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00:00Please welcome Acharya Prashant.
00:16Today, I, Gaurav, on the behalf of the Literature Club of IM Bangalore, welcome you all to Samwad, an interactive session with Acharya Ji.
00:27Acharya Ji is a Vedanta exegete, a philosopher, a social reformer, a columnist and a national best-selling author.
00:35He is a prolific writer with over 160 books to his name and is recognized as the world's most followed spiritual leader with over 55 million subscribers on YouTube.
00:46Apart from that, he is also an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad.
00:57In addition to this, his literary contributions, Acharya Ji also conducts world's largest continuous online teaching program on the Bhagavad Gita and Vedanta.
01:07He is a prolific speaker and he has been invited to speak at major institutes in India and abroad, including University of California, Berkeley, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, Ames Nagpur, among others.
01:24And today, it's an absolute honor for us to welcome the profound thinker.
01:29Now, I would request Komala Ma'am to come on the stage and receive him with a bouquet of flowers.
01:35Now, I will leave the stage to Acharya Ji to share his learnings with us.
01:56Yes, let's begin, please.
02:01We'll keep it conversational to and fro.
02:10Namaste Acharya Ji.
02:12So, my question was when we make important life decisions, how do we distinguish between like natural thinking and conditioned thinking?
02:22So, there are some things like you get some genuine wisdom and there are things like which are conditioned to us.
02:30So, how do we distinguish between them?
02:33Inquiry is the only route.
02:37Otherwise, there is no way you can ever detect whether your thoughts, internal processes, feelings, and importantly, conclusions and decisions are your own, really, original,
02:55or whether they are products of an implanted process.
03:02You will never come to know.
03:04What has been implanted within that which you are calling as conditioning is an implanted thing.
03:10And once it has entered your insights, it will always appear innate.
03:19In the normal run of things, human beings lack the capacity to differentiate between what is original and what is borrowed.
03:27That which is borrowed, very quickly, very unnoticeably starts appearing, one's own, homemade, native.
03:42So, one puts the force of all his confidence behind his thoughts and feelings and decisions.
03:55One says, these are my own and I am confident.
03:59This is what I am thinking.
04:01Right?
04:02This is what I am feeling.
04:04That's what I have thought out for my future.
04:07I.
04:08The I is such a lonely thing, it just wastes no time in latching on to whatever object it can get hold of.
04:22And once it has touched something, it gets identified with that.
04:27So, a very foreign idea might enter your mind.
04:34And once you get associated with it, you will start claiming ownership.
04:40You will say, it is mine.
04:41It is mine.
04:42And if somebody then questions that idea or invites you to debate, you might even feel offended or provoked.
04:51You will say, this is my idea and you are questioning it.
04:54It is not the idea that you are questioning.
04:57It is my I-ness that you are questioning because now my I is attached rather identified with the idea.
05:05So, if you question that idea, you are questioning their I-ness.
05:09You are questioning by implication their existence itself.
05:13I is your existence.
05:15Right?
05:16So, I am identified with a particular attire.
05:21Browsers, jackets, sarees, whatever.
05:26Nothing.
05:27An inanimate piece of clothing.
05:31But if that becomes a part of my identity, and we are saying that ego is such a hungry beast.
05:38It will very quickly associate itself with anything and everything it gets hold of.
05:46Because nothing satisfies it.
05:48Since nothing satisfies it, it is always eager to bite into, to pierce into, to take grip of, to clutch.
05:59Whatever is the next thing, subtle or gross that it comes across.
06:04So, it could be a piece of clothing.
06:06It could be an idea, thought, feeling, whatever.
06:09So, if it comes to the self, the self has a great tendency to get identified with it.
06:17Identification could be both in affirmation and negation.
06:21For example, I am a conservative or I am a liberal.
06:26So, I am already committed to a particular idea.
06:31Right?
06:32I am already committed.
06:33So, if the opposite of that idea comes to me, I will again be identified to the opposite.
06:39Because that is my very nature.
06:41The nature of the ego to be identified.
06:43I will again be identified to that idea, but via negativa.
06:47So, I will become a sworn enemy of the liberals.
06:52That's again identification.
06:53That's again a statement of identity, is it not?
06:56Who am I?
06:57Slayer of the liberals or hater of the conservatives.
07:01That's again a statement of identity.
07:05So, one identity gives birth to several identities.
07:10There is no way the ego can let go of anything.
