Why do ‘Good’ People Suffer while ‘Bad’ Ones Seem Happy?
Questioner: Namaskar ji, I am from Pune Maharashtra Prajwal Jadav. It is often said that lack of self-knowledge leads to suffering. Yet we see that some people are happy and some of them are deeply troubled. seeing this seemingly happy individuals, people content with worldly choice but and they distance themselves from Bhagavad Gita. Why does this happen?
Acharya Prashant: How do you know somebody is happy? How? We have fooled ourselves. No end. We don't know happiness. We only know symptoms of happiness. And symptoms are easy to copy. Nobody's happy. All they exhibit is symptoms of happiness. And we have in some kind of a very shady deal among ourselves decided mutually with universal consent that these will be the accepted symptoms of happiness. Let's list down five of them. One, smiling. And the hyperlative form of that is a guffaw. Oh! so, so happy. Extremely happy. Second, money, clothes, shining face, partner, fine and respect, prestige. Yeah.
Listener: Gratitude.
Acharya Prashant: Gratitude, that's not a very common thing among happy people. You see a young man, a young woman, arms in arms or hands over shoulders, her shoulders especially. What do you say immediately? Happy. We can conduct an experiment right now. Let's display a few pictures over here and let's ask you which of these indicate happiness? The answer would be almost unanimous. Now, how do you know they are happy? Those are pictures. Do you see that's our happiness pictures? Will it happen or not?
Do we have somebody from psychology here or any of the behavioral sciences? Okay, Yeah. Try this out. Five pics. Tell me which of these indicate happiness. And you'll have near consensus in the responses. What does that tell? Happiness is an image. Image. Five images. And you know which of these points towards happiness. You already know. Similarly, five faces of men and women which of these are evil people nobody would say I cannot say sir it's a stupid question to ask sir. What are you asking? How do I know which of them is evil? We will find somebody within who will say you know that one number three, he looks like an Acharya Prashant evil. how do I change that so many people come up with that no I haven't heard him. I haven't read him Par sakal se hi gunda lagta hai. How do I change my face? But we already know. We already know.
Questioner: Jaise jo face se hota hai, jaise dikhta hai waise hota nahi hai (not everyone is what they appear to be). Someone may seem kind and polite but that’s just the outer appearance.
Acharya Prashant: See this is just a particular piece of three-dimensional geometry. Right. It does not say good, bad, while virtuous. It says nothing. Then there is some kind of personal decoder here. That translates this geometry into a particular judgment.
We do not realize that the judgment is not coming from the face. It is coming from our own compiler. The decoder within. We don't realize that.
Anyway, that's little. So happiness, Happiness. What is happiness? Behaving in a particular way. Feeling a particular way. What is happiness? Feeling a particular way. Now the feeling is totally chemical. Don't we know that? And if happiness happens to be such a big thing, then you can have that chemical put into your body very artificially and you'll be happy.
We now very well know the names of at least five such chemicals that can arouse you in happy and differently happy ways. A short of dopamine, it will work in one particular way and you'll be.., estrogen another way. Oxytocin another way and even these happinesses will not be all alike different kinds of happinesses and all temporary nature. So how do we accord so much value to this particular feeling and feelings can amount to pleasure not happiness.
Happiness that is neither temporal nor chemical has been classically called as joy. And it is not something to be obtained. It is not something to be obtained. It is nature. It is who you are. Provided you refuse to abide by what you are not. Happiness is not something you have to hunt for. Otherwise, happiness remains eternally elusive.
I heard this uh Uh, sorry. Read this book. The pursuit of happiness. Yeah, it's a futile pursuit of happiness. Unending pursuit of happiness. Getting it? Sensation. And that sensation of arousal, hormonal chemical arousal that we call happiness. That is needed only because our life is otherwise depressing. You do not need to be happy. You are already joyful if you do not subject yourself to your own nonsense. Happiness is not a particular state, a particular moment, a particular event or episode. Happiness is a constant thing. It is your breath just as the heart beats. Similarly, the nature of consciousness is to always be joyful. You are joyful already.
