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Video Information: 11.07.22, Conversation (online), Greater Noida
Context:
What is stress?
How to deal with stress?
Why does one feel stressful?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
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~~~~~
Video Information: 11.07.22, Conversation (online), Greater Noida
Context:
What is stress?
How to deal with stress?
Why does one feel stressful?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Acharya ji, you said, the one line that I distinctly caught was living in the moment.
00:13If you look at healthcare today, doctors keep telling the patients that they need to avoid
00:19stress.
00:20BP ho gaya hai, avoid stress.
00:24And patients are at a loss of knowing how to do that.
00:28They're always either living in the fear of the future or regrets of the past.
00:34And is it in a person's control?
00:39And if yes, how does one in a very simple way keeps stress away?
00:45Is there some doable way to do so?
00:48No, you see, I'll begin from living in the moment and then come to the stress part of
00:55it.
00:57You see, living in the moment is a very, very misplaced phrase and an idea that's being
01:10implemented at the wrong place, a philosophy that is being touted to the wrong audience.
01:26There is Nishkama Karma, action without the desire for returns.
01:34And when you are into desireless action, when internally, you are that kind of a being who
01:45picks up the right work, the right action, the right project, the right battle and gives
01:53everything to it without worrying for the results, just because the work, the job, the
02:02action is worth it, then and only then are you entitled to not worry about the results
02:11and live purely blissfully in the moment.
02:18Living in the moment is the prerogative of a Nishkama Karma Yogi alone.
02:27Then there is the whole lot of us commoners, our actions are from the centre of desire,
02:40so our actions are Sakaam, Kaam means desire, Sakaam means with desire.
02:48When you are working with desire, in fact, it is very, very advisable that you do not
02:55live in the moment because you are anyway not, desire is always pointing at the future,
03:01that's where the fruits of the desires are expected.
03:06So, when you find that you are being carried away by desire, when you find that you are
03:14being powered by desire to do something, dictated by desire to do something, then you must necessarily
03:24look at the future and ask yourself what will be the consequences.
03:30Now, what is happening is that people who are acting purely out of their blind, ignorant,
03:39even animalistic desires are using this phrase living in the moment to avoid looking at the
03:47future.
03:48It's like going to a restaurant, ordering a huge spread without looking at your pocket
03:56and saying I just want to enjoy the moment, I don't want to think of the size of the bill,
04:05but the bill will indeed come, that's the law of Prakriti.
04:12And then you cannot say, oh, I was living in the moment, I didn't worry what would happen
04:15tomorrow, looking at tomorrow is the sign or characteristic of fearful people.
04:24I'm bored enough to just enjoy the present moment and leave the future with abandon.
04:34You cannot do that.
04:35So, you see, these are two different centers.
04:40The one who is dedicated to something extremely important, very, very secret, automatically
04:49starts living in the moment.
04:53Then this does not have to be taught to him.
04:55Living in the moment then is not an objective, it is a by-product.
05:02The objective is to serve something that is extremely lovable, something that you know
05:10to be unavoidable, indispensable in your deepest understanding.
05:18You have paid deep attention and you have come to see something that you just cannot
05:22avoid or turn your back to.
05:26And you take it up.
05:27You take it up because it calls you, it cannot leave you, it just grips your mind.
05:36So, you dedicate yourself totally to it.
05:41You offer yourself as sacrifice to something extremely important or extremely lovable,
05:46whichever way you want to put it.
05:47If you are a Gyan Yogi, you will say you are giving yourself to the truth.
05:52On the way of love, you will say you have been arrested by something extremely lovable.
06:02Now is the only possibility of living in the moment because now you are helpless.
06:13Even if you want to think of the future or the consequences, you just cannot.
06:17You are in love or you are in duty.
06:21And that duty is the essence of Dharma.
06:24I have to do it.
06:26It's a holy battle.
06:27I have to fight it.
06:29Even if I want to think about the consequences, it won't matter because irrespective of the
06:37consequence, I have to fight it.
06:38So, there is no point wondering about the future, irrespective of the future, this has
06:45to be done.
06:46Now, this is Nishkama Karma Yoga and Nishkama Karma Yoga alone is living in the moment.
06:54And the fundamental thing then is desireless action.
07:00Living in the moment is a natural consequence or you could say a corollary, a natural corollary
07:11of Nishkama Karma Yoga, desireless action.
07:17But it's a travesty when the usual common mind starts talking of living in the moment.
07:27You should not live in the moment.
07:29When people come to me and talk of these things, living in the present, etc, I say, avoid that.
07:34Just do not live in the moment.
07:36See how you are living and worry about your tomorrow.
07:42Because the kind of actions, the kind of life, the kind of mind that you have, it's getting
07:56you into trouble constantly.
07:59But it's just that the trouble is not very visible today.
08:02Now, look at tomorrow and if you have any ability to visualize, you will see that you
08:12are moving towards the edge of the cliff.
08:21So that's the thing.
08:30Religious percepts are for truly religious people.
08:39They must not be appropriated by those who want to use religious concepts for personal
08:45sensual gratification.
08:47That's when religion gets abused and becomes unpopular among the masses.
08:58Now coming to stress, we talked of desire and we talked of desireless action.
09:06Stress is the fundamental nature of human life.
09:16Among all living beings, man is someone predisposed to stress.
09:25No animal, bird, fish or any other life form is capable of experiencing as much stress
09:36as we are.
