(Gita-22) Pain, Pleasure, and Immortality || Acharya Prashant, on Bhagavad Gita (2023)
Video Information: 08.06.2023, Gita Samagam English, Goa
Description:
Acharya Prashant discusses the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, particularly Chapter Two, Verse 15, which emphasizes equanimity amidst pain and pleasure. He explains that the experiencer, often identified with the ego, assigns meaning to experiences based on personal desires and fears, leading to suffering and happiness. The ego, being incomplete and fragile, seeks validation from the external world, resulting in dependency.
Acharya Prashant equates equanimity with immortality, asserting that true immortality is not about physical longevity but about operating from a place of inner completeness, free from the ego's fears and desires. He emphasizes that when one recognizes their true self, detached from worldly experiences, external events lose significance. Ultimately, Acharya Prashant conveys that letting go of the ego leads to inner peace and freedom, allowing one to live a tranquil life unperturbed by external circumstances.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAA...
Video Information: 08.06.2023, Gita Samagam English, Goa
Description:
Acharya Prashant discusses the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, particularly Chapter Two, Verse 15, which emphasizes equanimity amidst pain and pleasure. He explains that the experiencer, often identified with the ego, assigns meaning to experiences based on personal desires and fears, leading to suffering and happiness. The ego, being incomplete and fragile, seeks validation from the external world, resulting in dependency.
Acharya Prashant equates equanimity with immortality, asserting that true immortality is not about physical longevity but about operating from a place of inner completeness, free from the ego's fears and desires. He emphasizes that when one recognizes their true self, detached from worldly experiences, external events lose significance. Ultimately, Acharya Prashant conveys that letting go of the ego leads to inner peace and freedom, allowing one to live a tranquil life unperturbed by external circumstances.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAA...
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Sankhya Yuga, verse 15.
00:00:15yam hīnāṁ vyadhyantyete puruṣaṁ puruṣaḥ śabhaḥ
00:00:26samdhukha-sukhaṁ dhīraṁ so'amṛtyu tvāya kalpate
00:00:40He is the bull among men, the foremost among men, puruṣaḥ śabhaḥ, who remains the same
00:01:02in pain and pleasure, samdhukha-sukhaṁ, and this one who remains the same and calm, dhīraṁ,
00:01:25in pain and pleasure, does not get disturbed, vyadhyantyete, he surely attains to immortality.
00:01:54so'amṛtyu tvāya kalpate Two or three very important and fundamental
00:02:12principles are embodied in this verse, and if you listen with care, you will find those
00:02:32principles emanating from these words, first is the principle of the experiencer, and
00:02:59the second is the matter of death, it is not about pain and pleasure, it is about
00:03:22the meaning one gives to pain and pleasure, experience in itself has no meaning sans the
00:03:42experiencer, the experience is for the experiencer, the experiencer constructs and interprets the
00:04:05experience in his own image, so pain and pleasure do not automatically translate into suffering and
00:04:28happiness, pain becomes suffering through the intermediation of the experiencer, and pleasure
00:04:42becomes happiness as construed by the experiencer, when the experiencer is an idea of itself, then
00:05:06all it has is a certain hollowness, no idea is ever complete or perfect, the experiencer is the
00:05:21ego, the ego is nothing but an idea of itself, a thought, a principle, an image, a dream, an
00:05:33assumption, speculation, a conjecture, a belief, a superstition, that's what the ego is, the ego is
00:05:48the experiencer, when the ego is fundamentally an incomplete entity of its own making, therefore
00:06:05everything that it comes across has to have a meaning, the ego cannot leave things as they are, from the ego's
00:06:32vantage point, everything is for the ego, for the ego, and you must expand the statement to read it in its
00:06:47fullness, from the ego's perspective, everything is for the fulfilment of the ego, so that which presumably fulfils the
00:07:05ego, or gives it at least a momentary assurance against its fears, is deemed to be happiness, happiness is
00:07:22something that at least temporarily assures the ego against its frailty and dissolution, please understand, the ego is the
00:07:44experiencer, and the ego is an entity of its own making, imperfect, frail, brittle, insecure, having no rootedness in the ground of