07:13It is, we are saying always hungry, always lonely, always seeking company, always seeking an object that can fulfill it.
07:26So, once the ego gets associated, it starts claiming ownership.
07:30It says the thing is mine.
07:31The thing is mine.
07:32I want a fact pay package.
07:35I.
07:36How do you know?
07:38It is your own thought.
07:40How do you know?
07:42I think mine is the best country of all.
07:51I think my thoughts are superior to those of my neighbors.
07:57How do you know?
08:01I think my gender has a biological and historical right to dominate.
08:07I think my gender is made to provide care and emotional nourishment.
08:15How do you know?
08:16How do you know?
08:18That's the thing.
08:19The questioner is asking, how do I know?
08:28And that's what I'm bouncing back to you.
08:30How do you know?
08:31How do you know?
08:33How do you know?
08:34The thing is we do not know but still we are very confident.
08:38That is the problem.
08:42There is nothing within, that's going to raise a red flag of suspicion.
08:48There's nothing within that would ever say sir, hold.
08:52Wait.
08:53Watch.
08:54Question.
08:55You did not always believe in these things.
09:01From where did these things come to you?
09:04Can you ask?
09:05No, I don't want to ask because if I ask then it is terrible because I run the risk
09:10of making the ego lonely again.
09:13The ego is now finding some comfort associated with some idea and if the basis of that association
09:22is questioned and if that association happens to be ruptured, then the ego becomes, I am
09:29so lonely, again something is gone.
09:32So even if the association is false, the association has to be maintained.
09:39And if the association is to be disrupted, then you will have to go through inner pain.
09:47That pain is the price for living a truthful life.
09:54Believe me, whatever we are associated with, there is a great chance.
09:58I dare not say 100% chance, though the thing is, it is a 100% thing.
10:04But there is a great chance if you will question it, it will be proven to be false.
10:10That is the way of Vedanta, that is the way of honesty.
10:15To keep questioning whatever you know.
10:19The epistemological lens that filter, that asks, how do I know?
10:26How am I sure of the validity of my knowledge, my conclusions?
10:31How do I know of anything?
10:32How do I know that even I exist, that's taking things too far, will not go that far.
10:39But how do I know that such and such thing must happen?
10:43So there is this delimitation exercise, not the exercise really, the debate currently raging.
10:52If you look at what people are saying on both sides of the divide, it's so interesting.
10:57And everybody is so confident, and nobody wants to ask, sir, how do you know?
11:02How do you know?
11:07You know, the North deserves to have a certain premium, because it is the North that defended
11:19the South from all the external invasions.
11:21Sir, how do you know, how do you know?
11:25Is it coming from history or from where?
11:27How do you know?
11:28We don't ask.
11:31Well, the North has been left behind because there was the freight equalization thing that
11:39enabled South to leap ahead.
11:43You know, the South is ahead because the Chinese and Pakistani missiles were more prone to reaching
11:49the North.
11:50So all the industries are set up in South.
11:54All this is what is going around.
11:56And we don't want to ask, how do you know?
11:59We are not saying what you are saying is false.
12:01We are just asking, how do you know?
12:05How do you know?
12:09Anybody can earn money, but it is the North that defends the frontiers.
12:14Shouldn't we subsidize them?
12:15Shouldn't we subsidize them?
12:17How do you know?
12:18How do you know?
12:19Are you getting it?
12:20Now in this case, it is probably easier to know because you could consult lots of history books, you could apply your own discretion, and you could come to some sort of fair judgment as to what is really going on, what the whole thing is about, what are the political dimensions, what are the historical angles?
12:35And you can come to know, but when it comes to your insights, it becomes a little more difficult
12:52to know because now something very personal is at stake.
12:58Something very personal, that something very personal is called the I.
13:01And there is no way of knowing whether you are conditioned or not, except going through
13:09the process of inner pain, inner pain.
13:16You'll have to question a lot of things, you'll have to question everything.
13:23It requires a lot of inner boldness.
13:26It requires a commitment towards honesty.
13:30That's what is called really being spiritual.
13:32Are you getting it?
13:42Otherwise, it's a very easy, quick and cheap way to just assert anything.
13:55I am the best.
13:56My wife is the best.
13:57My kids are the best.
13:59My choices are the best.
14:01My marks are the best.
14:02My job is the best.
14:03My neighborhood is the best.
14:05My gods are the best.
14:08Everything that's related to me is the best because I am the best.
14:16Very easy to claim all that.
