Putra Gita

Short description for the E2E smoke test article.

Sunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian ColumnSunday Guardian Column

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.

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…

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.

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…

In fact, if there is one unpardonable crime, it is bad parenting. You are not even killing someone, you are disfiguring someone and sentencing him to live an entire life. How does that sound? It’s like chopping off somebody’s limbs but ensuring that he lives—and he lives an entire life…

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…

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…

Let nobody say that he or she is making the right choices in life because she does not know. We all know. We prefer to suppress the inner knowledge. It’s an inner conspiracy against ourselves, just because we want to continue enjoying certain privileges in life—certain physical privileges, material privileges,…

Real relaxation is about relaxing even in the middle of activity. You are relaxed even as you exert yourself. You are relaxed even as you are running. You are relaxed even as you are drained out. You are not waiting for a special activity like going to bed or sitting…

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…

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…

When the woman is fighting the man or vice versa, then it becomes very immaterial to both of them what is happening to the child. In the process of winning that petty battle, what is happening to the kid becomes insignificant. Not only is the kid in bad company, he…

Does a kid realize why he is being attracted to the butterfly, to the toy, to the rainbow, to the mother’s breast, to anything? Does the kid realize? Like an animal he is just pulled along by his deep tendencies. He is an animal, and that is why education is…

It is a very common and a very harmful misconception to take dhyāna as something. Dhyāna is nothing. Dhyāna is not an object. Dhyāna is not a thing. Dhyāna is not a routine, not a practice, not an exercise. Dhyāna, rather, is on all these things. Dhyāna is what…

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…

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 do you want to follow their science? We will follow our science!” This kind of thing too you are hearing these days, no? This science and that science, as if there are multiple sciences all opposed to each other. Spiritual sciences! What kind of foolishness is this? Pandit-ji is…

Take care of yourself, and you have taken care of the kids. When the kids see a radiant mother, a radiant father, their darkness disappears. Be first of all concerned about discovering your own radiance. If you have nothing but darkness, all that your kids would get from you is…

If the kid has observed half an hour of a fight at home, then he has probably absorbed more than what he would usually absorb in a week’s time. The fights are usually not in the service of divine matters, are they? You fight for the sake of money, or…

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…

Yesterday I was reading that the male snake chases the female snake following her scent, the trail of her odor. Snakes can’t generally see much. They can’t even hear much. So, the deodorant that you use is Prakriti and the purpose, too, is prakritik. The odor of the female…

If the kid has observed half an hour of a fight at home, then he has probably absorbed more than what he would usually absorb in a week’s time. The fights are usually not in the service of divine matters, are they? You fight for the sake of money, or…

Love firstly means total dedication towards the Beloved, and secondly, total identification with the world. First of all, you need total disidentification with the world, because unless you are totally disidentified with the world, how will you identify with Him? And that is why saints have so much compassion for…

Do you never wonder that, in spite of being told all these so-called virtuous things in childhood, from where do these criminals come? After all, every criminal was a child once, and every child is told of all these so-called moral and immoral things. Then why do people grow up…

There is no search as ignorant, as useless, and as tragic as the search for happiness. And unfortunately, happiness or sukha is something that all your well-wishers want for you, that all the markets and systems in the world promise you, and all that your mind is mad for.

It…

You’re asking me, “Is it possible to act rightly with trembling hands?” I am saying, you can act rightly only with trembling hands.

One unmistakable quality of right action would be that it would require all your guts. It is only false action that you can comfortably undertake. Falseness is…

Desire begins when you perceive a world out there, and the world makes a promise. What does the world say? ”Here you will get what you want.”

You cannot desire in absence of a promise. This is the fundamental duality of mind. You desire only because you are hopeful that…

If you want Truth in your life, create a situation in which you have to face the false. Face the false and reject it—that is when you’ll be forced to call the Truth.

Now, what is it that I mean by the false? That which does not satisfy you is…

The ego does not live for the Truth; it lives for its own survival. And to live for one’s survival makes any sense only in the presence of challenges to survival. If there are no challenges to survival, whose survival are you protecting and living for?

Therefore, if you are…

Your action has to be one with the Truth. Let wisdom guide your action. That’s Yoga of Wisdom. What is the other kind of action? Prescribed action.

Each of us, in each moment, has to make this choice. Where is your action going to come from? Is it going to…

Your parents don’t want you to speak, your teachers don’t want you to speak, and religious preachers, obviously, they are very afraid if you speak up. So you don’t ask even the most basic, logical, sensible questions, and you keep accepting even the most amusing kind of trash as if…

You want some money? It is a little desire, and it is a harmless desire. The problem starts when you start wanting peace through money. Money is harmless. But when money becomes a proxy for peace, then money is very harmful.

People do not chase money; they chase peace through…

Do two things: One, start talking real stuff; secondly, start blocking the nonsense. And then you will see who stays with you and who does not. Do both of these two things, concurrently. Start talking the real things with all those you consider close to yourself, and start blocking all…

Insecurity is there only when there is desire in the relationship. And desire, as you know, is self-centered. Are you relating with the other for your own personal pleasure or gain or happiness? Then does the relationship have much substance at all? And if it doesn’t have much substance, what…

The woman is the more oppressed of the two. Once the revolution begins, obviously man too will be liberated. But just as woman gives birth to the man, woman will also need to give birth to the freedom of man. Man will not be able to give birth to his…

Spirituality is war. You are being trained to fight and win. Neither can you abandon this battle, nor can you make peace with the enemy. The war has to be fought.

But if you can fight the war and win it, then, I tell you, the body is a useful…

Loneliness does not decrease when you connect to a thousand other people using technology. Loneliness is a thing within. Irrespective of how many people you are connected to in a party or via Zoom, loneliness is not going to decrease. It’s just that when you are in a party, loneliness…

Desire is the great evil that defeats all the petty evils. For the sake of desire, you can shake hands with your worst enemy. Everything has been consumed by desire. Everything.

A point comes, you know, when it doesn’t hurt to pay any price to fulfill your desire. It just…

If you are someone who is a serial relater—one relationship after the other or several relationships at a time, whatever, it is one and the same thing really—you must tell yourself that you really have not a physical but a spiritual urge. And therefore, you should stop your mad, nonsensical…

What is it that we are usually engaged in? Feeding our stomachs, and feeding the stomachs of those who are related by blood to us. That’s what our life really is: fulfill your desires and fulfill the desires of those who are related to you by blood and semen. That’s…

This is the way most parent-child relationships are, this is the way most families are constructed—not on the foundation of love and Truth, but merely as institutions that exist for society’s sake.

How often do a man and a woman come together for the sake of Truth? How many people…