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00:00I feel most of us strive for perfection and in that we often seek external validation.
00:05Is this seeking external validation also a humane thing to have or is it something negative that we should remove?
00:13Let four people say, oh you are pretty and you say I am pretty.
00:16Otherwise is there any objective standard for prettiness please tell me.
00:22Oh he is a wonderful person.
00:23How do you know somebody is wonderful?
00:24You are what others describe you as.
00:29So that's the point from where this need for validation arises.
00:35It's an implanted need.
00:38Most of that which we want is something we have been made to want.
00:44It's very natural for a human to exactly do what the society wants.
00:48Should you oppose this?
00:50I look at your eyes and the impression I see there is what I make of myself.
00:54Why can't I look directly at myself?
00:56If you have been made to believe that a lot in your life depends on external situations, that is a lie and you must call it out.
01:05As long as you do not investigate that lie, you will keep believing in it.
01:09I feel most of us strive for perfection and in that road, we often seek external validation.
01:20Like even if we say we don't want external validation, we are doing it for ourselves.
01:24There is this part of us that would love it if somebody compliments us, tell us we did great.
01:28Now you said imperfection is a very humane thing to have, is this seeking external validation also a humane thing to have or is it something negative that we should remove?
01:40See, when you say humane, you could either mean the socially conditioned human being or you could mean the natural, free, beautiful human being.
02:03Seeking validation, seeking validation from others is not really your natural state, right?
02:11And it comes from social conditioning, if I want to control you all, right, I would say, you know, you are my assessment of who you are, which means I'll dictate who you are.
02:33And I'll, I'll call you all by certain, let's say, numbers on a scale of 100.
02:43You are 78, you are 64, you are 81, you are 92, just 54 and you, I don't like you at all, 31.
02:54So that's how you will be addressed.
02:56That's how you will be addressed.
02:59Those numbers will become now your identities, right?
03:02You will carry them as your descriptions of who you are.
03:07I'm 31, I'm 91.
03:08I'm 31, I'm 91.
03:10You say you are 31.
03:12But who assigned this number 31 to you?
03:15I did.
03:16Somebody outside of you, right?
03:18That's how the society handles the kid.
03:22The kid, the schoolgoer, the student,
03:26the college student, the university student.
03:29We will decide who you are.
03:33If we say you are 31, then you better accept you are 31.
03:36Not only should you accept that you are 31, you identify with 31, you introduce yourself as 31.
03:44If I say, you are valuable, then you are valuable, you can imbibe that.
03:51If I say you are valuable, then you are valuable.
03:55Let four people say, oh, you are pretty and you say I'm pretty.
03:58Otherwise, is there any objective standard for prettiness?
04:02Please tell me, it's just so social.
04:07Oh, he's a wonderful person.
04:09How do you know somebody is wonderful?
04:10Because four others have been calling him wonderful and he has been trained.
04:14That you are what others describe you as.
04:18So, that's the point from where this need for validation arises.
04:27It's an implanted need.
04:30It's an artificial need.
04:33If you look at very small kids, their need for validation is very small.
04:39Just as small as they are.
04:42A part of the need for validation is biological as well.
04:45But that's a very small part, very, very small part, extremely small part.
04:52The overwhelming need comes from your social upbringing.
05:02I must be respected by others.
05:09And if they respect me, then my name is Mr. Respectable.
05:13And nothing changes, nothing changes within me.
05:18But if they withdraw their respect, then I am no more Mr. Respectable.
05:22So, society has then the power to change who you are.
05:28You're not even a puppet.
05:31At least a puppet, if it is dropped, maintains some degree of individual existence still.
05:38You are a figment, you're a bubble.
05:44You're a bubble.
05:46Blown by society.
05:48And they tell you who you are, they tell you who you are not.
05:52I'll ask you a simple question.
05:53Had you not been told
05:55what to do, what to do?
06:01And there's a question for everybody here.
06:03Had you not been told what to do,
06:05would you have done
06:06even one of the things
06:09that you currently do?
06:16Think of it.
06:16And by currently, I don't mean just this moment.
06:23I mean this life.
06:27Right from childhood till today, whatever have you done,
06:32has that not come from an external point?
06:37Imagine, there was nobody to tell you to lead life like this.
06:41Would you have still led life the way you currently do?
06:44No.
06:47So, all these things, things we put so much effort and time into,
06:51things that are so intimate to us,
06:54even they are socially dictated.
06:57Think of it.
06:58No one tells you to wear clothes like this.
07:00Would you still wear the same clothes or would you rather than
07:04try to be creative, try to be more of yourself?
07:08Nobody tells you to take particular kind of education or a particular course
07:13or a particular career.
07:14Would you still go in that stream?
07:15Unlikely.
07:17Very unlikely.
07:19Nobody came and told you that the institution of marriage exists.
07:23Would you still marry?
07:24Very unlikely.
07:26So, all these things that we do are all socially dictated.
07:29And they cannot dictate you unless they have an inner hook.
07:41There has to be something within you that corresponds to their directions.
07:50I am getting it.
07:55Just having a remote control does not suffice.
07:57There has to be something within the machine that follows the control.
08:02So, the society handles the control remotely.
08:07But to make it work, it implants a chip inside you without your consent.
08:15So, they control you from outside and they don't even tell you that they are controlling you.
08:18You feel you are doing it on your own.
08:21You feel this is my wish.
