Shringar Shatkam

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"या तो पापनाशक जल वाले गंगा तट पर निवास करें या फ़िर मनोहर हार वाले तरुणी स्त्री के वक्षस्थल पर।" ~(श्रृंगार शतकम्, श्लोक ३०)

आचर्य प्रशांत: कमलेश कह रहे हैं, "तीसवाँ श्लोक बहुत अच्छा है, बता दीजिए।''

कमलेश! (प्रश्नकर्ता की तरफ देखते हैं)

(सभाजन हँसते हैं)

कह रहे हैं कि,…

स्त्रियाँ प्रेम में उन्मत्त होकर जिस काम को करने लग जाती हैं, ब्रह्म भी उन्हें उस काम से नहीं हटा सकता।

*~  श्रृंगार शतकम, श्लोक संख्या 54* 

जब कोई स्त्री अपने को तुम्हारे चरणों में रख देती है, तब अचानक तुम्हारे सिर पर ताज की तरह बैठ जाती है।

~…

Love is not a mental or physical need. Love is not for the faint-hearted. Love is not for those who fear the loss of relationships, reputation, possessions or life. Love is not for those who are afraid of family, society, or uncertainty. Love is not for those who seek sanction from tradition or culture.

Love would have helped you fly. And now you have captivated love within four walls. As wise men and women, if you are married, wonderful. As wise men and women, if you are not married, wonderful. The point is not really marriage. The point is wisdom. https://dev-main8.vedant.life/en/articles/marriage-and-love-1_0ff5cad

अध्यात्म की रोशनी जीवन के हर क्षेत्र पर पड़ती है, तो राजनीति पर भी पड़ेगी ही पड़ेगी। ऐसा कुछ नहीं है कि आध्यात्मिक आदमी राजनीति के प्रति अंधा हो जाता है। बल्कि हक़ीक़त तो यह है कि राजनीति को आध्यात्मिक लोगों की बहुत सख़्त ज़रूरत है, क्योंकि राजनेता ताक़त की ऐसी गद्दियों पर बैठते हैं, जहाँ से वो आपके जीवन को बहुत तरीके से प्रभावित करते हैं। राजनेता अगर आध्यात्मिक नहीं है, तो देश रसातल में जाएगा। राजनीति त्यागनी नहीं है, सही राजनीति करनी है।https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/raajneeti-mein-adhyatm-kyon-zaroori-1_795988a15

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.

In our country, most people marry because that is sometimes the only way of getting some good sex—good and assured sex. Otherwise, the fellow would either have to spend a lot of money or a lot of time, or both, and then still return empty-handed. Isn’t that so?

Now, if…

Unless you have reached the heart, the sexual activity has gone waste. Sex that is just a few inches deep serves no purpose. Sex has to be infinitely deep. You have to touch not only the other’s body but really the heart. That is what you are looking for.

कृष्ण का खुद ऊँचा होना, कृष्ण के पूरे जीवनवृत्त में, उनकी ज़िंदगी की जो पूरी कहानी है उसमें और श्री कृष्ण की प्रेमकथा में एक सूत्र है जो साझा पिरोया हुआ है। गीता की ऊँचाई, कृष्ण के जीवन की ऊँचाई, और कृष्ण के प्रेम की ऊँचाई तीनों एक हैं। ऐसा नहीं हो सकता कि कृष्ण बहुत ऊँचे हों और उनका प्रेम निचले तल का हो जाए। ये संभव नहीं है।

I had to unlearn a lot of things, and I am grateful to all the sources—the books, the people and the experiences that helped me unlearn. And I am grateful to that within me that had the courage to unlearn.

A lot of unlearning is needed. I often say you…

I had to unlearn a lot of things, and I am grateful to all the sources—the books, the people and the experiences that helped me unlearn. And I am grateful to that within me that had the courage to unlearn.