14:23What's the real meaning of the term integrity?
14:29It is not to have a dissonance between truth and your truth.
14:41And there is nothing that's further away from the truth than one's own truth.
14:48Personal truth, that's the enemy of truth.
15:01One requires, we all know our track records, the kind of inner achievers we are.
15:08We might put things on our CV, I understand that.
15:14I come from a similar campus, so I know how we build up and decorate our CV.
15:20So that's one thing.
15:22But we know internally who we are.
15:24We know our track record.
15:27Then how do we manage to back ourselves so strongly, so unflinchingly?
15:34One should have some suspicion, if not cynicism.
15:38If I know who I am and what I have been, and I also know that I can't change overnight,
15:43I won't trust myself too easily or would I?
15:48In fact, I would say, if it's appearing to me, then it ought to be false.
15:56That's the mantra I sometimes give to some of my selected most loved people.
16:01See, just do the opposite of what you feel like.
16:04And there is a 90% chance you will get it right.
16:12When I have to take a decision, sometimes I call in people to consult them.
16:16And I want to hear their opinion, just so that I do the opposite of it.
16:25We all should have this kind of attitude towards ourselves.
16:30We love slippery slopes, so if that's the direction our being is feeling impelled to,
16:43then we must know that the heights, the tops, the mountains lie in the opposite direction.
16:52If I feel impelled towards that direction, then there is a 90% chance that that's the direction
16:59of the bottom.
17:03The right side would be there, probably exactly to the opposite.
17:08Aren't slippery slopes always inviting?
17:12You don't have to do anything, just slip.
17:19You couldn't even slip, sleeping.
17:24Comfortably you are sleeping and yet so much movement is happening.
17:27Like sometimes in two years in the campus.
17:30You don't even know when you have graduated.
17:35That internal sleep is a very typical thing, keeps happening.
17:42Externally we might feel our eyes are open.
17:47The way of inquiry.
17:50The more confident you feel about something, the more suspicion it should arouse.
18:00The more sure you feel of something, the more you must realize that Maya is trying to shut
18:05the doors to inquiry.
18:08Catch the inner thief red handed.
18:21Look at its functioning.
18:24See how it manipulates and distorts.
18:29See how it has preset conclusions and then it fabricates arguments in favour of the conclusions.
18:38There's such a bad way of arguing and concluding, no?
18:45If you do that in any of the sciences or in economics, statistics, commerce, accounting anywhere,
18:56even in humanities, if you have a ready-made conclusion and then you manufacture arguments
19:05to support that conclusion.
19:09You would be called a third-rate philosopher.
19:12No?
19:13No?
19:14A third-rate arguer.
19:19But that's what we all do internally.
19:23My kid is the best.
19:25My choices are alright.
19:26That's something already proven, well in advance.
19:31Then you have to come up with arguments to somehow justify your choice.
19:35And we do not even know why we have already concluded in a particular way.
19:41But that's something we need to know.
19:46Because the one sitting inside is not your friend, please.
19:52The one who sits inside of us is not our friend, it's the false I, it's a usurper.
20:01It has taken over, stolen somebody else's name.
20:06The real I is something else, somebody else.
20:11The one who sits inside us has stolen the name.
20:19How can this thief be our friend?
20:21Where is this thief coming from?
20:27It's not home grown.
20:31It's not arising from inside.
20:34It is coming from here and there.
20:36It's not our innate sense of self.
20:42It's a biological and social sense of self.
20:46Mostly random, time bound, conditioned influences of family, culture, religion, education, media,
20:58and the rest of it.
21:01When it's coming from all these external places, how do we call it I?
21:11How do you feel if I say you are sitting there, you are there, you are there, you are there,
21:16you are there, you are there, you are there, you are there, you are all over the place.
21:20Does that make sense?
21:23Physically, we want to be a unit, an integrated unit.
21:34There has to be a certain oneness.
21:37This is me and if this is me, that is, please tell me, that is not me.
21:43And if this is me, then that's not me, that's not me.
21:46But look at how it operates internally, psychologically.
21:49Here, here, when it comes to your arm, your arm is at one place and it cannot be coming
21:57from five other places.
21:58But look at what you have here.
22:01It's coming from five thousand different places and the flux is continuous.
22:13The tragedy is unmitigated.
22:16It's just movement of influences and these are coming from everywhere.
22:21And yet we manage to call the content here as my own.
22:26How is it my own?