00:08:05reality, just an apparition, forever incomplete, always in the making, always in the process of becoming, strife,
00:08:35trying and striving, and when such is your condition, then everything that you come across must hold meaning to you, because your meaning is not
00:08:57contained inside yourself, inside yourself there is only hollowness, inside yourself there is no completion, therefore you have to search for, or beg for, or hunt for
00:09:19that completion from the experienced world, so the world holds a lot of meaning to the ego, conversely, the more is the meaning that the world holds to you,
00:09:39the more are you just an incomplete ego, what extent are you ego rather than the pure self can be determined by
00:10:08examining the extent to which the world holds meaning for you, the more the world signifies something important to you, the more it is guaranteed that you are living away from your truth
00:10:31and in your imaginations and speculations, so to the ego the world is meaningful, the world is a supplier of fullness, and also a robber
00:10:55of all that you have, the world can give, the world can snatch away, the world is a donor, the world is a dacoit,
00:11:25the world provides, the world also loots, and all this is to the ego, so if experiences have great meaning for you, it simply means that you are operating from the ego center,
00:11:50when experiences have great meaning for you, then pleasure will translate into happiness, pain will translate into sorrow,
00:12:11can realization guarantee you against pain and pleasure, no, pain and pleasure are things in Prakriti, they happen, and a lot of that can happen just by random chance,
00:12:41taking a stroll, a wanton coconut can fall on your shoulder or back or head and injure you, there will be pain, it does not matter how realized you are,
00:13:05coconuts do not especially care for realization, coconuts can fall, so there will be pain,
00:13:23a full grown one with all its mass and water just landed on your skull, there will be pain, but what does that pain mean to you, that is something that you decide,
00:13:54and when the ego is the decision maker, then pain almost definitely means suffering, so suffering then is an indicator of the presence of the ego, suffering requires a sufferer, ego is the sufferer,
00:14:20pain does not require an internal agency to exist, pain can exist, anybody who lends meaning to pain, please understand the difference between pain and suffering,
00:14:51suffering always has meaning, pain is just a state, pain has no meaning, and the meaning that suffering carries is the meaning given to pain by the ego,
00:15:12pain is probably inevitable, it comes with the human condition, if you are born, pain or at least certain episodes of pain are ineluctable,
00:15:30so is pleasure, to be born human is to be guaranteed pain and pleasure randomly, much of that you don't even plan, at least your pains you do not plan, pleasures you do a lot of times,
00:16:00others pains you plan, not your own, so those things just happen, they are like birth, they are like the weather, by chance, fickle, random,
00:16:30but when those things have meaning, then there is a problem for the one who lends them their meanings,
00:16:45the one who is at the center of this verse is the one who has not been named even once in the verse, the ego,
00:17:02we have talked of pain and pleasure and we have said some Dukha, Sukham, we have not said who is it that would remain some, that is stable, calm, poised, equanimous in Dukha and Sukha,
00:17:27the name of that entity is the ego, the entire Bhagavad Gita is about the ego, entire Vedanta is about the ego, Upanishads talk of nothing else but the ego,
00:17:41so part one is, the more you operate from the ego center, the more the world will mean a lot of things to you, and the more susceptible you will be to happiness and sorrow,
00:18:00and that's a condition of great slavery because we said that pleasure and pain are random incidents, as long as they are random and remain random,
00:18:21no loss, no problem, but when we start giving meanings to those things, then there is a lot of problem, when we start associating the external events of chance with our internal well-being, then there is a lot of problem,
00:18:47so look at the identity that Shri Krishna is establishing in this verse, it's a work of great genius,
00:18:59he is equating equanimity with immortality, he is saying that if you can remain equanimous in Sukha and Dukha, then you are Amar,
00:19:25then you have attained Amritattva, Equanimity is immortality, what exactly is he saying and how can these two be identical?