A lot of unlearning is needed. I often say you…

Something is very wrong somewhere. The first thing in liberation is: do not be dependent on somebody, at least for your bread, for your basic sustenance. What kind of empowerment is this that happily accepts dependence on somebody else’s money on a date, and also for an entire lifetime? It…

प्रश्नकर्ता: मेरा सवाल फिर से मृत्यु के ऊपर ही है। आम ज़िन्दगी में जीवन के बारे में बोला जाता है कि जीवन आनन्द है या जीवन यह है, पर इसमें मृत्यु की कोई बात नहीं आती। जैसे आध्यात्मिकता में भी आप देखें तो लोगों ने मृत्यु पर ज़्यादा चर्चा नहीं…

आचार्य प्रशांत: प्रकाश से आशय होता है — वस्तुओं का संज्ञान। प्रकाश न हो तो ऑंखें किसी भी वस्तु का संज्ञान नहीं ले सकतीं; और जब प्रकाश होता है तो प्रकाश स्वयं नहीं देखा जाता, प्रकाश में वस्तु देखी जाती है। तो जैसे हम हैं, हमारे लिए वस्तु तभी है…

If you take yourself as primarily physical, then beauty too for you would be something just physical. You will look at the woman most capable of successfully reproducing. That’s the prakritik definition of beauty.

The first thing that comes to mind is flowers. What are flowers? Flowers are the reproductive…

“You know what, I lost money in stocks and I still didn’t get a heart attack!” Why must you get a heart attack? It is a small matter. Let it happen. It’s okay. Every day more people lose money in the stock market than what is the number of those…

What is the ultimate purpose of life? Earning money or happiness? How can this stupid thing be the purpose of life?

The common happiness that we know, I have said, has two characteristics: one, it is an acquired conditioning, and second, it depends on the presence of sadness. So, if…

If you have seriously something worthwhile to do in life, then time is a friend. But if you are just loafing around and you fully well know that you are just killing time, then obviously time is an enemy. Every passing moment reminds you that you are committing a crime…

Most people never evolve beyond their psychological age of three, four, ten, or twelve years. So they have to be consoled like kids.

If a two-year-old is crying, you cannot talk reason to him, can you? What does a two-year-old need? You pick him up, caress him a little, kiss…

You need to pass through the entire spectrum of living. You need to experience maddening anger. You need to experience the rising force of lust. You need to experience the terrible temptation to be dishonest. You need to go through all of this without suppressing it, without being equivocal about…

Welcome pain. You have no option. That’s the way life is meant to be. Life is suffering. Because not only are you designed to have pain, you are also designed to resist pain.

Have pain, and have a lot of depth in your being. So much depth that it can…

Dogs do it on roads, and no dog first allures the bitch with gifts or promises or rounds, or stuff over the fire, or holy chants. All that doesn’t happen. The dog knows what it wants, the bitch knows what it wants, and they just get over it quite quickly.…

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…

She won’t directly say, “Get me a sari.” Often when they need a sari, they do not say they need a sari; they say, “Janu (beloved), you do not love me!” And janu understands: she needs a sari.

Similarly, janu does not need to say…

The evil can consume you in two ways. One is, you look at evil and you find it beautiful. Some people do; they are captivated by the sheer charm of evil. Aren’t the dons in the movies sometimes very charming? In fact, the most charming characters in the movies in…

When you meet a person, meet in friendliness, meet in love, meet to share, meet to play, meet to rejoice. That’s right relationship. Don’t meet to sit at that person’s feet. That’s vulgar. You don’t need to sit at anybody’s feet. This head can bow down only in front of…

Happiness and sadness are both wonderful, are both welcome.

But in some deep sense, sadness is a little better than happiness. It teaches us a little more than happiness does. It elevates us a little more than happiness does. It has a certain purifying effect that happiness does not quite…

The worst are those who say, “But what do I do? I am helpless.” These are in the lowest state; they are the worst self-deceivers. They harm themselves and they pollute the entire environment.

