For those who want happiness || Acharya Prashant, at DTU (2023)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?  Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...    Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?  Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~   Video Information: 23.12.22, DTU, Delhi   Context:  ~ Why do we fail to get happiness in the world?  ~ How to get real happiness?  ~ What is real happiness?  ~ Why are we in frustration?  ~ What is the worth doing?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Thank you sir for coming here and enlightening us with all your knowledge that you have shared.

00:09I have two small questions.

00:11I have written this so that I can deliver that clearly.

00:14My question is sir, that I have listened from multiple sources that we should not change

00:19our happiness because happiness is already within us.

00:25So my first question is, is this right?

00:28And another question is, if this is right sir, then what's the purpose of doing our

00:33work?

00:34Like a person wants to become a doctor because after becoming he will be able to serve the

00:41society and he will feel better after that.

00:44But if I am already happy, if I am already powerful, then what's the motivation behind

00:49doing our work?

00:50So these are my two questions.

00:52Good.

00:53Both questions are useful.

00:58It's not that you should not chase happiness.

01:00You should chase great happiness, true happiness, high happiness, lasting happiness, happiness

01:09free of sadness, happiness free of fear.

01:15And this will tell you that usually the happiness that we chase is not high, is not lasting,

01:21comes with fear and comes with sadness.

01:24Does it not?

01:26Does it not?

01:27And that's the problem with the normal kind of happiness.

01:33So the knowers have said happiness is not the goal of life.

01:38Absolute happiness is the goal of life.

01:40They were such super hedonists you could say.

01:48We talk of ambition.

01:49Think of the ambition of the sages and the great philosophers.

01:54They did not even say that you should go for ordinary accomplishment or ordinary happiness.

02:05They said absolute happiness, happiness without a second, happiness without an end.

02:12That's the purpose of life.

02:14And that's the reason they said that the usual happinesses that you chase are all nonsense.

02:24Because those happinesses come on back of fear.

02:27Those happinesses are just shadows of sadness.

02:32Those happinesses won't last.

02:35Those happinesses would leave long periods of wanting and longing and shallowness in

02:43their wake.

02:46So it's a very misplaced notion that wisdom or spirituality are about dropping happiness

02:54or not chasing happiness.

02:55No, no, no.

02:56Have you heard of the word Satchitanand?

03:02Satchitanand.

03:03Getting it?

03:06Truth, consciousness, joy.

03:14If the first two are there, then the third one is the proof.

03:22Your joy is the proof that you are living in truth, that you are living consciously.

03:30How can then wisdom be against happiness?

03:38Do you see the nature of the sages?

03:42They were such greatly ambitious people, they wanted total happiness.

03:49We picture them as serious, grave, almost gloomy old foggies, no?

03:57If I ask you, can you visualize a Rishi?

04:02How do you visualize him?

04:05Serious.

04:08And if you are not told that he is a sage, you will say he is some homeless destitute.

04:20Poor fellow.

04:25My sympathies are with him, right?

04:28It's just because we are culturally conditioned to look at the image of the Rishi as something

04:32respectable.

04:33Therefore, we don't say all these things.

04:36There is a great problem in the way we have thought of the sages.

04:43The sages were very, very joyful people.

04:52Very joyful people.

04:55And that's probably the reason they chose to live in the jungle.

04:59Because our cities and villages are joyless.

05:07Getting it?

05:08And if you exhibit joy to joyless people, they get very frustrated, even violent.

05:16If there are people who have condemned themselves to live morose, dull, boring, dead lives,

05:24if they come across someone who is truly living it, as they say, king size, he gets

05:33very frustrated and envious and therefore violent.

05:39So the sages said, no, no, no, we would rather retreat to the jungles.

05:46And in the jungles, they could freely exhibit their joy.

05:52Now this joy is such a superior kind of happiness that you cannot very easily visualize it.

06:02If happiness in your opinion consists of laughing or is expressed through laughter, then joy

06:09does not mean a guffaw.

06:12You'll say when you know you are ordinarily laughing, then you stretch these two points

06:18by half an inch.

06:21And in joy, obviously, the stretch extends to two inches, which basically means that

06:27joy is not in the same plane as happiness.

06:31Joy is not a linear extension of happiness.

06:34Joy is a dimension different from happiness.

06:40You cannot say two units of excitement is happiness.

06:44And five units of excitement is joy, no.

06:49Happiness if it lies on the x-axis, joy lies on the y-axis, it's a separate dimension.

06:57So the purpose of life is total happiness, total happiness.

07:06Think of your happinesses now, are they total?

07:10If they are not total, don't stick to them, search for something higher, search for something

07:15that won't abate, search for something that is not dependent on others or conditions.

07:23If he smiles, I'll be happy.

07:25But it's not necessary that he'll smile irrespective of how hard you work for him, right?

07:32If I get the right results, I'll be happy.

07:34But the results are not and never totally in your control.

07:41Are you getting it?

07:43So the more you start seeing that our happinesses are all conditional, finite, infested with

07:51sadness, infested with suspicion, the more you become capable of joy.

07:58It's just that in the beginning, it might be a little frustrating, even depressing.

08:04Because we are conditioned to happiness and when that normal happiness is taken away,

08:10there is frustration, you'll have to pass through that period of frustration.

08:16That's the answer to your first part.

08:18The second part he said, but if you are already happy, why would you work?

08:22You would work because you are happy.

08:27Now that's again beyond your conception because so far probably you have worked only because

08:34you wanted something, correct?

08:36Which means your incompletion makes you work, correct?

08:40I don't have something so I work to attain that thing, right?

08:44So my feeling of incompleteness becomes my engine, my driver, my fuel, right?

08:50So it becomes very difficult for us to imagine how is it possible to work even if fully satisfied.

08:57Yes, now a superior quality of work happens.

09:04When you do not work to gain satisfaction, when you work because you already have satisfaction,

09:14then the quality of work is something worth watching.

09:20It is that quality of work that is called Nishkama Karma as well.

09:28That is the only thing worth doing.

09:32Not working to attain something, working because I have something.

09:44Not speaking so that you will applaud for me.

09:50Speaking because I have transcended the need to be applauded.

10:00Do you understand this?

10:02Dancing not because somebody would make a reel or a shot and gain me.

10:11It's very difficult to find somebody dancing without a camera.

10:17If you can dance and particularly if you can dance well, what do you immediately do?

10:24You record it.

10:24You record it even if you dance very badly actually.

10:31But can there be a dance where there is no cognition, no remembrance of the camera?

10:41There is no cognition, no remembrance of the camera.

10:48You are dancing because you just, you know.

10:54Somebody asks, but why are you dancing?

10:56And you say stupid.

10:58He thinks there must always be a why.

11:00There is no why.

11:01I am just, this is who I am.

11:04Felt like dancing.

11:07But what do you get out of dancing?

11:11I am not that kind of a beggar.

11:16What do you think?

11:16I am dancing in the town square to collect alms.

11:29Start practicing this thing.

11:31Start doing things from which you get nothing.

11:35And slowly you will develop some taste.

11:41Better still if you start doing things where you not only get nothing, but actually lose something.

11:49It will appear bitter, almost intolerable in the beginning.

11:55Slowly you will start saying, but there is a strange kind of pleasure in this.

12:03I am loving it.

12:06Happens with practice.

12:08Happens with practice.

12:12Yes.

12:22Yes.

12:41Yes.

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