Video Information: 26.04.2022, Interview Session, Rishikesh, Uttrakhand
Context:
- What is the ultimate advice for the right partner?
- How to choose the right partner for marriage?
- How to be committed in a relationship?
- How to have a deep and spiritual relationship?
- Is marriage good or bad?
- What about sex before marriage?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Context:
- What is the ultimate advice for the right partner?
- How to choose the right partner for marriage?
- How to be committed in a relationship?
- How to have a deep and spiritual relationship?
- Is marriage good or bad?
- What about sex before marriage?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Sir, my question, simple question is about handling pressure, sir. Pressure of expectations.
00:19Sir, when God in Bhagavad Gita says that human being is bound to make mistakes,
00:26why the society is not ready to accept mistakes? Everybody is judged by end and in the end by only results.
00:34How would you work if you make a simple mistake, your graph nosedives always?
00:41It is not only with education or your career, sir. I am seeing this in every field.
00:47We expect the same from our children. Our family expects the same from us.
00:52My question is that has Bhagavad Gita lost relevance in the present times or we human beings are not worth Bhagavad Gita?
01:22This unit called the human being is not one but two things within.
01:40So, it is not elemental, right? There is the two of us.
01:51That which is true, perfect, blemishless. That which Vedant calls as the true self, Atma.
02:11And there is the body, mind complex that we share with animals and that which can be called as Prakriti, right?
02:28So, the human being is Prakriti and Atma. Prakriti is our reality. Atma is our potentiality.
02:45And because we remain at a large distance from that potential, therefore we can rightly call ourselves almost purely Prakritic.
03:07We are the body and we are the consciousness arising from that body. In that sense we are much the same as animals.
03:20Animals too have their body and the body has a genetic code and the consciousness arises from that code.
03:29And all animals act and behave as per their bodily constitution. So do all human beings.
03:38The only difference is that human beings potentially have something else possible to them, just potentially, right?
03:50But that potential is extremely lucrative. We want to be there. When I say we want to be there, who wants to be there?
04:04The body-mind complex, the impure consciousness, the Prakritic consciousness that is there wants to be there.
04:13It considers itself as a free agency. That free agency is classically or technically called as the ego, aham.
04:24But that aham is really nothing very different from the agency driving all sentient creatures, all animals.
04:40So the ego is there and the ego is a bundle of imperfections. But the ego loves to call itself perfect.
04:53Are we together till this point? We are the ego and we are the ego just as all animals are the ego and that ego is nothing but a product of the body.
05:07And therefore, like everything else associated with the body, the ego is highly imperfect.
05:14But the ego takes great pride in calling itself perfect and the ego is deeply insecure about its imperfections and falsenesses being exposed.
05:32That's who we are, the ego. The ego that wants to say I am good, I am alright.
05:38Verily I am the Atma, I am the pure self. I need no corrections.
05:46I need not rise, I need no ascension, I need no discipline.
05:55Why does the ego ever that way? Why is the ego so insistent on calling itself the pure self?
06:05Because, the reason is quite practical, because if the ego does not call itself as the pure self, it will have to work hard towards becoming the pure self.
06:18Becoming is not quite the right word, but let's take it for practical reasons.
06:23If I do not accept that I am the Atma, then I'll have to work very hard to reach the Atma.
06:39If I do not accept that I am already at the destination, if I concede that I am very far from the destination,
06:48then the onus will be on me to travel fast and travel rightly towards the destination, to reach the destination.
06:57And all that is hard work. And the ego being governed by Prakriti has a lot of Tamsa.
07:07And what is Tamsa? Tamsa is a tendency to not work hard enough. Tamsa is laziness.
07:13Now, if I do not want to work hard enough, a cheap solution is to say I am already good enough, I do not need to work hard.
07:24I do not need to work hard, because I am already at the destination, you see.
07:32So each of us wants to somewhere assert that I am already good enough.
07:42I am already good enough. I am already good enough by dint of my birth.
