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00:00Motherhood is such a sacred event that even questioning it feels wrong.
00:04You get your education, job and then finally get married and have children.
00:07So if I want to go against everyone then I'm in guilt.
00:10Like I feel guilty of my own choices.
00:13This intrigues me, it also saddens me.
00:15When a young person says,
00:19Why must anybody have any say in your life?
00:23Why must you allow them to dominate you?
00:26Because whenever I discuss it with my friends or family
00:29and then they are like, no this is how it is going to be.
00:33Did you feel like having kids when you were 14? No.
00:37And where does this psychological, biological instinct to breed come from?
00:44It's not your own and what's not your own can be disowned.
00:48It can be disowned.
00:50Yeah, but it's like everyone is following the same path.
00:55Everyone will call me selfish.
00:57So I just hug a few people.
00:58I work on selfish.
01:01Selfish.
01:02Wow.
01:13I don't know what to do in life, but I'm 28.
01:15So somebody tells me, oh you must have a kid now.
01:18So I become a mother.
01:20The thing is that.
01:28Namaste Achai Ji.
01:29My question is that, how can women maintain autonomy over their life choices?
01:34When even educated, independent women are also following the same conventional path defined
01:40for the women, like getting married and having children.
01:43Motherhood is such a sacred event that even questioning it feels wrong.
01:47So how can I free myself from those life choices without feeling guilty and being judged?
01:56I also read a quote from your book.
01:59True feminism begins when a woman is liberated from the physical and social compulsion to take her body as her
02:06primary identity.
02:12This intrigues me, it also saddens me.
02:15When a young person says, how not to feel pressurized or afraid?
02:27Were we born like this?
02:30Is this the way we took birth?
02:34Please, please tell me.
02:36Not that we are particularly enlightened at birth.
02:40But it is revealing.
02:43If even that little kid is in many ways better placed than us.
02:49If we have brought us down to a position where even the little kid appears superior.
02:57It is quite revealing.
03:00Will the kid have all these psychological blocks and barriers?
03:06Please tell me.
03:09So surely this came to you from somewhere during your journey.
03:16You didn't start off like this.
03:20You absorbed it at some place, some point or continuously kept absorbing it, whatever.
03:26Right?
03:28So that's what you need to see.
03:30It's not your own.
03:31And what's not your own can be disowned.
03:35It can be disowned.
03:37You say, how can a woman have autonomy?
03:41I'm asking, why will the woman not have autonomy?
03:46You must first come up with the reasons that make you feel indebted or enslaved.
03:56Please tell me.
03:56Why will you not have autonomy?
03:59Because whenever I discuss it with my friends or family and then they are like, no, this is how it
04:05is going to be.
04:06Like you get your education, job and then finally get married and have children.
04:09So that's why I always question myself.
04:11If I want to go against everyone, then I'm in guilt.
04:14Like I feel guilty of my own choices.
04:16So that is...
04:17So again you have to go within.
04:20Why are your friends like that?
04:25It's a choice, right?
04:29Friends are a choice.
04:31Maybe parents are not, but friends are.
04:33Right?
04:34So why did you pick friends that way?
04:37First thing.
04:38Secondly, why must you allow them to dominate you?
04:43They can say whatever they may.
04:45That's their sovereignty.
04:47But why must you allow their words to mean so much to you?
04:53That's a choice that you have.
04:55Why don't you exercise that choice?
04:56I mean, how can your friends dictate whether or not you will have kids?
05:03Yeah, but...
05:04It's like everyone is following the same path.
05:07I'm talking about the educated women, even like at the higher position.
05:11They are all looking in the same direction.
05:14I am not.
05:16They are all looking this way.
05:18I am looking that way.
05:20So I must be tremendously guilty of that.
05:26Must I be?
05:29I know what I am doing.
05:30They too know what they are doing.
05:31So they will not try to dominate me.
05:34And I will not try to follow them.
05:37Simply know what you are doing.
05:39Why must anybody have any say in your life?
05:43Yes, if you want to understand something, you go to a proper source.
05:49You ask questions.
05:51You ask questions.
05:51You seek advice.
05:52Or you read a great book.
05:55That is fine.
05:58But peer pressure is something altogether different.
06:04You read a great work, somebody's book on what it means to be a parent.
06:11And where does this psychological, biological instinct to breed come from?
06:20Did you feel like having kids when you were 14?
06:24No.
06:26But when you are 24, all these thoughts and feelings start arising.