22:29How do I say I am thinking, you are hurting my feelings, are your feelings your own?
22:36Really?
22:37Are any of your concepts your own?
22:41A little hit on the head and if you lose your memory, would these concepts stay with
22:48you?
22:49How are they your own?
22:52They are things stored in your memory.
22:56Stored in memory and picked up by the ego to associate with.
23:01How is this, anything here, how is it your own?
23:07My caste, my geography, my nationality, my aims, targets, hopes, dreams, are they our own?
23:20If we ask a set of people like we have here to write down their dreams, please enumerate
23:31five top dreams you have.
23:37I guess there would be a 50 to 80 percent commonality.
23:43But I might be underestimating.
23:47How is it possible?
23:49If we are individuals, how is it possible that we all have so very common dreams?
23:57How is it possible?
24:02Does that not trigger suspicion?
24:04Prima facie, does that not point towards a need for inquiry?
24:15Something very dangerous is happening inside.
24:18And what's the danger?
24:19I am not at all there inside.
24:23I am calling it my insights.
24:27The fact is, inside of me, there is very little of me.
24:33How big a danger is that?
24:36That's a danger that the learned ones have called a danger bigger than death.
24:47Bigger than death, to the extent that they say that you are not even alive.
24:53They say you need to take birth.
24:57This that emerges from the mother's womb is just a thing of flesh.
25:03You cannot call that thing as living, alive or conscious.
25:10Life is for the sake of actually attaining birth.
25:20When you attain birth, when you are able, via the process of self-inquiry, to cleanse yourself
25:29of all that is not you.
25:33When that, only that remains, that's just me, pure me.
25:40That's when you can claim that you are now alive.
25:43That's the point referred to as Jeevan Mukti.
25:50So how big a danger is it to lead a conditioned life?
25:57A danger bigger than death.
26:03Death is something we see as coming in the future, whereas this is a danger about not
26:11even being born, not even being born, is said to be a danger bigger than death.
26:25Most of us, that's the way of those who know.
26:31They don't mince words, they say most of us die physically without ever having taken birth.
26:48Here's the dead body.
26:49The tragedy is the fellow was never even born.
26:52He died without taking birth.
26:56He was eating, breathing, all that was happening, walking, talking, mating, reproducing, making
27:03a CV, getting a job, that's fine.
27:07The little problem is that he was never alive.
27:11All that was so conditioned, so mechanical, and we don't call machines as sentient beings,
27:18do we?
27:19So even a machine can do most of the stuff that we do.
27:24And with AI, it has become even clearer.
27:30Everything that we do, including emoting, can be done by a machine.
27:36So how do we say that we are even born?
27:41We don't call machines as born, we call them manufactured.
27:46We are manufactured beings, right?
27:48D-O-M, date of manufacturing, not D-O-B.
27:59Don't be sure of yourself.
28:04They say only 1 by 9 of the iceberg is exposed above the surface.
28:14When it comes to the human mind, it is probably 1 by 90.
28:19That's the extent of our self-awareness.
28:22You will have to watch yourself continuously, dispassionately, ruthlessly.
28:31Your words, your thoughts, your feelings, your associations, desires, hopes, heartbreaks,
28:36you will have to observe them.
28:40Like in a case study, the most intimate case study, our own life, our own movements.
28:49And when I say life, I don't mean historical life.
28:52I don't mean what you were doing between the age of 8 and 18.
28:56By life, I mean that which is happening, the dynamic process itself, here, now.
29:03One will have to very dispassionately, very objectively, look at oneself like one looks at a case study,
29:12and see what is really happening.
29:15We say facts are the door to truth.
29:18One will have to have a fact-oriented attitude towards oneself.
29:28I say I am this, but is that borne out by how I behave, how I relate, how I desire?
29:35Desires are wonderful things to observe.
29:41We are more honest than actions, because actions are very fearful things.
29:47You might desire something, but never act on it because of fear of consequences.
29:53But look at your desires.
29:54They will tell you a lot about what you have become.
30:00When you look at all that, then there is a cleansing thing that happens inside.
30:12God?
30:15For you.
30:17God.
30:17Actually, this is great.
30:19God is a до ten percent power limit that you get from nothing.
30:21He can.
30:22Be Your heart.
30:23It is a panicということで, he has gotten from fear of hell towards others.
30:26How do you reach for your heart?
30:32Those Kristen finished that wasn't because of what you want me to do if you want.
30:38Those of you who got made you another way.
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