Video Information: 25.01.2025, Vedanta Basics to Classics, Rishikesh
Description:
In this thought-provoking video, Acharya Ji discusses the nature of love, truth, and self-deception in relationships and society. He highlights how people often confuse lust with love, choosing to believe comforting lies rather than facing uncomfortable truths. Acharya Ji critiques the superficiality of modern expressions of love, such as attending concerts or engaging in consumerism, contrasting them with deeper spiritual practices like studying the Gita. He emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and honesty, urging listeners to look in the mirror and confront their own lies. The discussion also touches on the tendency of individuals to use wisdom for personal gain, rather than genuine understanding or growth. Ultimately, Acharya Ji calls for a commitment to truth and self-improvement.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
~~~
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Description:
In this thought-provoking video, Acharya Ji discusses the nature of love, truth, and self-deception in relationships and society. He highlights how people often confuse lust with love, choosing to believe comforting lies rather than facing uncomfortable truths. Acharya Ji critiques the superficiality of modern expressions of love, such as attending concerts or engaging in consumerism, contrasting them with deeper spiritual practices like studying the Gita. He emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and honesty, urging listeners to look in the mirror and confront their own lies. The discussion also touches on the tendency of individuals to use wisdom for personal gain, rather than genuine understanding or growth. Ultimately, Acharya Ji calls for a commitment to truth and self-improvement.
🎧 Listen to Acharya Prashant on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2QmVEAAnsNE7Xs0MW0Li8Y?si=09fbcbc7c99c469b
~~~
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00In a relationship, have you ever seen somebody telling the other,
00:03all I have for you is lust?
00:06Instead, we say, I love you.
00:08When that fellow comes to you and professes his or her love,
00:11it's not that you do not know that it's not love.
00:14It's just that you find it to be a convenient, comfortable bargain,
00:18like masks greeting each other.
00:20Truth should be the simplest, easiest, nearest thing.
00:25There is nobody who lies more to us than we do.
00:28You want to know who fooled you?
00:30Look into the mirror.
00:36Acharya, a musical concert FOMO has been off the roof.
00:41Coldplay, one of the American band Coldplay, is performing in India.
00:47People are going crazy, spending tens of thousands,
00:51and there's a lot of opportunity cost as well.
00:54But they justify all of this by saying that we are spreading the message of love and unity.
01:00There are temple visits, there are spiritual appearances,
01:04and all my friends are convinced that they have picked a wholesome bucket list.
01:10I can see this trend everywhere, like actors,
01:13politicians have been doing it from Mahatma's time,
01:15that they're using a spiritual filter on them to attract people like us.
01:20On the other hand, I've been attending your Gita sessions.
01:27I've heard you saying a lot of time that
01:29attending and thoroughly listening to Gita and other wisdom literature
01:34is the only way to truly spread love and unity.
01:38I've seen that transformation in few of the Gita sessions.
01:42But when I see my exam results, when I see my attendance,
01:46the performance looks poor.
01:49So my question is, whether I on this side and my friends on that side
01:55are a mirrored image of each other, what is the right act of love?
02:03What they're trying to say is that we're spreading the message of love.
02:05So what is the right act of love?
02:07Is it dressing up, going on vacation, attending musical concerts,
02:11increasing your consumption?
02:14Or on the other hand, will it be attending Gita sessions,
02:19improving my exam results, improving my attendance,
02:22my consumption pattern personally has improvised,
02:26but I still find myself in an illusion.
02:28Like, am I using your Gita wisdom to boost my ego
02:34the same way the artists and my friends are using it in their life?
02:38Your name, please, again.
02:41Kishore.
02:42Kishore.
02:44Kishore, who would say that he is spreading hatred?
02:53Who would say that his philosophy is shallow and broken?
03:04And broken.
03:08Who would admit that he is not exercising courage and is a coward?
03:20Ever seen anybody coming to you and saying,
03:27now let me tell you a lie.
03:31Has that happened with you?
03:34Never.
03:35Okay.
03:36Have you ever done that?
03:40Definitely not.
03:40You've gone to someone and said, let me tell you a lie.
03:44Done that?
