How to stop taking things personally? || Acharya Prashant, with MMMUT (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 11.02.23, MMMUT Gorakhpur (Online), Greater Noida  Context: ~ How to stop taking things personally?  ~ Why do I take things so seriously? ~ How to not get affected by people? ~ How to deal with peer pressure?  ~ Do we choose to react?  ~ How to be independent of all influences?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Good evening sir. So my question to you is, how can I stop taking things personally? So

00:10many a times it happens, like many things affect our life. Sometimes a work is not completed

00:18on time or it is not completed perfectly. That affects our mood a lot. Not only things,

00:25many people affects us so much. They are not that much important, but that course of action

00:31decides our mood and our course of action, which is not good in any way. So I just wanted

00:37to ask that how can I stop these things taking personally? Thank you sir.

00:46You are the person, right? When you say you take things personally, you are the person

00:59who experiences all those things, right? Yes sir.

01:05So the first problem is not that you take all the things that happen to the person seriously.

01:15That's not the first problem. A lot of things happen to those person, right? There is a

01:21person and stuff is happening to the person. Someone comes and says, oh, you deceived me.

01:29Someone comes and says, oh, you are simply incompetent. And the person takes these things

01:36seriously and then the person says, oh, it's a problem that I take things seriously, right?

01:43Yes sir.

01:44No, no, that's not the first problem. The first problem is that the person takes herself seriously.

01:51If there is no person, what is left to be taken personally?

01:59The person is the first problem. Taking things personally comes much later.

02:06Why do you take seriously the person that you are? Why do you believe in your personhood so much?

02:15It does not need to be so abstract. So we'll simplify it. See, what do we mean by the person?

02:27When you say person, you mean yourself, right? You have a certain age, certain knowledge.

02:34You come from a certain background. Somebody asks you, where did you do your boards from?

02:41You'll talk of a school, you'll talk of a city, you'll mention the name of your parents.

02:47You identify with the gender and you have a certain background.

02:52You identify with the gender and you have aspirations and dreams.

02:59This is all that constitutes a person, right?

03:04Yes sir.

03:05That's what makes a person. So there is the face. There is the face. The face is there and the face

03:11represents the body. So it is the face. And then the face has eyes and the eyes have dreams, right?

03:19And then there is the mind and the mind has thoughts, ideologies, memories, experiences,

03:25all these things, right? That's who the person is. That's who the person is, right?

03:32Now why does this person need to be taken seriously?

03:38Where does this person come from?

03:40Did you choose your gender? Did you choose your religion? Think of all the things that have

03:45happened to you and you will find 99% of all that is simply accidental, right? It's just that

03:53the ego within likes to exercise doership. So even if something is accidental, it says,

04:03I did that. I did that. For example, you must have cleared a certain entrance exam to be in the

04:10college you are, right? Now, a lot of that comes from your gray material, your brain stuff,

04:22right? IQ is important if you are to clear an entrance exam. Of course, other things too are

04:28important, but without your gray matter, your IQ is not important. So, you must have cleared

04:37but without your gray matter, you will find it very difficult to clear an entrance, right?

04:44That gray matter is largely biological, genetic. One does not choose it. One can at most exercise

04:55it, right? And we know of precocious talents. We know of wonder babies. We know of kids who

05:06at the age of six are solving problems that you encounter in class 8th or 10th.

05:18You have read of them, right? So, all that is just prakritic, natural. And what is natural is

05:28accidental. So, how can the person be taken so seriously? The wind blows this way, the wind

05:38blows that way. What's so important or significant in all that? It's just a random occurrence,

05:45right? The person is largely a random thing. It's just that the ego does not want to encounter the

05:54fact of randomness. So, even to random events and a random collection of experiences and

06:06influences like the person, it starts claiming an agency or it starts ascribing an agency.

06:17You understand agency? As if there is a central entity, but there is no central entity.

06:24The central entity itself is a myth and the entire aim of wisdom is to get rid of this

06:32fictitious central entity claiming to be real. What is this fictitious central entity called?

06:41The ego, the self, the I. And it's the self, the I that's at the center of the person.

06:49Now, someone comes and says, oh, you are ugly. The thing is,

06:54you did not even choose to be pretty. How can you choose to be ugly?