00:19:50We have looked into the first of these, equanimity, we have seen how being perturbed by the unpredictable random fickle conditions of life
00:20:14indicates that one was either expecting a lot from life or was apprehensive about life, only when you expect can your expectations be denied or belied,
00:20:33only when you are apprehensive can your fears come true, so something happened and that managed to bother you, that simply means that you were expecting a lot from what was happening
00:20:53and to expect is to operate from your position of desire, want, incompleteness, else why would one expect anything, so one side of the equation dealing with equanimity is about the ego,
00:21:14if things matter a lot to you, then you are a very egoistic person and that's a very wise and complete definition of the ego,
00:21:31who is an egoist, the one to whom the world matters a lot, the one whose sorrow and happiness are tied to worldly conditions is an egoist,
00:21:57you are happy, why, because something happened out there, right, you look pale and sullen, why, because something happened out there,
00:22:14you were expecting the neighbor to deliver him a slice, a rich slice of cake tonight, instead the same neighbor came and served him a volley of expletives,
00:22:44he is down now, the desire has not been honored, the world held so much meaning and promise, the promise has not been kept,
00:23:14you see this, the egoist is the one whose fulfillment does not lie within himself or herself, everything about him is from the world, from others, he is happy, why,
00:23:36somebody did something good to him, so he is happy, he is sad, why, something in the world happened to make him sad,
00:23:53he is afraid of others, he is dependent on others, he was born of others,
00:24:23he hates, he loves, there is nothing within him that does not contain otherness, that's the ego and the world has tremendous control over such a person,
00:24:42just about anything or anybody can come and disturb him, he has no inner mastery, he has no inner sovereignty,
00:25:05a random person on the road can easily manage to offend him, unseat him, not just disturb him but actually uproot him, that's the egoistic person.
00:25:36Everything about him is from the world and it's not that the world has been conspiring to disturb him, this chap has just so many expectations and fears and expectations are two sides of the same coin.
00:25:53This fellow has a lot of expectations and equally a lot of fears, his expectations are from the world, his fears are from the world, that's the ego for you.
00:26:12Now we return to the Krishna equation here, equanimity equals immortality, that's the equation tonight.
00:26:23So we saw that equanimity involves the world that has not been spoken in the verse, equanimity involves the ego.
00:26:42An equanimous ego, an unshakable ego and the ego is unshakable only when it is seated in the truth or atma, the self.
00:26:57So equanimity is about having an ego that just cannot be shaken, disturbed, affected, afflicted, controlled, conditioned, influenced, that's equanimity.
00:27:23Samta.
00:27:31My ego has found its love, its proper place. It now sits in the lap of the true self, the pure self, atma.
00:27:44And it loves that place so much that you just cannot get it to get up, does not matter how much you lure it, does not matter how much you scare it, it refuses to leave its lovely abode.
00:28:14At most it can offer you a glance. That's the maximum you will be able to extract from the atmasth ego.
00:28:29You come and appeal too much to it. Again and again you are saying, you please get disturbed, you get a little happy, you get a little sad, you get a little agitated or whatever.
00:28:42You get into some mood. You please show some sign of being influenced by me.
00:28:49You will be lucky if you can get as much as a glance of recognition from the ego. It refuses to even recognize you.
00:29:03All it has for you is apathy. Not antipathy, mind you. Not antipathy. Apathy, indifference.
00:29:16Who are you? When you know who you are, it becomes very easy to say, who are you?
00:29:25And when you do not know who you are, then you can never say, well, who are you?
00:29:36Then everybody who comes to you is somebody.
00:29:49Who's who? And when you know who you are, then irrespective of the size of the monster that seeks to threaten you, you say, who are you?
00:30:07And that's if the monster is lucky. That's if the monster manages to extract any kind of response from you.
00:30:15Typically, even that kind of response would not come.
00:30:21You are just too busy relaxing, playing, enjoying your bliss.
00:30:29Why would you bother to please the other with acknowledgement?
00:30:36Some random fellow is needlessly knocking at your existence.
00:30:46To respond to him would be to lessen your peace.
00:30:59Who wants to let an outsider infringe in his love?
00:31:07At most, what that fellow will get is, who are you?
00:31:16A glance of indifference. That's all.
00:31:23That's all. Are you getting it?
00:31:30And you know, it is this indifference that the world terribly needs.
00:31:41We often talk of empathy towards the world. No.
00:31:53Even empathy is not needed.
00:31:59This would surprise a lot of us.
00:32:06What you really need is indifference.
00:32:14Prakriti does not need your healing touch because she is healthy in herself.
00:32:23She does not really require you to be empathetic.
00:32:28She knows how to take care of herself.
00:32:33Returning to our full grown luscious coconut.
00:32:43Did he need your intervention to attain his size?
00:32:49Did you pump it up or inject it with the coconut fluid from outside?
00:32:58Prakriti has a beautiful intelligence of her own.
00:33:08She knows her things.
00:33:13She knows how to manage her affairs in a very very intelligent way.
00:33:20You don't need to interfere.
00:33:24Your interference is rather the problem.
00:33:28So what you need is indifference not interference.
00:33:32Hence, I am talking of empathy.
