Mahabharat

समोऽहं सर्वभूतेषु न मे द्वेष्योऽस्ति न प्रिय:।

ये भजन्ति तु मां भक्त्या मयि ते तेषु चाप्यहम्।।29।।

samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣhu na me dveṣhyo ’sti na priyaḥ

ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā mayi te teṣhu chāpyaham

The same am I to all beings: to Me, There is none hateful or dear. But…

Sunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian Column

हमारा मिजाज हमेशा दूसरों और परिस्थितियों पर निर्भर करता है। नतीजे आपकी उम्मीदों के मुताबिक नहीं रहे। इसलिए अब आपको मनोबल बढ़ाने वाले किसी प्रेरक वक्ता की ज़रूरत है। जैसे ही वह व्यक्ति चला जाता है, आपकी ऊर्जा भी थम जाती है। लेकिन जीने का एक और तरीका भी है। अपने भीतर गहराई में, मुझे एक ऐसा बिंदु मिलता है जिसे कोई बाहरी परिस्थिति छू नहीं सकती। जो कुछ भी होता है, वह सतह पर ही घटित होता है। वह स्थिर, उदासीन और तटस्थ बना रहता है। तब आप सचमुच स्वतंत्र होते हैं।

How did the Buddha look then? Who is the Buddha? Let’s try to understand with the story of Gautama Buddha, The ‘Shakya Muni Buddha’ as we call him. So, who was he? Let’s look at his central characteristics. One, someone who is well versed in the knowledge of his time. Buddha had deep scriptural knowledge. He was born in a Hindu Kshatriya family, he was a prince and ever since his childhood he was quite talented. So, one thing about him is that he was quite well-read. Second thing is, he was deeply interested in knowing the depths of life. He did not want to remain merely at the superficial levels, so he would observe a lot, he would think a lot. https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/todays-buddha-1_4d1b6bf