09:38And there is a fundamental reason.
09:40The condition of stress points at our own internal existential condition.
09:48And that condition is of lack of fulfillment.
09:53We are born desirous.
09:56Desire and stress go together.
09:57We are born desirous.
09:58An animal is not born desirous.
10:01The animal's desires are very bodily, very material and therefore very limited and also
10:10very episodic.
10:15The animal would not be, for example, thirsty or hungry or lustful all the time.
10:21So there are periods when the lion would want to hunt or the cow would want to graze.
10:28But man has an existential vacuum within.
10:33You clothe us, you feed us, you give us everything that we can ask for and you will find that
10:42we are still not contended.
10:45Is that not true?
10:48That won't happen in the case of an animal.
10:50You feed an animal well and you give it a proper, secure, sheltered place and you will
10:56find the animal very, very restful.
11:00You won't look at the animal's eyes and find restlessness or psychosis or an existential
11:08angst.
11:09You won't find it there.
11:11The animal would be at peace.
11:14But man is never at peace irrespective of what he has or what he has not.
11:22So we are born with desire and that desire is our fundamental internal stress.
11:29Now that stress is not necessarily something bad because it is that desire, that stress
11:35and I'm equating the two for the purpose of this conversation because it is that particular
11:41desire, stress that can elevate human consciousness provided the stress is generalized in the
11:51right direction.
11:52People talk of being desireless, but before you become desireless, you ought to have the
12:00right desire.
12:01In fact, that is the definition of the right desire.
12:04The right desire is one that leads you towards desirelessness.
12:09Similarly, there is the right stress and the wrong stress.
12:16The right stress is that which leads you towards freedom from stress.
12:24And that's the ultimate goal of all spirituality, the state of mukti or anand where there is
12:29no stress, where there is just that simple subtle joy, nothing loud about it, nothing
12:40gross or coarse about it.
12:42The simple, subtle, ordinary joy of existence, that's the destination.
12:51But one has a long way to go before the destination and you cannot travel that way without having
12:59the right fuel and the right motivation.
13:03Now right stress is the right fuel and the right motivation.
13:08And by that, I do not mean that one needs to take on additional stress.
13:14What I'm saying is one is born with stress.
13:17So one cannot just discount stress as something that conditions give you or that comes to
13:24you occasionally or incidentally, no, that's not true.
13:29Stress is inbuilt in the human system.
13:34Stress is, you could say, the fundamental nature of the ignorant consciousness.
13:41The thing is to understand that stress, to ask yourself, what is it that my desires are
13:49really calling out for?
13:52And then, like an expert navigator, turn your desires towards the right end.
14:02And all that will involve stress.
14:05All that will even involve suffering.
14:08So what to do with suffering?
14:11One cannot wish it away.
14:12It is there.
14:14Put it to the right use.
14:18Suffer but suffer rightly.
14:20Suffer but suffer for the right cause.
14:26Our very condition is of strife.
14:32You are born in a battlefield, so fight you will, fight you have to, now fight on the
14:43wrong side, on the right side that is.
14:47Be very cautious where the right one is and how to know falseness.
14:59It becomes quite tempting to talk of being stress-free or desireless or cool, composed,
15:18retired, tranquil.
15:22These are beautiful words.
15:24But these things cannot just come to you sitting where you are.
15:35These are the ultimate things our mind, our consciousness is clamoring for.
15:47One has to work really, really hard.
15:52And that's the right purpose of desire.
15:57To lead you to the place that will justify your life, your birth.
16:06And the place that justifies your life is also the place, the scriptures say, that relieves
16:16you of death.
16:20If life is given a true purpose, if life is lived rightly, then one attains deathlessness.
16:34Not that the body will not die in a spiritually metaphorical sense.
16:41So, when a stressed out being comes, one has to ask, what is it that you are so worried
16:50about?
16:53What is it that you are so worried about?
16:55Kabir Saheb will say, for example, if you have to be worried, then worry about Ram and
17:02his Ram is the formless, attributeless, one truth.
17:09It's not that you are worried.
17:11That's not the problem.
17:12The problem is that you are worried about something so petty, so trivial.
17:17Why don't you worry about something that's indeed consequential?
17:21All right, you are afraid.
17:25Now you are afraid that someone is taking away 200 rupees that belong to you.
17:32Now about that you are afraid and angry and you have all those.
17:37But why don't you worry when your entire life is being wasted?
17:43See how you are living.
17:44See how you are spending your days and nights.
17:48And your entire life is being wasted.
17:52Now is the worth of those 200 rupees more than the worth of this life that you have?
18:00That's what saints ask you.
18:03So do worry, do repent and do cultivate desire.
18:12But cultivate desire for that one thing that the saints would sometimes call as Ram, sometimes
18:23as Hari, the gurus would call that as the Lord.
18:31So that's that one thing worthy of one's desire.
18:35And that sublimated desire is then called as spiritual love.
18:43So if one is stressed out because one is not attaining Mukti, I would say, all right, all
18:50right, all right.
18:52At least the intention is pure.
18:53But if one is stressed out because the share market has fallen by 0.04%, then I'll say,
19:04sir, you need to reconsider what you are so worried about and concerned about.
19:15So if I understand correctly, it is about raising your level of consciousness, mindfulness
19:22and also find the purpose, the right purpose that makes all the things that you worry about
19:29or the stresses that you have worthwhile.
19:32Of course.
19:33Of course.