Freedom and Happiness: Why Rebellion Alone Cannot Bring Inner Freedom

Questioner: Good afternoon, sir. We, the students of IP, are beyond excited to have you here and for this opportunity to communicate with you and ask our questions.

My name is Kushi Sharma, and my question is: today, we often admire rebels, and rebellion itself has now turned into another conformist kind of subjective thing.

Acharya Prashant: Rationale Rebellion.

Questioner: A mental barricade, in a sense. So, how can we live authentically without falling into this trap?

Acharya Prashant: No, we are not talking about occupying that corner place and saying, "I don't belong to the crowd. I belong to the corner." And there you say, "You see how different I am, how exclusive I am. I'm a unique individual because, you know, that fellow, that madman, came and said you don't need to follow the crowd. So, even in the classroom, now I stand in the corners." That's not what you have to do.

To rebel first of all, there must be something to rebel against. Have you identified that? Have you really identified that, or is it just a trend, a fashion, a fad? What are you rebelling against?

Rebellion is not a compulsion. Rebellion has to be purposeful. Is there something to rebel against? If yes, then rebel. Otherwise, identify. First, identify. Otherwise, rebellion too is another way of following an alternate crowd. There is a crowd of followers and there is a crowd of rebels. So, you hop from one crowd to the other, but you are still a part of the crowd and script.Yes.

Questioner: We still aren’t recognizing the cage.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. From one cage you have hopped to another one. One cage was named tradition. The other cage was named rebellion. But you're still caged.

Freedom is just a totally different thing. Freedom starts with understanding. And when you understand the cage, then you don't mistake another cage for freedom, which very often happens.

First of all, we have no grudges against cages. Usually, we are very well settled in cages. But let's say, even if it happens that we come to dislike the cage for some reason, then usually it's about switching cages, flipping cages, and declaring that as freedom. Freedom is not about changing cages or changing masters.

You are enslaved by one master; now you are enslaved by another master. Is that freedom?

Questioner: On a very interesting topic, looking honestly at how our desires keep us enslaved. So, today's culture glorifies travel, experience, and living fully as freedom. But I noticed, even in myself, when I dream of traveling or I chase a particular experience, the excitement often feels no different than craving money or status.

So, are these modern dreams just repackaged versions of the old desire for security, recognition, keeping us equally bound, only in just more glamorous ways?

Acharya Prashant: See, all desire arises from a point of incompleteness. You feel there is something missing, right? And that's what you want to look for in the world. You see there is something missing within, and I'll go out and fetch something that will take care of the inner incompleteness. That's how desire arises.

Travel can be wonderful. Experiences, too, can be very useful. But the beginning point has to be the yardstick. What did you enter the experience for? We don't enter the experience just for the sake of experiencing. So, any experience, if we want it, is really to give us something that would fulfill us deeply, and, if possible, forever. Right?

All kinds of desires arise, but not so that you remain perpetually desirous. See, if you desire something and you get it, and you still remain desirous, has the desire succeeded?

You desire something. "I want water." Here is water. And I get water. I drink it. And I find I have remained equally thirsty. Has the experience succeeded? No. Because it was not for nothing that I went to this tumbler. I went to this one with a very particular purpose. What was the purpose? To quench the desire, which is in this case, thirst. But that didn't happen. So the energy and time I've invested in the effort has gone to waste, actually. No?

So, if you see, all desires are so that you can come to the end of desire. You drink water so that, for a significant period, you do not require any water. What happens if, instead, I drink this, and drinking this makes me even more thirsty? By getting this, I am forced to want five other things. Then desire has not only failed but actually backfired. No?

You had one desire, and by moving towards the object of that one desire, you now find that you are forced to go after five more objects. The desire has actually failed. So, the desire for travel or experience, what else did you say? Travel, experience, and? These two things?

Questioner: Are they similar to power and money?

Acharya Prashant: So, if you go after these things and they teach you something, they teach you something that reduces the need for more and more endless similar experiences, then the effort has succeeded. But if you travel and that only makes you travel even more, then what was traveling for?

Remember, we do not start without purpose. And there is only one central purpose: to come to fulfillment. That's the purpose behind all our desires and actions. All, everything; the whole movement, inner movement, outer movement, happens for only one primary purpose, which is to come to fulfillment.

So that's what you have to test yourself on. Is it giving me that? And if not, then it is just a recirculation of the primitive instincts.

What are the primitive instincts for? All instincts arise from that same lack of fulfillment. And they say, as they would say to an animal, "Go get some food. Get shelter. Arrange for something else. Go get a mate for yourself." Right? And that's how human beings have been. Travel from here to there, and you'll get something.

But does that reduce your compulsive need to just keep wandering?

If not, then even the so-called modern desires or contemporary objects are nothing but the old compulsions repackaged, the same old compulsions coming to you in newer forms. And they'll leave you as dissatisfied as the caveman once was. In fact, you'll be even more dissatisfied. The reason being, the caveman didn't have so many objects to go after.

Today, because of the Industrial Revolution and then the Information Revolution, there are just so many things you can see and, therefore, desire. The availability and accessibility are much greater. You can see something at the click of a button. You can order it. So you can entertain yourself. You can console yourself with so many options.