00:33:36We often talk of the nice man as the active saviour of the world.
00:33:44Right?
00:33:46That's the figure we sketch of him.
00:33:49He is actively rushing to save the world.
00:33:52Some kind of spiritual spider man.
00:33:55Wherever there is a problem,
00:33:58we have some kind of guru or swami appearing from somewhere.
00:34:10Right?
00:34:13Well, all that is beautiful and glorious obviously.
00:34:18But I am not sure whether all that is really needed.
00:34:24Just keeping a safe distance from Prakriti, from the world is sufficient.
00:34:36You do not need to help her out.
00:34:39You just let her be.
00:34:42But the problem is that the ego, just as it thinks of itself as the victim,
00:35:01also loves to play the saviour.
00:35:06Sometimes it is the victim.
00:35:09At other times it is the saviour.
00:35:13I am the one who did a lot of mischief and now I will be the one who will correct all the mischief.
00:35:25That's not really needed.
00:35:29Rectification of mischief is in itself a bigger mischief.
00:35:35You just stay away.
00:35:38And you can stay away only when you have that little cave of love of your own.
00:35:48Then you can remain peacefully ensconced there.
00:35:54Sleeping in your inner delight.
00:35:58Not bothering to expect too much from the world or intrude too much into Prakriti.
00:36:07Are you getting it?
00:36:13Today when it comes to climate change, we are talking of unimaginable kinds of technologies.
00:36:24We are talking of atmospheric sinks.
00:36:30Somebody is talking of underwater sinks to trap carbon.
00:36:37Not sure how that would work though.
00:36:42All kinds of things we are doing.
00:36:44I read somewhere, somebody was talking of exporting carbon to outer space.
00:36:57And obviously green vehicles are the thing of the day.
00:37:02The government has thought to acknowledge them by glorifying them with a special kind of number plate.
00:37:12Go green.
00:37:15Just that it is now being conclusively proven that the carbon footprints of electric vehicles is actually bigger than that of petrol or diesel vehicles.
00:37:30So much for your ability to correct your mistakes.
00:37:37You say, you know, I put so much of carbon in the atmosphere.
00:37:42Now I will be the one who will pull the carbon back.
00:37:46In trying to pull the carbon back, you will only generate even more carbon.
00:37:51The world will take care of itself.
00:37:54You just step back.
00:37:57Spirituality is about stepping back.
00:38:00Go back into yourself.
00:38:04You have your sacred shrine in your own heart.
00:38:11That's where you must love to rest.
00:38:18Are you getting it?
00:38:21Then the world does not mean too much to you.
00:38:24Then pain and pleasure do not become sorrow and happiness.
00:38:32Pain remains just pain.
00:38:36Sometimes excruciating pain.
00:38:41Pleasure remains just pleasure.
00:38:45Somebody told a good joke, you laugh at it.
00:38:48The weather is absolutely fine, you laugh at it.
00:38:51The food was tremendous today, oh you loved it.
00:38:55But that's all.
00:38:57Delicious food is just delicious.
00:39:01It does not mean anything, mind you.
00:39:03That's the thing.
00:39:05Was the food delicious? Of course.
00:39:08Did you enjoy it? Of course.
00:39:11No, but you are a spiritual man.
00:39:13So, am I not supposed to have delectable food?
00:39:19I got good food.
00:39:22I took pleasure.
00:39:25But does that mean anything? No, of course not.
00:39:28What does that imply?
00:39:30That implies that if tomorrow I do not get the same kind of delicacies,
00:39:34I would still be equally alright.
00:39:38Today I got them, it was great.
00:39:42Tomorrow I won't get them, it would still be great.
00:39:47That's what.
00:39:49It meant nothing. I took it, but it meant nothing.
00:39:51Equally, I lost it.
00:39:55I acknowledge the loss, obviously there was loss.
00:39:58But it means nothing.
00:40:01Nothing has any meaning beyond itself.
00:40:06Things are facts, meanings are imaginations.
00:40:10So things exist, meanings don't.
00:40:16For me there are a lot of things.
00:40:18But nothing in my purview holds any meaning when it comes to my inner existence.
00:40:26That inner existence you could say is either meaningless or has an innate meaning.
00:40:34An innate meaning not dependent on the world or experiences or Prakriti.
00:40:45Are you getting it?
00:40:49Hmm?
00:40:53Now we come to immortality.
00:40:59So, what is it to be immortal?