08:23This is what I want.
08:24No, no, no.
08:25Most of that which we want is something we have been made to want.
08:34We don't want it.
08:35We have been told to want it.
08:39And if you go against that, then you might be outcasted, ostracized,
08:50invalidated, condemned.
08:53And that will work on you because you have been told that if you are condemned, then you stand condemned.
08:58Otherwise, somebody can come and condemn you and you can say, two hoots to you.
09:05How does your condemnation matter?
09:07I know who I am.
09:09I know who I am.
09:12And that's the worst kind of injustice
09:22we can inflict upon the young one, the kid and then the student.
09:28I know who I am.
09:29To deprive him or her of an internal locus of control.
09:37To make a young person look at herself through others' eyes.
09:44I don't have eyes that can directly look at myself.
09:46So, how do I look at myself?
09:48In a second-handed way.
09:50I look at your eyes and the impression I see there is what I make of myself.
09:56Why can't I look directly at myself?
09:58Once you start doing that, the need for validation, which is actually a great kind of slavery,
10:05that need then reduces.
10:07So, I don't think I understood the question properly.
10:15So, because I am very fragile to the society telling me how to exactly feel.
10:20It's very natural for a human to exactly do what the society wants.
10:25That's what you said, right?
10:26Should you oppose this?
10:28Should you consciously oppose the need for the society to control me in order to feel the need to come down?
10:34I just missed your name, Kathan.
10:36Kathan says it's very natural for a human to do exactly as the society tells him to do.
10:44Kathan, then you have a very unnatural being sitting in front of you.
10:47If we do something, we start calling it natural.
10:54It might be normal.
10:56It's not natural.
10:58Now, norm is something that the society can dictate.
11:04Norm basically is a statistical thing.
11:10Just like mean, median, etc.
11:12If most people are doing something, that becomes the norm there at that point,
11:18at that place, in that moment.
11:22Right?
11:22That's the norm there.
11:25In a hospital, sickness is the norm.
11:29It is normal to find sick people in hospitals.
11:32In a mental asylum, insanity is the norm.
11:36Being normal is one thing.
11:40Natural is another thing.
11:42You cannot say, people are naturally sick.
11:44No.
11:46Yes, you can have a situation.
11:49A bad situation in which a lot of people behave in outrageous ways.
11:53And then that becomes the normal there.
11:55Statistically, the normal there.
11:58Normal is statistical.
12:01Natural is internal.
12:04These two are very different things.
12:06So, if you have come to a point where you are affected greatly by how people think of you,
12:20then you need to ask yourself,
12:23what do I really get by following others' wishes, commands, opinions?
12:31What do I really get?
12:33Also, ask yourself, what is it that they can really take away from me if I do not live as they do or as they command?
12:43That's the question you need to ask.
12:46Because your nature is freedom.
12:48And the result, the objective of the whole field of wisdom is liberation, which is nothing but internal freedom.
13:01And if you have been made to believe that a lot in your life depends on external situations, that is a lie and you must call it out.
13:14As long as you do not investigate that lie, you will keep believing in it.
13:23Don't we all have a great inner fear?
13:26I'll come to you now.
13:26That if I don't do what others do, great harm will come to me, right?
13:36That great fear is there.
13:37I'm saying that fear is a lie.
13:42It stands there just as a blabbering threat.
13:47A very hollow threat.
13:48If there is something that others can actually take away, it was anyway not worth it.
13:55Let it go.
13:58Let it go.
14:00And anyway, what others have given will always remain something alien, something foreign, something borrowed with you.
14:12You will never have complete ownership or complete oneness with it because it has come from somewhere else.
14:21Whatever comes from outside can always slip back to where it came from.
14:28It can never become totally yours.
14:32The good news is you don't need to make any of those external things totally yours.
14:37You are all right as you are.
14:40You're all right.
14:41Yes, in practical life, we do require things supplied by others, which is fine in a practical sense, not in an inner sense.
14:52Not in an inner sense.
14:54For purposes of day-to-day movement, transaction, social life.
14:59Yes, you will depend on things that come from others like public transport.
15:06Or even if you have your own car that has to travel on a public road.
15:09So, you are dependent in many sense on things given by others, which is fine.
15:14Let all that remain at the periphery of your being.
15:21Internally, you must never identify with anything that others have given you.
15:26Otherwise, you'll be very, very afraid and you'll be controlled and you'll be enslaved.
15:34As young people, do you like to be enslaved?
15:38Yes, how many of you?
15:44You see, that's what we call as nature.
15:47I didn't tell you
15:50that freedom is beautiful.
15:51But the moment I ask you, do you love to be controlled or enslaved?
15:59Not one person raises hand.
16:02That's nature.
16:03That's nature.
16:06Nature is freedom.
16:08Even animals do not like to be caged.
16:10That's your nature.
16:14And that's the reason when you have to be punished.
16:17You are put in a small cell.
16:25But that's a smaller punishment because that is confining you only at the level of the body.
16:31What if the jail is inner here?
16:35What if at the bodily level you are free to go anywhere but inwardly you are not free to move?
16:44What if your very identity and all your thoughts have been encaged?
16:51Isn't that a more unfortunate prison?
16:57Yeah, yeah.
16:58So, that has to be avoided.
17:00All prisons come with incentives.
17:05You don't need those incentives.
17:08Refuse them and be free.
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