to liberate,

14:44 to find moksha.

14:45 So what I, this is my personal view and my personal limitation that liberation is not

14:52 perceivable with whatever we are.

14:56 So even if we have heard, we have only heard from sages or heard in scriptures or read

15:01 somewhere.

15:02 So something which is not perceivable, so how do we go towards it?

15:09 That is our end purpose.

15:10 Again, again you have returned to the how to, the how to part.

15:15 You see, liberation is not a point to go to.

15:20 If I am in bondage right now, if I go to some point, I will be going to that point with

15:27 all my bondages.

15:29 So most people who claim to be liberated are actually liberated beings, so called liberated

15:36 beings with all their bondages.

15:40 And that's the point.

15:41 You don't have to focus on liberation, you must focus on your slavery because that's

15:47 your once immediate reality.

15:50 There are thousand things that encircle us, circumscribe us, limit us, prevent us from

16:01 flying free, from expressing who we truly are.

16:06 We have to talk about all those things.

16:09 Liberation as a word, as a concept is just a utopia.

16:16 It drugs us, it helps keep our servility in continuation.

16:28 So I can perfectly entertain myself, liberation I am coming towards you, see I meditate, see

16:36 I do this, I perform that trick, spiritual trick, I sing those kinds of songs and I visit

16:42 those particular shrines or pilgrimages and I do all these things.

16:48 And even as I am doing all these daily rituals, I am handcuffed, prostrating before the deity

17:00 I am handcuffed, meditating I am handcuffed.

17:04 And one thing I don't want to talk about is the handcuff because to that handcuff is

17:12 linked my identity.

17:13 And it's very painful.

17:14 It's very painful and I am attached to it.

17:17 So I don't want to look at my real problem.

17:20 I just want to keep talking of a utopian solution which doesn't make sense.

17:28 And there is just too little emphasis on looking at one's life and firstly honestly acknowledging

17:38 where the bondages are, where we really are in shackles.

17:44 We don't want to look there.

17:46 It's as if the bulk of humanity has agreed to conspire against itself.

17:56 Unknowingly I think.

17:59 I suspect quite knowingly and it's a mutual thing.

18:04 I won't call your bondages out and you repeat or return the favor.

18:14 And if I do honestly point out at something, then I will be called insensitive and crude

18:21 and out of place and the odd one out and all those things.

18:27 So to belong, to belong, to belong to your flock, to your family, to your workplace,

18:35 to your society.

18:38 Or even to the ideology.

18:39 Or to your ideology.

18:40 All of us are connected to it.

18:42 You have to necessarily remain blind to something.

18:46 So it just can't be ignorance.

18:50 I see a lot of deliberate connivance in this and it's costing us very very dearly.

18:59 Thank you.

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