Questioner: A lot of students that I talk to — it’s the fear of the society, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s fear of the expectations that they are carrying, that pushes them to become an engineer and then they figure out that probably this is not something that they wanted to be. And that is the reality of a lot of individuals and not just engineers. Probably, here is something that is stopping me from taking a plunge of starting something of myself, right? Fear is something that is stopping somebody who is in a relationship for ten years to take that step to get married. Where does this fear come from? Acharya Prashant: Lack of love, which comes from lack of self-knowledge. You see, when I tie my sense of existence, my very identity, to something that is unreliable, I will have to be afraid. It’s like putting my heart on this table. Now, how can I live in security? The heart is out there on the table, anybody can take it away, anything can happen to it. Or the heart might grow legs and walk away on its own. My very existence has been subjected to something that is not in my control. Something that is definitely going to deceive me at some point, that is fear. My sense of self-worth comes from my monies, my bank account, I will be afraid. That bank account can be closed anytime, anything can happen. My sense of self-worth comes from my physical appearance. I very well know, time will take it away, I will be afraid. Right? Who am I? I am the one who is praised or worshipped by the society. Oh! I will be so afraid, so afraid! You talked of people working for their images, they would be living a cursed life. Because, their heart is out there in the hands of strangers. Their entire identity is tied to their image and the image is in the eyes of other people. So, the image can be distorted or can disappear any moment. Just imagine, how afraid they would be all the time. That’s with the ego. Because, the ego, as I said, is a fundamental sense of incompleteness. Therefore, to complete itself, it just associates itself to anything possible. And the things that you are associating yourself with, they are not reliable. They belong to the world and the world can take them away. They belong to time. They came with time and with time all those things will disappear. And you have tied your identity to those things. Now how can you rest in peace? That’s fear. If you do not have self-knowledge, you will always be afraid. My identity is linked to my husband’s identity. Now the husband has two legs. And the husband has a brain, a mind of his own. If your identity comes from your husband’s name, as happens in India at least, you would always be afraid as a wife. The husband can change his mind any day. You would always be, you know, having one eye on his secretary, and the other eye in his email and mobile phone. What’s he getting into? Who’s texting him? Why is he on the phone so late in the night? Because you are afraid if husband goes away, what happens to you? Your very existence depends on the husband. That’s fear. When you operate from the ego centre and make something very, very important for yourself and that something belongs to the world, it can go away anytime, and you are afraid. And in that fear, there can never be love, never be love. If you are afraid of losing something, you will be very violent towards it. Nobody lets his money go and have a walk down the road. What do you do? You lock up your money. That’s violence. When something starts becoming very meaningful to you, you lock it up. You don’t want it to have freedom. And that’s violence. So, love and fear just cannot go together. If you are dependent on something or somebody, you will be afraid. And that dependence cannot be called love. And that is a confusion, we often get into it. Just because you depend on somebody and somebody depends on you, you start feeling as if it is love, it is not. Questioner: Just like the way political parties think that people love them but it actually is fear. Acharya Prashant: Exactly! Love is a rare quality and rarer in politics. Questioner: So, if I am interested in a particular profession, do I not pursue it wholeheartedly? Do I pursue it wholeheartedly knowing very well that the results can either be zero or one? Acharya Prashant: One has to go into the very nature of interest. Aren’t we interested in cricket? Aren’t we interested in seeing songs in movies? Practically, everybody in India is interested in cricket, nobody in Brazil is. And nobody in India is interested in ice hockey. So, that’s how flimsy the whole thing about interest is. In India, if you don’t get a movie with songs, you say, “I am disinterested.” The movie would bomb. In Hollywood, if you have a movie with songs, that would raise eyebrows, what’s going on? Occasionally, you have an OD song but typically there is no song. So, that is the nature of interest. It is never something of the heart. Love and interest are not the same thing. Interest is something that is given to you by your body, by your environment, by random chance, your circumstances and all these. So that’s how your interests come to you. So, if you are interested in a vocation, first of all, you have to ask yourself, “Just two years back, I was interested in something else and two years before I was interested in that and when I was four years old, I was interested in becoming a fighter pilot. What happened to all those interests?” Today, I smile at those things and just shrug them off, “I don’t want to be a fighter pilot.” What you want to be today? Oh! I want to be an investment banker. What happened to the fighter pilot? You were so interested in that. And how do you know, tomorrow you will not be looking at this I-banker, just the way today you are looking at the fighter pilot. The self of a five-year old appears so naïve and immature when you are twenty-five. How do you know that at thirty-five, you will not look back at this twenty-five year old self and say, “What the hell! How was I taking this fellow so seriously?” So, interest is something that you must look at with healthy contempt. Interest, mind you, can even be induced in you. Interest can be aroused in you. That’s what the entire advertising industry is about. They can make you feel Interested in things that is intrinsically worthless to you. So, of what value is this thing called interest? But, then in today’s world, we place so much premium on this word 'interest.' Do what interests you, this, that. Whereas, it is wisdom to realize that interest is the last thing that you should ever go after. Then people come up and say, “No, should we do things that we are not interested in? No.

How do you, asks the chief of police, patrol a city, where the butcher shops are guarded by vultures, where bulls get pregnant, cows are barren, and calves give milk three times a day, where mice are the boatmen, and tomcats row the boats, where frogs keep snakes as watchdogs,…

Does the person you are with encourage you to read? You have to ask, “What does he bring for me, roses or books?”

Be very cautious of those who bring roses for you, especially red roses. Books are what we all need, and books are dangerous. Books are dangerous because…

A strange situation is that a beautiful woman’s life is perhaps more complex than an average-looking woman’s life, because a beautiful looking woman has a lot of men eyeing upon her, and she can get whatever she wants. And what you will get for your beauty, that is the real…

The woman is simpler, more innocent. I would dare to say the woman is simple and innocent just as animals are, because woman, just like animals, is biology-driven. She is emotional, and her emotions do not really arise from understanding, not even from intellect. Her emotions arise from her body, from her biological conditioning, from her hormones.

If you do not like the result that comes from the right action, then your like is not right. The result is still right. Challenge your likes and dislikes, not the rightness of the result.