03:51In a relationship, have you ever seen somebody
03:55telling the other, all I have for you is lust?
03:58Instead, we say, I love you.
04:00Don't we?
04:02Yeah, we do.
04:04I love you.
04:06I lust you.
04:10That's so unheard.
04:16You see what I'm saying?
04:19Why does it surprise you when somebody says that he's acting
04:23Why does it surprise you when somebody says that he's acting
04:28for a higher ideal in the service of humanity to spread love,
04:34to bring people together, to bring peace?
04:38What else can he possibly say?
04:41What do you want him to say?
04:44I'm the devil's own personal agent.
04:46And could he come up and admit that he really is the devil's own personal agent?
04:57He would no more be with the devil.
05:00He's liberated.
05:04Facts have a great liberative power.
05:06We keep saying facts are the door to truth.
05:13The question is, why do we get taken in?
05:16When we hear such sweet words, sweet and repetitive, boring and hackneyed.
05:29Don't we have any discernment?
05:34There's a small secret here.
05:35It's not that we do not understand that we are being fooled.
05:39We choose to be fooled.
05:41When that fellow comes to you and professes his or her love,
05:45it's not that you do not know that it's not love.
05:49It's just that you find it to be a convenient, comfortable bargain.
05:58Like masks greeting each other.
06:00Truth should be the simplest, easiest, nearest thing because it is within you.
06:11What you are doing and why you are doing it and what you are doing things as,
06:17what have you become?
06:18What is the identity you have chosen?
06:20Who can know all this better than you?
06:25If it's about you, you are the best place to know it, no?
06:31Yet we lie.
06:33We keep on lying.
06:34So, excuse me, what is the identity of this person?
06:41I don't even know I have to call this person by their name.
06:44Yet we lie, we keep on lying to ourselves.
06:51There is nobody who lies more to us than we do.
07:00You want to know who fooled you?
07:02Look into the mirror.
07:03I am good, I am well, I am doing this, I am doing that.
07:13You begin a statement with I and it's likely to be false.
07:25And there is no statement of ours that does not contain the I, directly or indirectly.
07:33Which means all our statements are false.
07:39Whereas it should be very easy to live in the truth.
07:45Only a liberated one would represent facts to you.
08:00Let it hurt you, but let it come.
08:07Anything that anybody else brings to you deserves thorough investigation.
08:22When everybody is driven by petty self-interest, why is anybody going to bring the truth to you?
08:35There is no surprise in that.
08:38Rather, what is surprising is that you choose to believe others.
08:42And why do you choose to believe others?
08:44Because you have chosen to believe in your own lies since long.
08:51You have become used to believing in lies.
09:02A manufacturer tells you this is what my product would bring to you.
09:08I mean, come on, if you are trusting that, that simply means that you are charmed by the product.
09:20You want to trust in that.
09:26I saw a place selling dyed jalebis.
09:33Now if you are a jalebi lover, you would be enthralled.
09:45Dyed jalebis.
09:46Would you even want to question?
09:51How can there be dyed jalebis?
09:54What is this thing made of?
09:58You won't want to question.
10:03Because you already are so full of the desire and that desire will not allow you to even ask questions.
10:20You set up a date and the fellow comes late.
10:29And then she does not bother even to create a credible excuse.
10:39Instead she says something very lame and you say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand, I understand.
10:46Of course, of course.
10:52Not that inwardly you don't know that she is lying.
10:59Just that you have desire and questioning might impede that desire.
11:10So you will not question.
11:11You will believe in her lies, just as you have believed in your own lies since long.
11:20Think of the entire field of popular religion.
11:27Do you dare raise a question, whereas the stories are just so infantile that you've
11:40got to be absolutely dumb to not question them.
11:51I was reading about a particular people in Africa.
12:00And they have a particular God.
12:05They have a particular name for their God.
12:06I'll just call that God as something, Boba.
12:16So there is the Boba God.
12:20And God is all by himself.
12:26Then God gets a bad stomach and he starts coughing.
12:37So he throws up, vomits and then there is a lot of water.
12:44And then he keeps coughing and he coughs out the sun.
12:51And the sun shines so hard that it dries up some of the water.
12:55So land appears.
13:03And that's religion the world over.