00:41:07To live for long?
00:41:10To never physically die?
00:41:19Huh?
00:41:23To just keep meandering this way, that way for 10,000 years?
00:41:39Hmm?
00:41:42Is that what is immortality?
00:41:48To have a birthday cake with 10,000 candles?
00:41:53How boring.
00:41:56Would take 10 more years to just prepare the cake and put the candles there and then you find that the count is not right.
00:42:03So the entire day you spend just counting them right.
00:42:08By the time you got the count right, the day was gone.
00:42:13Pathetic.
00:42:15What kind of birthday is this?
00:42:19And every successive birthday now manages to get you bankrupt.
00:42:25Such a big cake and so many candles.
00:42:30Is that what immortality is?
00:42:35Immortality is the absence of the one to whom there is death.
00:42:46Who dies?
00:42:50Who dies?
00:42:53To whom is death?
00:42:56Death is not to the body.
00:42:59Death is a thought to the ego.
00:43:04Before you understand mortality or immortality, you have to understand who is the mortal one.
00:43:12The body is not mortal.
00:43:15And it is just a reflection of the spiritual illiteracy of popular culture.
00:43:21That when somebody dies, we talk of his mortal remains.
00:43:28Hmm?
00:43:31Please understand it is the ego that dies.
00:43:36The body does not die.
00:43:39Though in popular culture we say the body dies and the soul is immortal.
00:43:44Have you not heard that?
00:43:47Jism ko maut aati hai lekin rooh ko maut aati hai.
00:43:53Nonsense.
00:44:00It is the ego that has the concept of death.
00:44:08It is the ego that shudders at the thought of death.
00:44:14Ever found your hand nervous thinking of death?
00:44:21Was your hand ever nervous or your nose or your eyes or whatever?
00:44:28It is the ego that has this concept of death.
00:44:36Are you getting it?
00:44:40So as long as there is the ego, there is death.
00:44:45That's what is meant by death. Death is another name for the ego.
00:44:50There are two centers within you.
00:44:52The death center and the amrit center.
00:44:59Amrit is the word, mind you. Not eternity, not immortality.
00:45:04Amrit. Just a denial of death.
00:45:09So within you there is the death center and the non-death center.
00:45:14Amrit.
00:45:20As long as there is the death center, there is death.
00:45:25What is immortality then?
00:45:29To not to be operating from the death center.
00:45:33Immortality is not about expanding your physical existence in time.
00:45:39Furthering your physical life by 40,000 years. That is not immortality.
00:45:45That is just juvenile imagination.
00:45:49It's for comic strips.
00:45:52Not for serious spiritual understanding.
00:45:59To be immortal is to be at the right center within this moment.
00:46:09Immortality is a thing of this moment.
00:46:12It is not a stretch in time.
00:46:17At this moment if I am from the right center, then I am immortal.
00:46:25You are immortal.
00:46:29To prove yourself immortal, you do not need to show your age certificate.
00:46:34It would be pretty hilarious.
00:46:4110,000 years of age and searching for his high school mark sheet.
00:46:47Just to prove that he indeed is now the recipient of a gold button from the heavens.
00:46:57No, silver rather. 10,000.
00:47:00If you are to be immortal, it has to happen now.
00:47:13And you can be immortal this moment and very much dead the next moment.
00:47:21Being alive and being dead are not things of the body.
00:47:25No physician can ever really tell whether you are alive or dead.
00:47:31They can only tell you about the conditions of the body.
00:47:35And the physician might very well say that this fellow is in fine fettle.
00:47:44All the indicators are within range.
00:47:49And you might still be absolutely dead.
00:47:57Dead and cold and rotting.
00:48:11So when are you dead?
00:48:14When you operate from the ego.
00:48:19What is it to be non-dead?
00:48:23Amrit.
00:48:26Not dead, not dead. Amrit, not dead.
00:48:30What is it not to be dead?
00:48:34To be operating from your real, complete, assured centre.
00:48:42That's when you are immortal.
00:48:44That's when there is no death for you.
00:48:45Mind you, the ego never experiences death.
00:48:49It always only imagines death.
00:48:52Death is therefore just an imagination.
00:48:54Show me any person who has experienced death.
00:48:58Death is always just an imagination.
00:49:04There have been billions of people who have died.
00:49:11And there are equally billions still alive, physically.
00:49:15Bring me one who can prove that there is something called death.
