- 8 months ago
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đź“š
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00:00So, we come from a society which is patriarchal in nature. Everything revolves around a man.
00:09There is a general subjugation of a woman, in the sense that there are laws, there are rules and regulations
00:16around what a woman can do, not do, things like that.
00:20My question is that, is there a general fear of a woman, in the man's mind or in the society at large?
00:29Because we control things, we subjugate a thing to rules and regulations only when we feel a threat or maybe inferiority, if I may say.
00:41So, yeah, that is my question, is there a fear of a woman?
00:46So, you see, you are already in hold of something important.
00:58At one side, at one end, you see that it is a patriarchal society that we are coming from.
01:05On the other hand, your question is, is the man afraid of a woman?
01:12Firstly, we are saying that the man is the controller and then we are asking is the man afraid of the woman?
01:18Not just the man, but maybe society at large, man and woman, because even though women are an equal participant in the patriarchal system, right?
01:27It is also the woman who hold the patriarchy, so society also.
01:33But then society by itself hardly means anything.
01:37When we say society, we mean the members of the society.
01:41When we say a system dominated by men, we mean men.
01:48First of all, a few things about the dualistic nature of mind, of existence, probably need to be seen.
02:06First, there is no control ever, in the sense that there can't be a controller and a controlled.
02:22There would always be a controlled one and another controlled one, out of which one would appear to be the controller.
02:37But no one is really the controller.
02:40Similarly, there can never be an exploiter and an exploited.
02:45There would always be the exploited and the exploited.
02:51And out of the two exploited, obviously one would appear like the exploiter.
02:58And the one who appears like the exploiter need not be a definite one.
03:02Among these two, the role of the exploiter would keep changing hands.
03:08So sometimes the man would appear like the exploiter and other times the woman would appear like the exploiter.
03:19Whenever the natural harmony of things, of movement, of existence is upset, then there is disease.
03:30Disease on both sides, the man and the woman.
03:39When things are healthy, then nobody controls anybody.
03:47Neither the man controls anybody nor does the woman control anybody.
03:52When things are diseased, then both parties control each other.
03:57It is not as if because we have named it as a patriarchal society, which does appear on the surface.
04:05Right?
04:06That it is dominated by man.
04:07The man is the head of the family.
04:09The man controls 97% of the wealth.
04:12The man is at the top in most organizations.
04:14So the man does appear to be the controller, which I would like to submit is just an illusion.
04:27Man controls in his own way, but because there can be no controller and no control.
04:33So the woman controls in her own way.
04:38Both are at war with each other.
04:41Both are trying to enslave each other.
04:46Both are trying to get on top.
04:48It is exploited and the exploited.
04:52Just that their ways are different because their respective constitutions are different.
04:55A man is constructed differently from a woman.
05:00So the way the man tries to control has got to be different from the way a woman tries to control.
05:07Man's aggression is gross because what does man have on his side?
05:14Physicality.
05:15Brute power.
05:16So his aggression will be gross.
05:20You would probably, you know, see him dominating a woman purely by the strength of muscle power.
05:33Which is not so much these days, but still it does happen.
05:37We do see that happening.
05:41Or through money power.
05:43But in such a case where the woman is being made the target of control and ownership,
05:59she would have her own devious ways of countering that.
06:07Not only countering that.
06:08You see, when you say countering that, you probably mean that the man's aggression is a cause of the woman's counter attack.
06:16No, not really.
06:18The man is not causing the woman to counter him.
06:22Both are parallelly and simultaneously sick.
06:25That is the thing about duality.
06:27The man is not causing the woman to retaliate.
06:29Because the whole environment, the whole structure is arising out of ignorance.
06:42So the man and the woman are parallelly and equally sick.
06:45Where do you think the sickness is coming from?
06:51Why is the sickness there?
06:53You see, we are talking of psychological sickness.
06:58And psychological sickness is always the absence of knowledge of reality.
07:03What is this whole game, the whole drama about?
07:08What is this world about?
07:13What is knowledge?
07:14What is perception?
07:16And ultimately, you come to the question,
07:21Who is the one asking the question?
07:23Who am I?
07:24So, whether it is a man who is not exposed to this enquiry, or whether it is a woman,
07:36both are going to be equally ignorant and violence is inseparable from ignorance.
07:42You see, man's violence, as we just said, is tremendously ugly, gross, brute, muscular.
08:03Woman's violence is a little hidden, is a little subtle.
08:27She has her own ways.
08:28She has her own ways.
08:32She has her own ways.
08:37Woman's liberation cannot be distinct from man's liberation.
08:43Or the subjugation.
08:45And woman's subjugation cannot be differentiated from man's subjugation.
08:51So, talking of acting only at one pole just betrays a lack of understanding of the game of duality.