Overview

Fighting Duryodhana is Dharma. Fight Duryodhana in the way you can, that is swadharma. Dharma is the same for everybody, but swadharma varies according to your physical, social, temporal conditions. But remember that swadharma can never be in contradiction of Dharma; swadharma will always be something…

सङ्करो नरकायैव कुलघ्नानां कुलस्य च ।। पतन्ति पितरो ह्येषां लुप्तपिण्डोदकक्रिया: ।।1.42।।

saṅkaro narakāyaiva kula-ghnānāṁ kulasya cha patanti pitaro hy eṣhāṁ lupta-piṇḍodaka-kriyāḥ

When the castes mix, that spells hell for the family. It destroys the family, in the way that the ancestors all fall because they are deprived of the Pindokdakriya.…

Overview

We want to reach the end of wanting. We want completion, fulfillment in such a final way that we are left with nothing to want anymore. That’s the destination. Born a human being, you will have to act. Act rightly. Act for the right purpose. Live for the right…

“I will beat him!”

“I will destroy her!”

“Did you just insult me? Did you?”

Four hours forty-eight minutes of deep intellectual perspiration!

“Did she? Did she not?”

Have some mercy upon yourself. Learn to ignore, please. Bypass the small issues. Learn to ignore the small for the big, would…

Hurt is not automatic. Somewhere there is an admission from you that you are hurt, and that you would be hurt, and that you would call yourself as hurt. Don’t call yourself as hurt, and see what happens.

Hurt is not an obligation. Hurt is a choice. Insecurity, fear, temptations—none…

What does it mean to have an inauthentic relationship?

To be authentic is to be complete and secure in yourself. Anything authentic is not in need of further improvement or refinement; it is already authentic. That is the way the authentic mind functions: it does not relate with the other…

One can become an entrepreneur, for example, in the field of killing animals, cutting animal flesh, and supplying freshly cut flesh to people at their doorsteps. And this might be a successful business model.

This kind of an entrepreneurship is idiocy, perversion, profanity. The evil was present right in the…

Just as the ego loves to take credit, it also loves to play the victim.

If something good has happened, “I did it!”

If something bad happened, “It happened to me.”

“Good things I do, bad things happen to me”—this is astounding.

Playing the victim is a favorite pastime of…

You were once a girl; you would have read mathematics, history, science, geography, languages. Didn’t you find inspiring figures there? Didn’t those books arouse fantastic ideas in you?

I am sure that when you were younger, you thought of excellence, didn’t you? You would have had dreams. In your dreams,…

There was this king of the demons; his name was Hiranyakashyupa. The king worked really hard. He kept austerities, he forced even God to come down and bless him. So, it would have required a very special effort. But then, what did he want from God? Nothing but the extension…

Love is when you start seeing the deep desire beneath all your superficial desires. Love is when you start seeing what you are really really thirsty for. Superficially, the desires of different people are different. Deeply, we all share one desire.

So, what is it that happens in love? In…

When you don’t operate from a spiritual center, then you operate from an emotional center. These emotions are causing this climate change. You are so emotional about that next foreign holiday, right? That is carbon intensive. You are so emotional about having a good, nice nest of your own—that is…

Only in aloneness can you have relationships that are not exploitative. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what name, what color you give to your relationship; your relationship will be definitely one of exploitation.

Have you ever looked at your relationships closely? Do you ever want the other? No. You just want…

If a woman is good and fine, then her lover or husband would spoil her. Women must be honored for her intelligence, her qualities, for her inner strength. But when you start giving her importance for reasons like, her body is attractive and she is very sexually appealing, then you…

You are so powerful actually that you are scared of yourself.

There are three ‘you’s in that statement. The first two refer to the small self or the ego. The third one refers to the best that you can be, the Great Self, the Truth—classically, the Ātman. And classically…

Emotions, they can do whatever they want to do. It doesn’t matter how I am feeling. What matters is what I must do.

Ask yourself: Had you not been feeling this way or that way, what would have you done? And you will get a very good answer.

When you…

Pay attention to all your thoughts, emotions, actions. Something unknown is waiting there for you. Most people know nothing about themselves.

If you are angry, it tells you that there is something within you that is resisting the world now. Why is it resisting the world? Go into it. Try…

The approach of self-help is: “I am sad because my desires have not met fulfillment. So, the way to help myself is: fulfill desires.” It’s a dimensional difference. Therefore, self-help pleases but helps not. It is not then ‘self-help’; the genre should be more correctly called ‘self-gratification’.

