Reducing overthinking and anxiety || Acharya Prashant, with IIT Bombay (2020)

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?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl... ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 07.07.2020, IIT-Bombay, Greater Noida, U.P.  Context:  Reducing overthinking and anxiety How to get rid of fear and anxiety? What is anxiety? How to forget the past? How to get rid of mental clutter?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Next one is from Jack Krishnan, IIT Bombay, Civil Engineering.

00:17How should one reduce overthinking about situations or about future?

00:27There is so much unnecessary anxiety in students.

00:33Jack Krishnan worked.

00:39To be anxious, you need to be blessed with a lot of spare time.

00:55How do you manage the time to indulge in anxiety?

01:07I have chosen the word with care.

01:10It's an indulgence to be anxious, to be worried.

01:19There is a certain enjoyment in all this, right?

01:24I am worried something great is about to happen.

01:34One is subtly sipping some juice.

01:54It's a covert kind of fun.

02:01Anxiety, worry.

02:10May I say it's related to narcissism?

02:17When you say something bad can happen to me, either right now or in the future,

02:24aren't you saying you are very important, at least to yourself?

02:32Some really big misfortune is going to fall on me.

02:42Indirectly, you are asserting that you are so big that you can attract a big misfortune.

02:48Are you that big?

02:50Has anything really big ever happened to you?

02:56Then how can even a big boulder fall on your head?

03:04But there is pleasure in worry.

03:08This will sound strange to many, but stay with it.

03:14There is a subtle pleasure in worrying.

03:27The opposite of this self-centered worry is immersion in action.

03:39Immerse yourself in the right action and then where is the space and the time to worry?

03:46Surely you are stealing time away from work so that you can indulge in worries and anxieties

03:54and fancies of all kinds.

03:59Young people fantasize, don't they?

04:04Some fantasize about beautiful, pretty, exciting things.

04:14Others fantasize of scary demons.

04:21But fundamentally it's much the same thing, is it not?

04:27You are using your faculty of imagination to gratify yourself in some way.

04:34You have rom-coms and then you have horror flicks and one is being played on screen number

04:43three, the other one on the adjacent screen number four.

04:48The audience is much the same, is it not?

04:51In fact, some who could not manage a ticket for screen three have walked into screen four.

05:03The objective is entertainment.

05:06The objective is to move into a virtual, unreal world and titillate yourself.

05:25On one screen you have a man and a woman doing things to each other's bodies.

05:33On the other screen you have the demon doing things to somebody's body.

05:42In either case, it's a bloody bodily business.

05:49There is blood and there is body, both the screens.

05:55And in both the cases, neither of the cases, you are glued to the screen.

06:03So that you can forget the real thing.

06:06So that you can forget the fact of your life.

06:11That's what imagination of all kinds, whether the so-called positive imagination or negative

06:18imagination, whether it is hope or worry or despair, that's the purpose they all serve.

06:25They take you away from the fact of your life.

06:29So you are busy imagining that something very inauspicious, very scary can happen to

06:38you in the future.

06:40Indirectly what you are asserting is that presently you are alright.

06:43Are you alright?

06:47When you are saying that, oh my God, what if tomorrow such a bad thing happens?

06:53Aren't you claiming that right now things are almost okay for you?

07:01That's what you want to convince yourself of.

07:04That you are almost alright.

07:09You are not.

07:12What demon can hold you by the neck in the future?

07:22The demon is already here right now and he doesn't need to hold your neck.

07:29He is within you and he has gripped your heart from within.

07:42But you don't want to look at that.

07:43You want to avoid that.

07:44That's why you manufacture fancies.

07:48Action, work is what we need.

07:57Don't you know what you need to do right now?

08:00Let's assume for a while that your worries about the future are founded in facts.

08:05Let's say some grand evil army is invading your little fortress and you can see them

08:22all coming with your binoculars and you are estimating that they will reach you in another

08:29four hours.

08:35Those wild hordes and they are all bloodthirsty savages.

08:43They will ravage your fortress, they will put everything to fire, they will slaughter,

08:50they will loot.

08:55And you are seeing that they are about to reach you in another four hours.

09:06Now what do you do?

09:10You work.

09:12You work.

09:15If the future as per your imagination is really threatening to be terrible, then that's all

09:24the more incentive for you to immerse yourself in the right action right now.

09:34Or would you squat and brood?

09:39Four hours, they are coming.

09:42You know what they'll do?

09:43They'll rape, they'll plunder, they are coming.

09:47Is that what you'll do?

09:51Is that what you'll do?

09:53If the threat is indeed real, then work.

09:57And if the threat is not real, then slap yourself and find some work.

10:08What's the point in getting trapped in circular thought?

10:25Getting it?

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