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00:00Acharya Prashantji is a Vedanta exegete, philosopher and social reformer, columnist
00:05and national best-selling author and is recognized as the world's most followed spiritual leader.
00:10We are truly honored to have Acharya Prashantji with us today.
00:20Neuroscientists have now come to a point, there is no free will.
00:24You say, I'm thinking of having a cup of coffee.
00:27You experience that process only at t is equal to 5 or 6 seconds.
00:32But the urge originated at t is equal to 0.
00:37So that way there is no free will.
00:38You are not the chooser, but you can be the observer.
00:42When that observation happens, something magical happens.
00:50Very fresh, very original, obvious, effortless.
00:55It's a flaw.
00:57Namaste, sir.
01:03Sir, my name is Palash.
01:05So, just to begin with, sir,
01:08the contribution you have made to both of ours' journey of self-knowledge.
01:14It is invaluable and I can't speak anymore, so just thank you.
01:18My question is, sir, I have been a follower of neuroscience and evolutionary biology for years now, sir.
01:28And you know that the neuroscientists have now come to a point where we understand that technically there is no free will.
01:38In the way, we and our choices are ultimately the outcomes of our biological history and environmental history.
01:48So, my dissonance is, sir, does this neuroscientific understanding co-exist with the Vedantic philosophy, which to some extent puts me and my choices at the center?
02:00So, these two understandings, do they actually co-exist with the Vedantic philosophy?
02:05There is no dissonance here.
02:07It's a beautiful question.
02:08Neuroscience will say there is no free will, right?
02:13You, in fact, realize what you are doing or experiencing long after the processes that lead to that deed or experience have initiated.
02:27So, if at t is equal to zero, a particular physical process originates in the body.
02:33Everything originates in the body.
02:34The body is everything.
02:36And the brain is a part of the body.
02:38So, the brain is body.
02:39So, at t is equal to zero, if a particular process originates,
02:42you come to experience that process only at t is equal to five or six or ten.
02:50And when you come to experience it, you probably feel like owning it.
02:55Let's take the example of a thought.
02:58You say,
03:00I am thinking that,
03:03I am thinking that, dot, dot, dot.
03:06And this statement, please sit.
03:08This statement is made at t is equal to six.
03:11Whatever will be the unit, t is equal to six seconds.
03:15This statement is made at t is equal to six seconds.
03:18I am thinking.
03:19For example, I am thinking of having a cup of coffee.
03:22As simple as that.
03:25But the urge originated at t is equal to zero.
03:29Is it really your thought then?
03:34You think that at t is equal to six, you decided to have a cup of coffee.
03:39But the fact is, that the processes that lead to that urge had initiated way before you experience the urge.
03:46So, that way, there is no free will.
03:49So, that way, there is no free will.
03:51That way, there is no free will.
03:52Vedana does not say there is a free will or that there is a free chooser.
03:58No.
03:58What it says comes to the absence of free will but through a very different route.
04:08The route is that of choiceless understanding.
04:19You are not the chooser but you can be the observer.
04:24You can be the observer.
04:27Now, there is no doing happening there.
04:28Let all doing be conditioned.
04:34So, if observation were a doing, then observation too were a conditioned activity.
04:41And that too would have fallen outside the purview of will.
04:45Because everything that is conditioned is outside the purview of will.
04:48But you can observe.
04:49You can observe this entire flow of conditioned phenomena.
04:55In fact, when you talk of neuroscience.
04:58And I said phenomena.
04:59So, you should also mention the field of phenomenology.
05:04That's one of the most striking fields that have emerged in the last century.
05:11How we relate to our observations and experiences.
05:19So, you cannot be the doer or the chooser.
05:23But you can be the observer.
05:25Not only can you be the observer, it is your nature to observe.
05:30Because if you are not the observer and rather you are a participant, you are engaged.
05:35Then you find that the result is suffering.
05:37Since suffering cannot be sobhav, nature.
05:42By nature, we do not mean Prakriti here.
05:44We mean sobhav.
05:45Since suffering cannot be sobhav, by the very fact that one cannot dislike his sobhav,
05:50and everybody dislikes suffering.
05:52So, suffering cannot be sobhav.
05:54So, how is freedom from suffering?
05:57Observation is something that is at your very nature.
06:02Because observation does not involve engagement, participation, doership, etc.
06:09Therefore, it cannot lead to suffering.
06:10Even if there is suffering, observation is just about observing the suffering.
06:15Just witnessing it, without getting engaged with it, without having a stake in it, without having a stake in it.
06:21And that is possible, that can be done.
06:25That is something that we have seen ourselves doing or at least approaching the point where it happens, no?
06:32Aren't there moments when you are very very attached to what you are in the middle of?
06:42And aren't there moments when you can watch the happening with relative dispassion and detachment?
06:50Has it not happened with you?
06:52Has it not happened?
06:53So, if that scale exists, where one end, you can be very very attached to what is happening.
07:03Very very attached.
07:04A particular, this is the television screen, a particular cricket match here.
07:09And you can be very attached.
07:11Every single ball, you might find your heartbeat racing away.
07:16Right?
07:16Another cricket match.
07:19Have you not seen yourself being more or less indifferent to it?
07:24Okay, let me have a look at the score and then I move on.
07:28Huh?
07:28So, there does exist a scale.
07:32And if there does exist a scale, it is possible to go a long distance on that scale, no?
07:40And if you can go very very far on that scale, you are approaching what is called absolute detachment.
07:51Well, absolute is not a word we should touch.
07:56But what is certain is that it is possible to observe.