07:02Nobody chooses her color, nobody chooses her height. Even the things where we think we have

07:07exercised a choice, that choice is a greatly influenced choice, is it not?

07:14Think of the way people, for example, choose their college or choose their jobs or choose

07:20their partners. Are these free choices? These are not free choices. Though we say I chose,

07:31but I never really choose. Things just happen. Water falls over sodium, does sodium choose to

07:41react? The explosion just happens. And sodium is more honest than human beings in the sense that

07:51sodium does not have an agency that claims I did that. But when it comes to human beings,

07:58we all have a central fictitious agency that says, I did that. Whereas events happen,

08:06just in the way water happens to sodium. That's the way our life events take place.

08:15So why to take the person so seriously? If you have a certain ideology, probably you got it

08:21from your house or neighborhood or school or media. It's not yours. So somebody comes

08:28and casts aspersions at your ideology. That's fine. That's not your ideology.

08:37Your religion. Nobody chooses her religion. And even when people say they are choosing

08:42their religion, even that choice is an influenced choice. So no choice at all.

08:48Nobody really chooses a partner. People just fall in love and that's all so chemical, biological,

08:57just so predictable. So the person herself is a bit of a joke. There is no person.

09:10Let Babs be thrown at you. If you do not exist, how will they hurt you?

09:17Will they hurt you? They'll not hurt you. Something hurts you only when you exist to

09:23resist that thing. Right? So, the person herself is a bit of a joke.

09:34When you exist to resist that thing. Right? A stone thrown through air does not hurt the air

09:43or does it? But it hurts the first thing that resists it.

09:53So, when you see that your personhood is a myth,

09:57you become the air, you become the open sky, then you cannot be hurt. You're not hurting me.

10:07I'm not who you are, who you think I am.

10:11You're throwing something at me. It passes through me.

10:16I can be hurt only if first of all, I am the person you think I am. I'm not that.

10:22So, when one stops taking herself seriously, it becomes very difficult for the world

10:31to hurt her. And remember, if someone can hurt you, they can also possess you.

10:39The one who is able to hurt you will also be able to control you.

10:46And you do not want to be controlled. Right?

10:48The person is controllable. Now, we come to the next thing. You are someone who is not controllable.

10:54So, you are not the person. But you are. And the one that you are does not want to be controlled.

11:00Do you want to be controlled? Do you want to be dominated? No. You are the one who cannot be

11:04controlled or dominated and you're not the person. So, if you allow the world to mean too much to you,

11:12the world will simply overpower you, possess you, enslave you. You do not want that. Right?

11:20See, it's such a remarkable and unfortunate thing. Those who allow the world to mean too much to them,

11:30those who become ultra sensitive to hurt and praise and such things, they are the ones who become

11:37victims of the world. Anyone can come and possess you through praise and anyone can come and possess you

11:50through infamy, calumny. Someone comes and says, oh, you are great and he has had you.

11:59And someone comes and says, oh, you are obnoxious and this one too has had you.

12:05You don't want that to happen, right? Yes, sir.

12:09So, it's okay. It's okay. You think that I am ugly? Fine. Here is a joke on ugliness.

12:24Here is a joke on ugliness. You think I'm fat, I'm no good, I'm good for nothing.

12:30You think I'm fat, I'm no good, I'm good for nothing. I'm an incompetent fool. Wait.

12:42Just give me one minute and let's both enjoy this joke on incompetence. My own incompetence.

12:49Learn to take yourself with more than a pinch of salt.

12:59You are not important. You are nobody. Nobody is ever important. The two of us who are talking to each other,

13:08I mean, you know what the fate of these two talking entities is.

13:19Look at all the dirt by the wayside. All that was persons one day.

13:31When you are gone, you will be just the

13:42dirt by the wayside. So will be I, right? Look at the sand, look at the filth.

13:50There's dust on the table, right? You know what that dust is? That dust was a person one day.

14:02How do I take the person seriously?

14:08How do I take it?

14:12Yes, sir.

14:14I'm not sure I've been very intelligible. You are free to cross question or whatever.

14:25No, sir. I'm clear now. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

14:43Oh

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