07:48I was kind of born perfect. And if I say that about myself, I'll have to say that equally about others as well.
07:56So I say I am perfect and then I start expecting perfection from others as well.
08:03Because you see, I was born the true self, the pure Atma.
08:07And if I was born that way, then you know my younger brother too has to be born that way.
08:12My wife too has to be born that way. My neighbor too has to be born that way.
08:17So who are all of us? We all? We all are pure Atma.
08:23Therefore we can make no mistake. Therefore if we make mistakes, that is something of a shame.
08:29That is something to be censored. That is something to be shown down.
08:34Because Atma is not supposed to make mistakes. But the fact is we keep making mistakes.
08:40Why do we keep making mistakes? Because we are not at all the Atma.
08:44We are the animalistic ego and therefore we keep making mistakes.
08:49The moment we honestly admit that we are animals and therefore we behave like animals,
08:57the path to correction will open up.
09:04But for us to be corrected, first of all we'll have to admit that we are human beings only in name.
09:16We are de facto animals. And animals mind you do not make mistakes.
09:23They just do what their body orders them to do. They don't make mistakes.
09:28Similarly the fact is even human beings don't make mistakes.
09:32They just do what their body orders them to do. And when I say body, I mean the body-mind complex.
09:40I mean thoughts as well. I don't just mean the hormonal tendencies.
09:46The one who goes by his thoughts is every bit as much of an animal as someone who operates purely by his instincts.
09:57So we keep peddling a lie to ourselves and that lie is that we are not animals.
10:08We are not animals. You just accept you are an animal and you'll find that you are making no mistakes.
10:15You are just being animalistic. Someone steals something and you say he has made a mistake.
10:25Oh he has made a mistake. But he has not made a mistake. He has just done what animals do all the time.
10:32Animals keep stealing from here and there and it is not a mistake by any standard.
10:40No animal has ever felt morally ashamed on being a thief. Have you ever seen an animal, let's say a monkey
10:53feeling ashamed because it took away your fruit or your popcorn or whatever?
11:01It happily takes away the stuff, eats it, enjoys it without displaying a trace of shame or anything.
11:13We are that same monkey except that we have convinced ourselves that we are better than monkeys.
11:26So we behave like monkeys and additionally we feel ashamed that we are behaving like monkeys.
11:33We are monkeys who behave like monkeys but have convinced themselves that they are not monkeys.
11:45Therefore they feel ashamed when their monkeyness comes to the fore.
11:50There is a reason. The reason is that we are monkeys but are not supposed to be monkeys.
12:01Our true nature is something else and therefore we feel ashamed and therefore shame can be a very constructive force.
12:10I do not necessarily dislike it when people feel ashamed.
12:16In fact sometimes it is very important that someone develops a sense of shame after all.
12:22But that shame has to be real and that shame has to arise from understanding.
12:32That shame cannot just be a social or moral construct. Are you getting it?
12:40Instead of feeling ashamed of our fallacies, we should use them to see who we really are.
12:50When you behave like a monkey, you are a monkey. Now why are you feeling ashamed?
12:54Take that as a fact. Oh so at this moment I am a monkey. I am a monkey. I am not the true self. I am not the Atma. I am the monkey.
13:00I am behaving like an animal on heat. So lustful the entire day.
13:10There is nothing to be felt ashamed of. Instead this should tell us who we are.
13:18And that's the important question in Vedanta. Who am I? How to answer that question?
13:24By looking at your current condition. Look at your condition and that will tell you who you are.
13:29There is no other way. You are territorial and possessive and violent
13:42and you are prepared to kill for the sake of your stomach.
13:46There is nothing here that animals don't do. What are you ashamed of?
13:54You are only behaving in the way of your cousins in the jungle.
14:00And when you behave like your cousins from the jungle, you should know that you are a creature of the jungle.
14:13There is no need to hide that jungleness beneath a veneer of moral shame.