And if you…

“Why are women so emotional? If we are saying that it is okay for a man to be emotional, there is an implicit assumption that men are not emotional but women are.”

Both are. It’s just that both express their emotionality in different ways. Inner urges, latent tendencies in women…

We are not talking of the perfect one; we are talking of the higher one, relatively higher. The higher person does exist. First of all, you must become that higher person, and then it is a case of holding hands to rise together, because that’s the shared love. What’s the…

Whenever you get cheated in love, don’t blame anybody else. Ask yourself, did you not have anything better to do with your life that you went and clinged to a person? I ask you, is he worth being devoted to? Then why do you pick some man, some woman, and…

We all have arguments in favor of our weaknesses, no?

“What do I do? I am just a kid.”

“What do I do? I don’t have the right background.”

“What do I do? I am just twenty years old.”

“What do I do? Nobody helps me.”

“What do I do?…

If somebody has started encroaching upon your mental space, if somebody has really started affecting the way you go about your day-to-day activities—the other person has started showing up his presence even where he should not be—then you should know that the relationship is not going in a healthy way.…

Several people dislike their few glimpses of joy. They hold themselves accountable, they hold themselves guilty for having tasted even a few drops of joy, because joy is not a socially sanctioned kind of happiness. Joy is deep, disruptive, rebellious. It takes you far away from everything into yourself. It…

What is the nature of a gymnasium? The gymnasium only gives you obstacles. Have you ever noticed? You want to raise something—what is the gymnasium giving you? Weights, and weights are obstacles against the rise. The gymnasium really does not support you, it actually obstructs you.

The world is anyway…

The situation of Krishna reflects the situation of every real teacher. You have to pull up the one lying in dirt and make him fight the highest battle. You don’t merely have to polish and shine an already existing ornament in gold; the task of the teacher is to take…

As long as the relationship is of need, the relationship will remain one of violence. You can never be more violent upon anybody than upon someone you love—so-called love. Because the greater is your love for someone, the greater is your investment in that person. And you invest in someone…

Channelize your desire. You must know what you are really hungry for. Your central and primary desire is not sex. Sex may appear overpowering, tempting, but that is really not what you ultimately want. Figure out what you really must have, and then sex will be assigned automatically, inwardly, its…

Why did the breakup happen? And if you are you and he is what he is, then won’t the breakup happen again?

Do you know who you are? You are the one who will accept this guy back if he comes to your life.

Do you know who you are?…

One feels like worshiping the woman for enduring so much. One feels like worshiping the woman for being so willingly exploited. And one feels like slapping her hard in the face for being so stupid. Her own worst enemy she is.

Talk emotions to her, and she will be pleased.…

Instead of proceeding with a packaged product like meat, why don’t you slaughter the thing yourself? And when you slaughter the animal yourself, why don’t you know it fully even as you slaughter it? After all, even from a perspective of self-interest, if something is going into your body, it…

People talk of personal time as opposed to professional time, right? They forget that the profession that they have chosen has also been chosen by the person. So, even that which they are mistakenly calling as professional time is only personal time.

Our lives have only personal time. To be…

The mind is not evil; it is just stupid. You cannot put somebody to the sword just for stupidity. And how will you kill the mind? Does the mind stand independent of you? Does it?

The mind is your shadow. If you change, the mind will change. And that is…

The problem is not the person you have the relationship with. If we look at it closely, the problem lies not in the other thing or the person, but in the relationship that we have with the thing or the person. That thing could be money, that thing could be…

“Why am I with someone?” That question has to be asked. If that question has been honestly asked and reasonably answered, then you cannot go wrong, whether you marry or not, whether you remain with someone or not.

And mind you, these are not really permanent decisions to be made.…

You are actually so powerful that you are scared of yourself. The ego doesn’t want to give up. That’s what the scare is all about, because betterment of the ego is nothing but the reduction of the ego. Who wants to reduce?

We all want to accumulate. We all want…

One can relate to the other without being psychologically dependent. And that relationship, then, is not of exploitation but of compassion. Now you can really say that you love the other.

If the other exists in your life to serve your needs, then there can be no love. There would…