08:02It is possible to be fair in your vision.
08:05When ever you have a stake in something, the very observation becomes unfair, biased.
08:12You do not see what is happening.
08:16You see what you want to be happening.
08:21No?
08:21Does that not happen?
08:24So, when that observation happens, something...
08:27I have been caught.
08:34I have come to a word I never want to use.
08:37Something magical happens.
08:46Very fresh, very original.
08:49Right, harmic, Samyak action flows effortlessly and choicelessly from there.
08:58So, you do not need free will to come up with the right action.
09:04You simply need to be observant for the right action to happen by itself.
09:10Right action will never be a product of your choice.
09:14And choice, as you say, has already been invalidated by modern science.
09:18There is nothing called choice.
09:19But that's not such bad news.
09:25Because right action and right life are anyway products of choicelessness.
09:31So, even if you say there is no choice, that doesn't disappoint me.
09:34Right action happens when you just, just don't see options.
09:45Not because you're an idiot.
09:46Not because you're in love with the right one.
09:53Let there be 14 roads forking out from here.
10:0014 different possible ways to go.
10:02So, from here itself, this point, here.
10:06I know who I am.
10:10And since I know who I am, I am in touch with myself.
10:13I don't deceive myself.
10:16Therefore, I do not see 13 of them.
10:19I see only.
10:20Now, this is, this is choiceless living.
10:24This is choiceless living.
10:25Now, do not confuse it with someone,
10:28who is so deeply enslaved that he is not allowed to
10:32proceed on 13 of those roads.
10:36Even he will have just one option.
10:38But that's an enforced option.
10:41That's very different from not seeing in love.
10:49By love, I mean clarity here.
10:50Let's not get, no, I didn't say love.
10:51I just simply said clarity, clarity.
10:54Okay.
10:55Otherwise, we get into again the emotional field.
10:59And we'll have to then take another hour to understand that,
11:02you know, what you call as, as love is just a thing of emotion.
11:08And in reality, love is not at all an emotion.
11:13But we'll get into that some, some other time.
11:18So, getting it.
11:20You do not require choice.
11:24You require observation.
11:26You require to know and then you don't have to choose.
11:29It's obvious.
11:32It's effortless.
11:35It's a flaw.
11:36You won't even know that a decision has been made.
11:39It's a good idea.
11:40Have you seen people torturing themselves over a decision that they have to make?
11:48For hours, weeks, months, years, what to do, which way to go?
11:51So, that's absence of self-knowledge.
11:57Because you do not know who you are.
11:59So, so many things then speak to you.
12:03Everything appears to have a share of its attraction.
12:07That's lucrative and that tempts me.
12:12Next moment, something else starts calling you, beckoning you and you are stuck.
12:20Does that happen?
12:22Spirituality is about knowing yourself so well
12:24that nonsense doesn't appeal to you anymore.
12:31And when nonsense doesn't appeal to you,
12:32what remains is the right way to go and that's dharma.
12:37Nothing else is dharma.
12:38This is dharma.
12:39Not to go the way of nonsense.
12:45And nonsense, identification of nonsense will not come from common sense.
12:51It will come from a very determined, a very loving, a very aimless, a very purposeless observation of who you are.
13:04If you have decided to take pleasure in sleepwalking through life,
13:11then you will always be riddled with choices.
13:15So many choices, so many choices, what to do?
13:19The easy way out then is to follow the crowd.
13:22Because I cannot decide for myself, so I'll do what everybody else is doing.
13:28Or let yourself be carried away.
13:30Let me simply fall asleep.
13:32Let the current carry me whichever way.
13:39That's not the way of Adhyatma.
13:42The way of Adhyatma is to live as if,
13:47as if you don't exist to make a choice.
13:49As if all that had to be decided, has already been decided.
13:56Appears mechanical, right?
13:58It's like enacting a script.
13:59And that terrifies people.
14:02Well, I'll be left with no choice.
14:04What about freedom of choice?
14:06What about my fundamental rights?
14:08I need to choose.
14:13The most fundamental right is to be conscious.
14:16It's the most fundamental right and responsibility.
14:19out of your consciousness emerge effortless decisions.
14:31But there are stakes in not being conscious.
14:33There are pleasures
14:36in being unconscious.
14:38In fact, if you are highly conscious, those pleasures will become unavailable to you.
14:59In the middle of the opportunity, you will find yourself aloof.
15:01In the middle of the opportunity, you will find yourself aloof.
15:06You will say, well, yes, the opportunity to have pleasure is there.
15:09But I can't get into it.
15:12I mean, not that there is a moral restriction or something.
15:19There is just no motivation to get into it.
15:21But yes, if you allow yourself a bit of inebriation,
15:26if you switch off the lights, then you can get into it.
15:31Because now you are unconscious.
15:36You want to make a man
15:38dance on something utterly ugly and obscene?
15:43Give him thousand watts of blaring music.
15:49That will have an influence on his physiology,
15:52causing his brain to stop functioning.
15:57And then he can dance.
16:01Seen wedding processions?
16:05You cannot do what you do there, if you are not unconscious.
16:10For certain things to happen in life, you need to be unconscious.
16:13Things like,
16:14if you are fully conscious, think, what will happen?
16:29Do you think it?
16:30Thank you, sir.
16:44Yes.
16:49Yes
16:49You
16:50Can
16:51Thank you
16:53If Hell
16:55We
16:58,
16:58I
17:01Bye
17:01Bye
17:01Bye
17:03Bye
17:03Bye
17:03Bye
17:05Bye
17:06Bye