09:07So, it is quite, in the scheme of things, very, very obvious that when you have an order dominated by men,
09:31men are going to be afraid of women.
09:36Had they not been afraid of women, why would they have raised such an order in the first place?
09:42Exactly.
09:48And, at the same time, women are going to be afraid of men.
09:52Man's aggression is gross.
09:55It is very obvious.
09:57And women's fear is gross.
09:59It is very obvious.
10:01And women's fear is gross.
10:03It is very obvious.
10:07What is hidden, and not so obvious, is the woman's aggression and the man's fear.
10:17Both are hidden.
10:18A man would usually not like to admit that he is afraid of a woman.
10:28So, that fear is hidden.
10:31And equally difficult it is to see that a woman is aggressive, even though she might appear helpless or even benign.
10:40But she is aggressive in the way she talks, moves, relates, dresses up, plays her own games.
10:59Is that not aggression, all of that?
11:03Hmm?
11:05So, something is apparent.
11:09Something is a little sublimial.
11:13I think we have to look at the totality of it.
11:16So, you are saying that there is a, obviously, there is a fear in a man.
11:21So, I wanted to, like, know or, you know, discuss, what is this fear that he relates to the woman?
11:30Is it sexuality?
11:32Is it her sexuality?
11:33Because when he, what the most control is about, the way she dresses, people she talks to, where she goes, things like that.
11:40And all that relates to sexuality of a woman or sexuality in large.
11:45So, is there a fear of sexuality of a woman or is there a fear of sexuality?
11:50So, we are talking of the aggression of man and the fear of man.
11:54That man is aggressive towards a woman and man is afraid of the woman.
12:00We are talking of that.
12:02I would like you to expand and complete the scope of the question.
12:05So, we are talking of the man's aggression and the man's fear and let us also talk of the woman's aggression and the woman's fear.
12:16Because only when we take these two together, can we understand the whole game.
12:21Because if you look at only the man, then that is in some way an ignorance of what is happening at the woman's end.
12:29And that she is an equal participant in the whole game of illusion.
12:37So, what is coming to my mind right now?
12:40I read this book by Sudhir Kakar.
12:42He is a psychoanalyst.
12:43It is called Exploring Indian Sexuality.
12:46Therein he is talking, so he is giving an example of a movie or a novel, I am not very sure.
12:53So, there is this woman, Rano.
12:57Her relationship with her husband is somewhat like husband gets drunk, beats her up, asks her to submit to him.
13:07She defies him and he beats her up.
13:10She enjoys the beating up because she knows that it is her resistance.
13:15I guess that is how she is showing her aggression.
13:17Also, I think the fear could also be losing that control.
13:25So, if I am letting you control me, obviously I also have control.
13:31Very well.
13:33You see, now we are moving into troubled waters.
13:38You know, now what we would be saying would be a little amoral.
13:53The conventional way of looking at man-woman relationship won't hold good here.
14:00A few of the feminists may not like what we are saying.
14:09And even men may be displeased.
14:11But let's...
14:19The mind's desire for control is such that it can bear any pain for it.
14:26The mind lives in continuous insecurity.
14:30There is nothing more dominant on the mind than its great fear of elimination, insecurity.
14:41Control is the apparent antidote to insecurity.
14:46I am insecure, so I want to control a lot of things.
14:49To gain that control, I am even prepared to be beaten up.
14:53You see, you beat me up.
14:56But I know after beating me up, you will feel the moral pangs to come back to me.
15:02I was in Rajasthan.
15:08And there, it was a village.
15:12And there, there was this elderly woman advising, a younger one, that if your husband beats you up, it's a sign of his love.
15:30And you should be more alarmed if he doesn't beat you up.
15:33You see, this is the way the female mind is looking at the whole thing.
15:42We are not saying that all women are thinking in this way.
15:46So, please listen to me with a little bit of empathy.
15:52Because it's very easy to misunderstand this thing.
15:56Because the beating in other cases might not be the physical beating.
15:59Yes, yes, yes, yes.
16:00It could be other sorts of beating.
16:01Yes, yes, yes, yes.
16:02And it's a, it's a thing very prevalent across cultures.
16:14Cross cultures.
16:16Even kids learn this very quickly that if they demonstrate that they have been harmed, then they will be compensated.
16:26So, compensation goes along with harm.
16:32And sometimes the lure of compensation can cause you to deliberately invite harm upon yourself.
16:41If the compensation means control.
16:45The compensation means control.
16:47That applies not only to man-woman relationships.
16:50That applies even to parents and kids.
16:55We have sacrificed so much for you.
17:00So, we will now control your lives.
17:03We sacrificed so much for you.
17:05So, now we will control your lives.
17:06When man will be non-violent, only then we can expect a non-violent woman.