"I tried this. I went for this. My desire was for this. This failed to satisfy me. No problems. Now I can go for this." And if this also fails, then there are a million other objects waiting, and I can try my luck on them. Yes, there are a million other objects waiting. But how many days are there in life? Your time is limited. And that's a gross wastage of life.

If life is spent mindlessly, indiscreetly chasing objects, and those objects are just returning to you again and again in a newer form, that makes it even more mindless because you're not even attempting anything new.

You're walking down the same road that has failed you again and again. You're trying your luck on the same thing that has ditched you repeatedly. But every time, you come with fresh hopes: "Maybe this time something new will happen." Nothing new can happen.

Remaining the same person, in terms of travel, you went to the Himalayas. Remaining the same person, you're going to the beaches. It doesn't matter whether it's the mountains or the ocean. You are the same person, and each trip will be fundamentally as unsuccessful as the previous one. And then you say, "Oh, maybe there is something wrong with India. Let me travel internationally." And you will return equally empty-handed. And now we are also talking of interplanetary travel. No, not just interplanetary, interstellar travel.

So that too you can try. That's fine. That's available even commercially now. You must have known, right? You can pay some fee and go to space, and all that is available. But the hollow in the heart will remain just as big as it was.

We are being deceived by change of names and appearances. We think that this location is fundamentally different from the previous one, whereas it is not. Only the name has changed. Only the appearance has changed.

But we'll try once again, and that will be an additional investment of something that is limited in availability. What is that?

Listener: Time.

Questioner: Your time, your energy. With limited time, limited energy, we are chasing unlimited versions of the same thing. How wise is that?

First of all, those things are unlimited. Secondly, they are not even fundamentally different. They are infinite versions of the same object, the same object that has failed you so many times, but comes in newer and newer branding and packaging and colors every day. So every day one has fresh hope: "Today I'll succeed."

So, remaining who you are, how can you succeed? How can any place, any travel, any object help you?

If travel were to make us wise or liberated or whatever, since ancient days we have had sailors. And today you have cabin crew, all the flight stewards and the air hostesses. They are traveling so much, you can't match them. They all would have been enlightened by now. All the time they are just traveling and seeing new places.

How does it matter?

You can keep changing your dresses. You can keep traveling to new places. But unless you look within, it is a repetition of the same primitive cycle that hasn't served anybody. Are you getting it?

Questioner: Sir, I have another question.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. Yes.

Questioner: Sir, with regards to, I have heard one of your podcasts wherein you told that, as you are a very accomplished person, as a lot of people believe, what came from within and how you got that drive came from the resources that you got, in terms of reading a lot of material that you consumed, lot of content that you consumed.

So, what would you suggest today's youth, especially young children and young adults? What kind of media or kind of content must they consume, or should try to consume, to at least gain some insight or knowledge?

Acharya Prashant: This is not a difficult question to answer if you just go to the internet or to AI and simply say, "This is who I am. This is my age. This is what I've already read. This is my condition. This is what I aim for." All the basic things about yourself.

If you enter that there, that itself will give you a list of suggested readings. And if you're not happy with that, you can ask for more and more and more. Not only that, you can also say, "Give me a synopsis of what's contained in these works, each of them." And then you can make an informed choice. There is so much power available to you, so much technology available to you. Make good use. Make good use of that.

As for my own reading, that's what you particularly want to know. I've forgotten most of it. Right? So you'll have to assist me as I get into memory and dig up something.

For you, and given the Indian context, for a woman, “We the Living” by Ayn Rand. “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse, “Anna Karenina” is wonderful, but you won't read it. It's bulky. If I give you something from the feminists, again, it would be more on the philosophical side. Otherwise, you could have gone for “The Second Sex.”

Help me. What are my favorite recommendations? Not Kafka for a beginner.

Listener: Some movies.

Acharya Prashant: No, we'll come to movies later. Books first.

Questioner: So, would you suggest “Murakami”? That's what a lot of people say.

Acharya Prashant: I haven't read, actually. I can't say. Though, yes, I have heard people recommending.

Questioner: But my question mostly was also on that side, apart from the recommendations, of course, is the mindset. A lot of people nowadays have developed, especially people my age. I'm an avid reader. I read a lot of fiction, especially. Non-fiction, lesser, but still I read a lot of articles as well. So, in today's generation, most of my friends, people around me, are not much into reading. Everyone likes bit-by-bit scrolls and whatever. I write lengthy bits, and people in my college magazine want me to cut them short and give them in five lines and present them. So it's very difficult like that.

So what can we do about that?

Questioner: Cut it short. Every chapter that you see there, that book was actually initially four or five pages. But then, for your friends, your generation, I squeezed it to one or two pages. And that's what took most of the time. It was really hard, you know, just clipping everything and yet retaining the essence of it. You'll have to do that. If that's what the reader demands, you'll have to do that. But at the same time, the reader should not dictate the spirit of the work. The reader, however, must be honored in terms of the form of the work.

If I know that nobody speaks German here, it would be stupid of me, and actually disrespectful of me, to speak in that or some other language. Similarly, if I know that attention spans are shrinking, I'll have to give something that you can more conveniently accommodate. Right?

But then, not all writing has to be for others. When it is for others, ask ChatGPT to summarize. Simple.

Write for yourself. And that's very important. Being with yourself, being truthfully with yourself. Be with yourself.

And in case you have to send it to somebody, send a summary.

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