06:31Where do they come from?
06:32Are they really your own?
06:34Or is it just chemistry, biochemistry?
06:38I mean, why not read about it from someone who has bothered to research?
06:47Why must you talk of all these important things with people who are maybe more ignorant than you are?
06:57Or as ignorant as you are?
07:02It becomes an eco-chamber and not just an eco-chamber, a dark eco-chamber.
07:09You are hearing just what you are saying and you don't even know.
07:13Who is it reflecting back to you?
07:20Are you getting it?
07:21When you say how not to get pressurized, I am asking you, how do you get pressurized?
07:27Have you ever seen the mechanics of that?
07:31How do you get pressurized?
07:33You get pressurized because your very sense of self, you have allowed it to depend on others.
07:43Because you do not know who you are, therefore you let others define you.
07:50In that way you make those others your masters.
07:55And then they will control you in the ugliest way possible.
08:01Yes, we must have company, definitely.
08:05But we must have the company of those who liberate, not those who dominate.
08:12Yes, obviously, carrying a female body, at some point you might want male company.
08:20All that is fine.
08:22All that has been happening in Prakriti since billions of years.
08:30So all that is fine.
08:32But why must you do that in a dark way?
08:40Why must you do that in ignorance when it can be done in understanding and love?
08:52Why is there this great fear of others?
08:58And those others are not necessarily your pay masters, your commanders.
09:06We are afraid even of our friends.
09:09Is that not pitiable?
09:12Somebody says, I am afraid of my commander, I am afraid of my boss.
09:17I am afraid of that minister.
09:20And here we are saying, I am afraid of my friends.
09:25And yes, that is true.
09:26And that is the ugly fact of our relationships.
09:30We are the most afraid of those who are closest to us.
09:36The wife is afraid of the husband, the husband is afraid of the wife.
09:39Go and ask them.
09:42The son is afraid of the father.
09:46The mother is afraid of the son.
09:48Go and ask them.
09:55You will be afraid because they are the ones
10:02nearest to you, therefore having the greatest power over you.
10:06And when somebody has power over you, you will obviously be afraid.
10:12How can you be afraid of someone?
10:15You don't even know.
10:16That fellow has no power over you.
10:19But somebody you eat with, sit with, sleep with.
10:23That fellow is so proximate.
10:25That fellow can wield a lot of power.
10:28And therefore there is great fear in relationships.
10:32We will not admit that.
10:35But look at, look at all these things.
10:37Look at the honor killings.
10:38Look at the dowry deaths.
10:41Look at marital rapes.
10:46Where is all that coming from?
10:52Why would, why would J.E. aspirants commit suicides in Kota?
10:58Where is that fear coming from?
11:06The reason is simple.
11:10And it is not about others.
11:14It is about the fact that we lack inner clarity.
11:19Therefore we allow others to command us.
11:23I don't know what to do in life.
11:25So somebody tells me, write the J.E.
11:28So I enlist in some coaching.
11:30And then I don't perform there.
11:32And then I am mortally afraid.
11:36I don't know what to do in life.
11:37So somebody tells me, go get a good job.
11:42And if I can't get a good job, I am afraid.
11:45The ugly thing is, even if I get a good job, I will still be afraid.
11:50I don't know what to do in life, but I am 28.
11:52So somebody tells me, oh, you must have a kid now.
11:55So I become a mother.
11:58The thing is, the emptiness, the incompleteness, remains, even after you become a parent.
12:04Life is still much the same.
12:05You are still as hollow within.
12:09Just that now you have diapers in life.
12:20Do you get this?
12:24Relate to the other in your fulfilment.
12:29Friends should not be crutches.
12:33Friends should not be shoulders to cry on.
12:37A friend cannot be a support to lean on.
12:48You are friends with someone, because both of you, it's like walking up these stairs.
12:54I want to ascend.
12:56You too want to ascend.
12:58I want to understand.
12:59You too want to understand.
13:01And our journeys up these stairs will become smoother, easier, sweeter, if we are together.
13:11So let's be together.
13:12We are together not for the sake of each other, but for the sake of our individual respective journeys.
13:20You will aid my journey, I will aid your journey.
13:24And that's love.
13:28I am with you so that I can assist you.
13:32In your journey.
13:34Mind you, I am not asking you to change your tracks.
13:38I am not dominating you.
13:40I am not saying live as I tell you to.