13:06It's not just those cute people in Africa.
13:14Do you question?
13:18The habit is to allow everything to make a fool of you.
13:23Now why are you worried if a particular American band extends the tradition, the great tradition
13:32of the common man being fooled almost willingly.
13:40I'm surprised when someone comes up and says, you know, that fellow, he duped me and that
13:58one cheated.
14:00That's the law of life.
14:04That's how the universe of the ego operates.
14:10What surprises you there?
14:19If you can believe in the Boba God, you can believe in anything.
14:28And with belief comes deception.
14:34Then you come crying, you know, I believe and I was looted.
14:40Who was asking you to believe in the first place?
14:42Why can't you have inquiry?
14:45Why can't you have insight?
14:47Why can't you ask simple questions like a child does?
14:54You don't need to have knowledge.
14:55You don't need to be a scholar.
14:58But you need to have questions.
15:00Where are those questions?
15:05Yes.
15:06So, thanks to you and your organization, I'm not part of the former culture, my consumption
15:13pattern has improved.
15:14But what I was trying to look at is looking at my friends, I can also look at myself that
15:19whether I usually try to imitate your words to my family, friends and everybody, use the
15:27teachings I've received in Gita sessions and use it outside.
15:32So what I can say is, am I using the wisdom the way Coldplay is using it?
15:38Yes, obviously.
15:39Yes, yes, yes.
15:40Yes.
15:41See, you will do that, you will do that because all of us come from certain traditions.
15:58The world over, man stands at the live end of an old and dead tradition.
16:12Have you not seen your professors simply dictating notes to you and those are notes that they
16:27have been carrying since years?
16:29So, as a student, what do you learn?
16:33Fine, take the Gita and even if you do not really understand it, boast it to others,
16:41throw it at others.
16:45Have you not seen elders and respectable ones preaching things that they never themselves,
16:55neither understood nor actionated?
16:59That's the tradition and we are the recipients of that tradition.
17:09My father had written a little funny limerick, reminds me, Hindi.
17:23Guru ke Guru ne tha kiya, Guru ko amar phal bhet.
17:33Tab se kar rahe Guru ji vahi note dictate.
17:43So, he wrote this on the blackboard in the BHU and I am told there were some consequences
17:49but fine.
17:55You too do the same things, lot of people do the same things.
18:00They gather the Gita from here and tab se Guru ji kar rahe vahi note dictate.
18:06They gather stuff from here and then they preach to others.
18:11Sometimes they preach something to others and put my name under it, even if I never said those things.
18:21Make notes and dictate to others.
18:31By Acharya Prashanth.
18:34You write Acharya Prashanth, that's a bit generous of you.
18:38Mostly you write your own name.
18:51You know, at least half a dozen people are running their own courses.
18:59So, they take stuff from here and then they are running their own courses elsewhere.
19:04Yeah, it's happening in other YouTube channels.
19:07They are repeating what we are saying.
19:09Not just YouTube channels, actual courses.
19:18That's the way mankind has been.
19:20It should not surprise you.
19:24Take it as the default thing.
19:28Even if you feel it is not happening, suspect that it is happening somewhere.
19:36Our default state is not of wellness.
19:39If you feel well, you should be alerted.
19:48Real wellness is not something that you feel without paying the price.
19:58If you feel generally good about yourself and illumined within and liberated, then pause.
20:11And say, you know, I am cooking something against myself.
20:18What conspiracy am I hatching?
20:20Let me look within.
20:22Sir, you said recently, that the day you will have faith, I will throw you in the Sansad.
20:32So, that part has stuck with me since like, you said this four or five days ago.
20:37Yes, I said that.
20:40See, there is no way.
20:44I am not offending the community and you all are dear to me.
20:51But the truth is always dearer, no?
20:54The fact is that we do not love the truth enough to stand for it and to stand by it at all costs.
21:08When the natural consequences of being truthful will strike us, we will retreat.
21:18We will surrender.
21:21And I do not want to lead an army that is so vulnerable to surrendering.
21:29I cannot lead you into something you are not yet ready for.
21:38A lot of the understanding that you are so confident of is just a reflected understanding.