00:49:23Show me one who can prove that there is something called death.
00:49:28Yet everybody talks of death.
00:49:30And that's what death is.
00:49:32Talk, blabber, prattle.
00:49:35Yaak yaak yaak.
00:49:37Death, death, death.
00:49:39Where is death?
00:49:41Where is death?
00:49:43Accept in your thoughts.
00:49:45Show me where is death.
00:49:50Accept in your thoughts.
00:49:52Where is death?
00:49:54And the ego thinks a lot.
00:49:56And it thinks a lot of the future.
00:49:58And the future means death.
00:50:00The future also means desire.
00:50:03So desire means...
00:50:09What does the future mean for you?
00:50:12Desire.
00:50:14But the future is obviously also...
00:50:21Desire is death.
00:50:25And both desire and death are to the ego.
00:50:32Therefore, just as equanimity meant egolessness,
00:50:38similarly, immortality means egolessness.
00:50:44That's all.
00:50:46There is going to be no Ashwatthama roaming around.
00:50:54Such a jobless fellow.
00:50:56All he has been told is to wander.
00:51:08Occupation.
00:51:10Loitering.
00:51:17Makes no sense.
00:51:23Death is inside.
00:51:26Death is inside.
00:51:29Death is inside.
00:51:31Death is inside.
00:51:33Death is inside.
00:51:34Death is inside.
00:51:37Just as life is inside.
00:51:39Death is not something that will strike you from outside.
00:51:43Outside there are just random events.
00:51:47Death is to the one within.
00:51:53And the one within does not really need external events to die.
00:52:00If the one within is in ignorance,
00:52:05then it is continuously living in death.
00:52:11To live in ignorance is to live in death.
00:52:14You do not require death as a bullet that strikes you in the brain.
00:52:27That's not really needed.
00:52:30Death comes to us far more easily and far more continuously.
00:52:38The more you keep living from the wrong place,
00:52:43the more you keep maintaining a flawed concept of yourself,
00:52:49the more you are continuously dead.
00:52:56Continuously dead.
00:52:59Continuously dead.
00:53:07Are you getting it?
00:53:10How not to be dead?
00:53:13Read the equation then from the opposite side.
00:53:18Till now we have been saying equanimity equals immortality.
00:53:22Now let it say immortality equals equanimity.
00:53:25Equanimity.
00:53:28If it is death that scares you,
00:53:32Krishna says become immortal son
00:53:38by treating everything in the world alike.
00:53:44That's immortality.
00:53:46Something great happened for you.
00:53:49Smile and shrug it off.
00:53:52Something disastrous happened to you.
00:53:55And then shrug it off.
00:54:03You are immortal now.
00:54:07Immortality is a carefree shrug.
00:54:16This is immortality, right?
00:54:19Beyond a point, I don't bother.
00:54:25This is immortality.
00:54:29Come pain, come pleasure.
00:54:32Both of you imposters look alike to me.
00:54:36That's immortality.
00:54:46Immortality is to see the childishness of the ego.
00:54:56Little child always afraid of obliteration.
00:55:03That's the ego.
00:55:05Little child always thinking, oh what will happen of me?
00:55:10That's the ego. That's death.
00:55:18We have depicted the death god
00:55:23as an overgrown adult.
00:55:28Big, fat, muscular, powerful.
00:55:35Riding a big buffalo.
00:55:44No.
00:55:46The god of death must be a small child.
00:55:52Needlessly afraid that the mother will desert him.
00:55:59That's the right representation of the god of death.
00:56:05The baby god.
00:56:11Ever seen baby monkeys?
00:56:14Really small ones.
00:56:17They keep sticking to the mother.
00:56:19And if for a few moments they are left alone.
00:56:23Have you seen their eyes?
00:56:25How wide eyed they become.
00:56:32The mother is by their side or somewhere nearby.
00:56:39That baby monkey should be the moniker for death.
00:56:44Needlessly afraid.
00:56:48Afraid of its own imaginations.
00:56:52That's death.
00:56:55And convinced that there is cause for fear.
00:57:01In its own world, the baby monkey is totally convinced.
00:57:05There is definite reason to be afraid.
00:57:09Definite reason to be afraid.
00:57:14But there is no reason.
00:57:22Immortality is when you forget to be afraid.
00:57:30Immortality is when you get something so dear.
00:57:39That you forget death.
00:57:45Immortality therefore is not an attainment but a forgetfulness.