A little better than these are those who at least try exercising choice, though their choices…

Hold on. There will be temptations; old habits, old environments will beckon you, but stand still and strong. Don’t give up. It’s a battle worth fighting and worth winning. Don’t lose this one.

If you can win this one, then in all the forthcoming battles of life victory is guaranteed.…

You are what you want. If you want to change who you are, then you will have to want something radically different. Your destination, your desire decides your constitution. You become what you intend to achieve and be.

If you love the mud, you will become an earthworm. If you…

A fellow who irritates you and keeps your mind agitated, why is he present in your life as a friend? How exactly is he taking care of you if his presence leads to an unsettled mind? What are these tags?

The only definition of a friend is someone who brings…

Let your situations, your circumstances, your possessions, your particular destination in life not become important enough or significant enough to define you. Let your self-worth not be dictated by things that are external.

But since everything is external, let your self-worth not be dictated by anything at all. Which means,…

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…

To love is to see that the other is in trouble. To love is to extend a helping hand. Love is not about admiring somebody’s physicality or using someone for some means. Love has to be an exercise in compassion.

Only two kinds of associations are right in this world.…

If you want to know why you kept working, slogging for the thirty days, the most effective way is to see what you are doing with the paycheck. What you are doing with the paycheck will very loudly demonstrate why you kept working the thirty days. See what you do…

Where are the pleasures? I do not see any pleasures! I do not see anybody being pleased. You are talking of renunciation of pleasures as if pleasures do exist. Where are the pleasures? Go to a weekend party and show me who is happy. And if people were indeed happy,…

We need to see a lot of young people traveling on their own. We need to see a lot of young people living all by themselves for very long years, many, many long years. We need to see these things.

And we need to see young people who are much…

You must know what the place of security and money and sex is in your life. If you don’t know their right places, then for the purpose of sex you will give somebody a high position in your life, and then you will suffer. Persons are essentially harmless; harmful is…

If someone practices black magic, then you say that he is badly conditioned by centuries of rituals, right? If you find somebody practicing black magic, then you are quick to decry, “Oh! Medieval rituals!”

And how old is this ritual of procreation? I ask you. And why must this continue…

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…

The Upanishads were not composed to give you the normal kind of comfort and happiness. The Upanishads are there to give you an exalted happiness, a transcendental happiness, an eternal happiness. A happiness so rare and exquisite that it is not called as harṣa or moda or prasannatā; a…

I cannot tell you what Bharat is by referring to the etymology of the word. If you ask me what is love, it would be foolish of me to say, “L-O means this, V means this, E means this.” If you ask me what is love, I will wait for…

“And then as soon as we finished having sex, I noticed I just wanted nothing to do with her. And I noticed that in the morning, I was lonely and a little aloof as well.”

The kind of person you choose to have sexual union with is a reflection on…

Women like burly guys—and why do they like burly, big, and muscular guys? Because they are likely to have higher levels of testosterone. Unless you have testosterone, you cannot build muscles; you know that, right? And that is why you cannot build muscles, let’s say, after fifty or sixty. It’s…

“I have to eat to satisfy my body, so why can’t I use contraception and have sex with a woman and not procreate?”

This is such a bad analogy. They say sex is like food, both are physical needs. No sir, please! Sex is not like food. No, no, no.…

To love is to see that the other is in trouble. To love is to extend a helping hand. Love is not about admiring somebody’s physicality, or using someone for some means. Love has to be an exercise in compassion.

So, I often say, when you relate to the other,…

Teach the girls that their body is not an instrument to bear kids. Teach them that their self-worth is not at all linked to their motherhood. Teach them where the real fulfilment of life lies, and teach them that it is not in birthing or breastfeeding.

Teach them creativity. Teach…

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…

There is work that one needs to do to run the body, and such work even animals have to do. This you need not call as work; this you can call as labor of living. If you are alive then you have to feed yourself. This even animals have to…