14:21I am an animal. I am an animal. And when you say I am an animal that must be accompanied by I need not be.
14:29I am an animal. I am needlessly an animal. I can be far better. Being better is my nature.
14:36I cannot come to rest without being better. But unfortunately I am behaving like an animal.
14:43I am not going to despise the fact. I am not going to hide the fact.
14:51I am not going to label the fact as a mere mistake. It is not a mistake.
14:56It is a fact. It is my reality. Now what do I do with it?
15:01I see where I stand. And when I know where I stand, I know the direction to take.
15:10Are you getting it? And that's why this society comes down so heavily on mistakes.
15:19Because you are not supposed to make mistake because you are an Atman.
15:23How dare you make a mistake? A more awakened society would say he is not making a mistake.
15:32He is just displaying his animal nature. Right? He is just displaying his animal nature.
15:40And there is hardly anything in the social milieu to raise people from their animal planes to their conscious planes.
15:51We do not want to accept that. We do not want to accept that all of us are being forced to live like animals.
16:00That's what our education is doing. That media is doing. Our literature is doing.
16:06Our parenting is doing. We are promoting animal values in beings that are not supposed to continuously live like animals.
16:20Yes, the baby is born an animal but is not supposed to die an animal.
16:24We make the animal even more of an animal by the way we bring up the animal.
16:36And when that animal makes mistakes, we submerge him in shame without admitting that he has been brought up wrongly.
16:58He has been given no exposure to true spirituality.
17:06Words like Vedanta and Upanishads have been alien to him and therefore he will behave the way he currently does.
17:19What's the surprise? Are you getting it? So do not call anything a mistake.
17:31We are two of us and therefore we operate in two ways. We operate in the conscious way and we operate in the animal way.
17:41It's the conscious way and the animal way. There is no mistake.
17:46There is nothing called mistake. Mistake seems to imply that I am the true self but I have accidentally made a mistake.
17:54Now the true self cannot accidentally make a mistake. Mistake. There is nothing called a mistake.
18:02You are just being true to who you are. If you are an animal, you are behaving like an animal. Why are you calling it a mistake?
18:09Are you getting it? So when you see someone behaving in an abominable way, do not call it a mistake.
18:19Call it an expression of his beastliness and then you have to ask yourself how to remind this animal that he need not remain an animal.
18:37There is a fundamental difference here. Please understand. If you say he has just made a mistake then what you are saying is
18:45Oh! An accident has happened. It is not an accident. It's a structural thing.
18:52It is not a one-off thing. It is systematic. It has not randomly happened.
19:03It has been made to happen. So it is not a mistake. The system is making us remain like animals.
19:15So see how his environment can be changed. See how he can be brought to the right company.
19:26And then the fellow will shift to the other center hopefully. Are you getting it?
19:39See it's like this. A group of all unwashed men decide to pretend that they are well washed and all cleaned up.
20:01And they use all kinds of deodorants and other pleasant odors on themselves.
20:11And it's a mutual conspiracy. All of them have convinced themselves and each other that they are all pretty clean.
20:26As they say, speak and span. Now one of them somehow finds himself unable to hide his bitter odor.
20:48And it becomes obvious that the fellow is smelling like something extremely rotten.
21:01And then you all start saying, Oh! See this one is so filthy, so unwashed.
21:11The fact is not that he is just filthy or unwashed. Everybody is filthy and unwashed.
21:19It's just that this fellow was unable to pretend as smartly as the other ones probably.
21:34The other ones were veteran mischief makers. They knew how to put on a facade of pleasant odor.
21:47This one was probably unwise. You could even say this one probably had some honesty left.
21:55So his reality got exposed. That does not mean that he is the one who has made a mistake.
22:06The entire environment is promoting falseness. That has to be changed.
22:17It's just that when one person is seen as failing in faking, then we start calling that one person as a failure.
22:41But he is failing just in faking. He is not the bottom most one.
22:53He is not really the laggard when it comes to a true hierarchy.
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