00:57:54Why didn't you die?
00:57:56Oh, I had to. I forgot to die.
00:58:01But why didn't he die? Because he forgot to.
00:58:05That's immortality.
00:58:07But you are supposed to die. I am sorry, I forgot to.
00:58:11That's immortality.
00:58:15I was so busy, I forgot to die.
00:58:18That's immortality.
00:58:24The immortality is for the unoccupied.
00:58:27For the jobless ones.
00:58:29For the existentially unemployed.
00:58:35Seeking some inner job.
00:58:43And finding nothing.
00:58:48These are the ones who not just die.
00:58:52These are the ones who not just die, who keep dying.
00:59:01Immortality is for those in full-time jobs.
00:59:07And full-time means full-time.
00:59:12Full-time.
00:59:22There is a song.
00:59:24There is so little time to live.
00:59:28There is so little time to live.
00:59:30And then the next line said, where is the time to?
00:59:34No, the song went this way.
00:59:37There is so little time to love, where is the time to hate?
00:59:46Something like this.
00:59:48Immortality would be, there is so little time to live, where is the time to die?
00:59:57I am full-time engaged in the task of living.
01:00:04I have no space for the imagination called death.
01:00:08How will I die?
01:00:14How will I die?
01:00:18The body might fall someday.
01:00:21Oh, so many things fall.
01:00:23At the beginning of the session, that coconut fell.
01:00:29If the damn coconut can fall, even this coconut can fall.
01:00:34How is this different from a coconut?
01:00:36You look at him.
01:00:44Only the straw is missing.
01:00:45Only the straw is missing.
01:00:55An overripe one.
01:01:04So coconuts fall, the body too will fall.
01:01:12What is the difference?
01:01:13Do you say the coconut died?
01:01:16It fell.
01:01:18The body too will fall.
01:01:21But I will not die.
01:01:24I will not die.
01:01:26There is no way I can die.
01:01:30Cut the crap.
01:01:32I am not going to die.
01:01:44My teacher put it so beautifully.
01:01:57The thing that needed to go has gone.
01:02:02Now how is death possible?
01:02:04The thing that needed to die has already died.
01:02:07Now there can be no more death.
01:02:14I am immortal.
01:02:23If you are somebody, you will die.
01:02:27If you don't want to die,
01:02:30become clean inside.
01:02:36And if somebody will be there inside,
01:02:39that somebody can have only one name.
01:02:40Be there inside that somebody can have only one name.
01:02:43Beggar.
01:02:49Evict the beggar.
01:02:54Get him to evacuate your insides.
01:03:04Be clean within.
01:03:06Now there is nobody.
01:03:07Now there is nobody.
01:03:09And hence there is nobody to
01:03:12die.
01:03:15When there is nobody to die,
01:03:17there can be no death.
01:03:19That's immortality.
01:03:22Is it making sense?
01:03:35You know if the
01:03:37mission is successful,
01:03:41a point must come where there must be left nobody to whom anything makes sense.
01:03:46There must only be a stillness.
01:03:52A silent void.
01:03:56And then if I ask, is it making any sense?
01:03:59You must say, but you killed the one to whom it could make sense.
01:04:07There used to be someone to whom it made no sense, who would say, oh nonsense.
01:04:14Then you nurtured
01:04:18that petulant fellow within.
01:04:23He used to say nonsense whenever he would listen to you.
01:04:28And then you nurtured him, trained him, taught him.
01:04:32And he started saying, well, a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense.
01:04:38But now he has attained his fullness and departed.
01:04:46Now there remains nobody within
01:04:50to even acknowledge
01:04:53whether the whole thing makes any sense.
01:05:00That's the height of ripeness.
01:05:03When you can't even appreciate the session.
01:05:07When there remains nobody within to even say that the session was beautiful
01:05:12or ugly.
01:05:16Gone.
01:05:33My job is to bring you to the departure terminal.
01:05:40But there it is your decision whether to board the flight.
01:05:48I'll continue.
01:06:02Khoya kahe sokoor.
01:06:07At the last line he says,
01:06:09Jo ka teo bharpoor.
01:06:15Jo ka teo bharpoor.
01:06:18Complete as it is.
01:06:22Basically means
01:06:24free of all that we put in it or on it additionally.
01:06:33So the fundamental and natural state itself is of completion.
01:06:41And then we add to that completeness.