21:54It is in my field that you feel that you understand.
22:01And I am saying this at the cost of, at the risk of being called loud mouthed and egoistic.
22:18But a fact is a fact.
22:22Even if it leads to me being called arrogant.
22:30When you have me on the screen live, when the community is there to support you, then you are one person.
22:42Outside my field, you are yet not ready because I see that you are not yet fighting the right wars.
22:52I see that when it comes to paying the price, when it comes to taking the blows, you just…
23:06So, I think now I am good at doing what I am not supposed to do.
23:14But still I think I am not good at doing what I am supposed to do.
23:18So my question would be, like how to go forward?
23:28Like I can see clearly that you have done hard work on putting statistics.
23:33Like you see, look at your attendance, your exams.
23:36You can clearly see it, work on it.
23:38Else everything else will happen eventually.
23:42So that should be a smaller step for me.
23:48We are just putting up facts so that you have a lesser chance of avoiding them.
23:55Else we want to live in lies, no?
23:58If those facts are not there, then somebody with even 20% attendance might internally actually feel that he has 70% attendance.
24:10We are masters at self-deception.
24:13Those facts therefore are needed.
24:16Numbers must be considered actually sacred.
24:21A fellow who avoids numbers is a fellow who wants to protect something very rotten within.
24:34So we will be coming up with more numbers.
24:39We will be coming up with deeper stats, more analytics to help you see where you actually stand.
24:48But all that takes time.
24:53Acharya, what happens is, we pick up few of your wisdom and use it for our benefit.
24:58For example, when I joined you several years ago, when the YouTube channel had 22,000 followers,
25:04at that time I heard a lecture in which you said that nobody in your family will listen to you,
25:13unless you have gained enough power, whether it be financial power or physical power or just power.
25:21So as a person, just stop being lethargic.
25:25Become powerful.
25:28Only then you will be able to say something spiritual and make something happen.
25:32So I try to convince myself that I have gone now into entrepreneurship, a family business in Mumbai.
25:41And I am using all my time in that and not doing the more important thing.
25:46That is attendance, more wisdom literature, attending your live sessions in both,
25:53like in Greater Noida or going even further.
25:57So is it happening with everybody?
26:00Is it common everywhere that everybody is using some of your wisdom for their own benefit?
26:06I don't know about everybody, but if everybody includes this body,
26:13then you can hear it from the horse's mouth.
26:17If I have enough time to conduct 100% of the sessions,
26:30how come you do not have time to just attend 100% of the sessions?
26:36And again, at the risk of sounding immodest, let me say,
26:44my managerial and administrative responsibilities far exceed yours.
26:53The entire day I am extremely busy as the head of this nascent organization.
27:03The organization is so new, so tender, so brittle, so vulnerable,
27:08that things just keep falling apart.
27:12The entire day I have to embrace the organization like this,
27:18to keep checking the dissipative tendencies.
27:26And yet, in the nights, I present myself to you conducting 100% of the sessions.
27:39And when I conduct sessions, that probably takes lesser time.
27:48When I finalize your question papers, that takes even more time.
27:57How come I have time and you are short of it?
28:03I am not just a teacher, I am a CEO.
28:07How come this CEO, with all his managerial obligations, has time to come and teach,
28:18and you don't have time to come and be taught?
28:26How come I can make a question paper, or at least refine and edit it,
28:32and you don't have time to even attempt it?
28:38Is it really about being busy?
28:44Or is it something else lurking within?
28:57There's a lot of homework to do.
29:00There's a long way to go, I guess.
29:03Love, sir. Love, love, love. That's the word. Love.
29:07This thing here, it should beat.
29:12Entire 2024, at least starting from that summer month of May or June,
29:21I kept bleeding from the throat.
29:24It's only now, since the last one month or so, that I feel a bit relieved.
29:32Did I skip the sessions?
29:36And I kept spitting blood, and kilos of blood I would have spitted.
29:45The entire wash basin would be painted red.
29:50Did I skip a session?
29:58And if I don't skip in spite of this, how do you skip?
30:03So that you may, whatever, attend a wedding, or go to sleep, or whatever.
30:13I love it. Thank you. Thank you, Acharya.