17:26When women will be fearless, only then we can expect a fearless man.
17:38And both will move together.
17:41One end cannot move on its own.
17:44Because it is inseparably joined to the other end.
17:50You know, here in Advait, couples often arrive.
18:03And I have seen, and I advise them, that if the man is coming, that he must try to bring the woman here as well.
18:18And if the woman is coming, she must try to bring the man here as well.
18:21The man will not be able to take a dimensional leap if the woman in his life is not prepared to leap along with him.
18:45Because he has defined himself with respect to the woman.
18:52His very self-definition is now so deeply linked to the woman.
18:59Who am I? The husband of this lady.
19:02Who am I? The father of these kids.
19:03He simply cannot fly if those in his life decide to act as deadweights.
19:15Hmm?
19:17Same with the case of woman.
19:20If the woman is coming here and the man is...
19:24So that's the best thing to happen.
19:27Both have to go together.
19:28See, I had said we are now moving into troubled waters.
19:37And if it sometimes happens, it does happen sometimes,
19:43that the man is prepared to fly.
19:47But the woman is stubborn.
19:49She is not prepared to fly.
19:51Then the man will actually have to give her up.
19:53And vice versa.
19:54If you think that you can remain in the same environment,
20:01and your partner, your spouse, to a great extent determines the environment in which you live.
20:07Especially in India.
20:09Hmm?
20:11If you decide to live in the same environment,
20:15then even inner change will be obstructed.
20:19You will be suffocated.
20:22Hmm?
20:24You are expanding.
20:26You cannot be wearing the same chains that you have been wearing since so long.
20:38Hmm?
20:39So these two must go together, man and woman.
20:45Those who are talking of eliminating aggression from men.
20:50For example, those who talk of reduction of the nuclear forces of the world.
20:57Or those who talk of eliminating rape.
21:01Or those who talk of, you know, controlling the gun culture, like in the US.
21:07Will have to look at how this whole thing is related even to women.
21:14Though it may be a problem that looks specific to men.
21:17But it has deep linkages with the women, around the men.
21:22And unless that linkages are understood and acted upon, the problem will remain.
21:26Similarly, the problems that are usually taken as specific to women cannot be treated unless the men folk in the lives of women change.
21:41So the other end of the duality has to be addressed.
21:48For example, we talk of women often as being underachievers.
21:59Even women come and complain that we know that there is more jealousy and pettiness related to small matters in us compared to our male counterparts.
22:17And such things.
22:21Though these are considered as less serious problems compared to the build up of a nuclear arsenal.
22:28Right?
22:29If a woman comes and says that I feel petty and possessive, that is usually not taken as a problem compared to the production of uranium and plutonium.
22:38But I think it is.
22:41It surely is.
22:43The pettiness in women and the 10,000 nuclear weapons that the world has stored today and is building more.
22:53They are inseparably linked.
22:56And they have to be addressed together.
22:59Have to be addressed together.
23:00So when you are talking about how, like, when I'm, so for example, if a man wants to, comes and wants to fly off with the dead weight that is holding him back, sometimes the wife doesn't want to, or sometimes the man doesn't want to.
23:15Why do you think they don't want, like, have they come to enjoy this, this whole business of subjugating and having control over each other in different ways?
23:26Is there a perversion of this control that has come about?
23:31You see, we all want the same thing.
23:35Why does one move to drugs?
23:40Why?
23:42Seeking excitement.
23:45And it is so very close to spiritual bliss.
23:49So much so that you find that many of the spiritual seekers are in fact using these methods.
24:00Opium.
24:02Ganja.
24:04Babas.
24:06Is so very popular with the Babas.
24:08Chilam.
24:10You know of these things, right?
24:12Because these two are very, very close, very intimate.
24:15And if you are not looking with attention, you will not be able to tell one from the other.
24:26And because you get used to one, which is more easily attainable.
24:32The Chilam.
24:33You then say that, why leave to this which I already have in my hands?
24:40And try for something which is indescribable, unattainable.
24:46This I have with me and this gives me such a high.
24:49I am pretty sure no spiritual joy can be more peaceful, more liberating than this.
25:01You talk of thoughtlessness, I become totally thoughtless.
25:05You talk of sorrowlessness, I forget all my sorrows.
25:09So when I am already getting the highest spiritual pleasure from something as available and as cheap as a weed.
25:25Then why are you trying more difficult, more tortuous, more bloody ways?
25:46You know, the elimination of ego is like giving up one part of your body after the other.
25:56Frankly, it is a bloody battle.
26:02And if one has cheap substitutes available, why fight this battle?
26:11Why fight this battle?
26:13So that's why often it will happen that while the man or the woman would be eager to come here, the partner would become a roadblock.
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