13:46I understand you are on a very purposeful, meaningful journey.
13:51I am with you.
13:54Because I love the way you love your journey.
13:59I love the way you love your life, your work, your mission, I love that.
14:04I love your dedication, for example, to your research project.
14:07That's why I have fallen in love with you.
14:11I love you not because you love me, I love you because you love your work.
14:14That's what I love about you.
14:17So when I am in your life, I am not there to command your work.
14:24I am there maybe to be a mirror, so that you can look at yourself better through me.
14:32And vice versa.
14:34You are going up these tracks and these are my tracks.
14:40Do you get this?
14:42That must be the nature of relationship.
14:46That's how you pick friends.
14:48That's how you pick partners.
14:54Why is somebody present in your life if that person is a problem?
15:07So, yeah, but at the same time, everyone will call me selfish.
15:11So, I just have the fear of that, why I should not be called selfish or just named or maybe…
15:18Okay, call me selfish.
15:22Call me, call me.
15:24Selfish.
15:25Selfish.
15:26Wow.
15:36Can you do that once again?
15:39Please.
15:43Do you see this?
15:46Enjoy.
15:49Enjoy.
15:51Selfish.
16:03There is this beautiful one by Baba Bullesh, I suppose.
16:08Why am I missing the exact words?
16:15Aashik Hoya Rabdaad.
16:23Does somebody remember?
16:26Aashik Hoya Rabdaad.
16:30Aashik Hoya Rabdaad.
16:31Please, please, please come.
16:39Tainu Kafir, Kafir, Aakte Tu, Aaho, Aho means yes.
16:46And they are saying, Aain Kafir, infidel.
16:50And how should you respond?
16:52Aho.
16:55So, that's what, when you fall in love with the truth.
16:58Aashuk Hoya Rabda
17:00And then the world is bound to abuse you.
17:05The world is bound to abuse you.
17:07Let them abuse you.
17:09You have your own inner clarity, right?
17:12And so he is actually having fun.
17:14What is he saying?
17:15The more they tell you,
17:17Kafir, Kafir,
17:18the more you must say,
17:20Aho, Aho.
17:22Say selfish.
17:28Your response must be,
17:29Aho.
17:30Yes, Aho.
17:39Do you get this?
17:41But this kind of certainty is possible
17:43only when you are continuously doing
17:46your own inner work.
17:48Only when the homework is complete,
17:51you can be certain in the classroom.
17:53The world is the classroom.
17:55Just that,
17:56in our institutions,
18:01the bell rings
18:03and the class is over.
18:06In life,
18:08the classroom
18:10and the homework
18:12must progress parallelly,
18:16concurrently.
18:18The inner work is to continue at all times
18:23because the classroom too
18:25is continuing at all times.
18:28On the outside,
18:30there is always the class,
18:31the world,
18:32full of others.
18:33Full of others.
18:37There is no respite.
18:39There is no closing bell.
18:41Continuously,
18:42there are others.
18:43Continuously,
18:44there are others.
18:44And therefore,
18:46the inner work too
18:47must be continuous.
18:50You must be continuously
18:51seeing what is happening
18:52in your life.
18:53You must be continuously
18:55rejecting fear.
18:56But fear cannot be rejected
18:58if you are not clear.
19:01That inner clarity is needed.
19:03I can see what is happening.
19:05It's a matter of honesty.
19:06I can see what is happening.
19:08In the garb of friendship,
19:11this fellow is able to dominate me.
19:13Now, this is not friendship.
19:14This is not relationship.
19:16No, no, no, sir.
19:17No, sir.
19:17You are not my husband.
19:18You are not my wife.
19:20You are just being an oppressor right now.
19:22No, you are not slapping me.
19:23But this is psychological aggression.
19:26Sir, no, no, sir.
19:27No.
19:28And I don't blame you.
19:29I am not a victim.
19:30I allowed it to happen.
19:32I must blame myself.
19:33I allowed it to happen.
19:34And I allowed it to happen
19:36by being lazy within.
19:39I am not doing my homework.
19:41What is my homework?
19:43To know the nature of my relationships.
19:46To know why I am with this book.
19:48To know why I make these choices.
19:51Everything must be clear.
19:53It cannot happen out of inertia.
19:55Because it has been happening this way,
19:57so it will again happen this way today.
19:59No, everything must be put to question.
20:02Everything.
20:05And when that is the case,
20:07love is possible.
20:09Do you see this?
20:14Aho!
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