01:06:46That addition is called the ego.
01:06:50And when that thing is removed,
01:06:53then the event can be described in two ways.
01:06:59One is that the additional thing has been removed.
01:07:04Now the focus is on the removal.
01:07:06The additional thing has been removed.
01:07:09And when you focus on what has been removed,
01:07:11then you say,
01:07:12Oh, the highest state is that of a void.
01:07:17Now, why are you calling it a void?
01:07:19Because you focused on the removal and that is quite intelligent
01:07:24to focus on the removal because that's what we need to do.
01:07:26The entire process of negation, cleansing.
01:07:32Then you say,
01:07:33Oh, the heart has to have a pure emptiness within.
01:07:39Because you are focusing on that which was to be removed.
01:07:43And now that it has been removed,
01:07:44you talk of that state as that of a clean, pure void.
01:07:50The other way is to look at what remains.
01:07:57Once the clutter, the dust,
01:08:00the unnecessary stuff has been removed,
01:08:04what is it that remains?
01:08:06The pre-existing fullness.
01:08:09So then you put it this way,
01:08:11जियों कत्यों भर्पूर्.
01:08:13That the nonsense has been removed
01:08:15and the pre-existing natural fullness,
01:08:17स्वभाव is all that remains.
01:08:20So जियों कत्यों भर्पूर्.
01:08:22These are two ways.
01:08:24The Buddhist way and the Vedantic way
01:08:27of describing the same thing.
01:08:29Here, Kabir Saheb is choosing the Vedantic way.
01:08:36At times, he chooses the Buddhist way also.
01:08:41Do you see how the ego, therefore, is an impossibility?
01:08:45The ego is an addition to fullness.
01:08:50And that's why it is मिठ्या.
01:08:56Inwardly, you are already full.
01:08:59And the ego is an addition to fullness.
01:09:01Therefore, it is an impossibility.
01:09:03It cannot exist.
01:09:05This cup is already...
01:09:07Now the mug is full.
01:09:11And you say, I added a quarter liter more to it.
01:09:15What you have just said is an impossibility.
01:09:20And that's called the ego.
01:09:22How can you add to that which is already complete?
01:09:28And that's called the आत्मा.
01:09:31You are already complete.
01:09:33How do you want to add to yourself?
01:09:35But you manage adding something to yourself.
01:09:37That unnecessary addition is called the ego.
01:09:45And that's the reason, now you know why the ego is always so scared.
01:09:51The ego is like a ticketless passenger in a reserved coach.
01:09:58All the seats are already full.
01:10:02But this one has somehow managed to sneak in.
01:10:05And therefore, it is always insecure.
01:10:09At any point, the TT might come to inspect.
01:10:12And then it will be thrown out.
01:10:16It knows it has no place.
01:10:18It has needlessly intruded.
01:10:20And the coach was doing absolutely fine even without this additional passenger.
01:10:26But it has managed to somehow crawl its way into the coach.
01:10:31And now it is making all kinds of excuses and doing all kinds of silly things.
01:10:36Trying to make relationships.
01:10:37That's what the ego is always doing.
01:10:40Trying to please someone.
01:10:42Or trying to get into a brawl with someone.
01:10:45Somehow it is trying to make itself relevant.
01:10:48The thing is, you are totally irrelevant.
01:10:51Get out.
01:10:52You have no place here.
01:10:53Get out.
01:10:54The place is already full and happy and occupied.
01:11:01Contended.
01:11:04But the ego, you know.
01:11:05Imagine.
01:11:08First class reserved coach.
01:11:12And there is this destitute.
01:11:17Trying to play over smart.
01:11:21Entering this cabin, then that cabin.
01:11:24Trying to evade the TT.
01:11:27In all ways possible.
01:11:30Hanging by the ceiling fan in the toilet.
01:11:36Somehow it has to remain invisible.
01:11:41Undetected.
01:11:43But always afraid.
01:11:44Always afraid.
01:11:45That's the ego.
01:11:46It knows it is needless.
01:11:52Additional.
01:11:56And additional not in terms of surplus.
01:11:58Additional in the way of the tumor.
01:12:02Just as the tumor is an additional nonsense in the body.
01:12:08It is a part of the body.
01:12:09Is it not?
01:12:10But it is a needless part of the body.
01:12:12The body will do very well without the tumor.
01:12:15The ego is a tumor within.
01:12:19Remove it in whatever way possible.