But we burden ourselves with all kinds of needless things and that becomes the sadness, the grief of life. Life becomes a trauma. And when life becomes that kind of a thing, then you require sensational pleasures that we mistakenly call happiness. Again, turning it a little personal. That's another grouse people have against me. Why doesn't this man laugh? Because I don't need to. See, I'm already all right. I'm not depressed. Why do I need to laugh? You're so depressed. You need to laugh. You'll die if you don't laugh. But I'm already all right. I'm vibrant within. I'm not tense. I'm not worried. I'm okay. I'm immersed. I'm with you. I'm enjoying being with you. This association itself is so enjoyable. Why do I need to burst out into a gaffaw? And if need be, when that happens, that happens on its own. I don't have to turn that into a routine or an obligation.
your question, right? Happiness is the most needless thing to be pursued because it is always and already there. Why are you searching for something that is your very nature? And if the mind is heavy, if Life is no more fun then you need to ask, what have I done? Life by design is not meant to torture you. You have all that you need to live joyfully. If life becomes cumbersome then surely it is from my own decisions. It is my own doing. I don't need to laugh. I need to fight. I need to undo what I have done. I need to see clearly where I am conditioned and enslaved. And when I see that, then I push away my grief. My grief is not something that has accidentally come upon me. My grief is something I am deliberately sticking to. My grief is something I am clutching this way, this strongly with my own fists. I have to release my grip. I have to release my grip and that will release me of grief.
Freedom from grief itself is joy. If I remain grieving and with the grief along with the grief she has happiness, how smart is that internally I'm weeping and bleeding and externally I go to sit in a comic show. How will that help? But we do that too. No, I'm extremely tense. Oh, I'm feeling so down. I need to shop. I need to speak to you for at least 30 minutes. Why? I'm not all right. Make me laugh. or turn me on whatever. How will that help you? That which is inside will remain. You are just whitewashing it. You're sugar coating it. You are denying what is there. That's what this flimsy happiness is all about. The grief is there and you want to deny it using the concept of happiness. Why not get rid of grief itself? Instead of trying out happiness as a shady solution, why not ask what is causing the problem itself? What will help? Freedom from the problem or a shady solution?
Freedom from the problem is what we need, not happiness.
Questioner: Good evening sir, My name is Tushar. I've been with Gita Samagam last two years. Very thankful for you. So you said continuously observe yourself. When I observe myself I find greed and anger all this kind of stuff and then I hate myself that I'm like that then and how to then tackle these all things I know these are the enemies.
Acharya Prashant: you don't have to tackle if you decide to tackle observation itself becomes purposeful and purpose is desire and all desire comes from the center of conditioning so now you are not observing nor You are playing to your conditioning. How do you know something deserves to be tackled? Explain. Tackling. Give me an absolute definition of tackling. By absolute I mean something that's not subjective. Because everything that is subjective arises from the ego. Give me an absolute definition of tackling. See these are very, if I may say loose words, That we casually get away with. We should not allow the inner mischief maker to so easily get away with loose gibberish. What do you mean by tackle?
I need to put down something. What do you mean? What do you mean by that? These are metaphors. They're so cunning, aren't they? They hide so much. You don't need to tackle anything. You don't need to have preset conclusions about what is right and what is wrong. If let's say you observe greed, how do you know greed is bad? Badness is a concept. What is bad? Badness is a concept. Badness is a man-made concept. Please sit.
What is bad in one culture is great in another. Is it not? So how do you know badness is something absolute?
And we are looking for the absolute. Because only that would give us peace. Things that are temporal, spatial, cultural, let's not respect them too much. We are looking for something that is beyond the mind of man. We are looking for something that we have ourselves not constructed because we know who we are and therefore we know the quality of our construction. We don't want to depend too much on it. Are you getting it? Observation has to be purposeless. Don't ask what will happen if I see greed or envy or whatever inside me, anger or lust inside me. If you have seen them, you have seen them. Fine. They are there. You don't need to be judgmental. You don't need to be your own inner police. seen. So seen. What's the big scandal?
There is that fat python sitting inside. The lazy one doesn't want to do anything, just wants to eat. Doesn't that one sit inside all of us? If you were assured you could get all the results that you want without working, would you ever work? That's the Python I'm talking about. So you see it's there. The entire fat coil it's there. Fine. I don't have the obligation to deal with it or tackle it. No, you don't have that responsibility. Swabhav is not tackling. Swabhav is knowing. You have to know. And from that knowing what follows follows. I don't bother. My job, my responsibility, my swabhav , my dharma is to just know. The Upanishads say I am. They don't even say I must know. They say I am knowing Bodho Aham . I am knowing. I don't realize. I'm realization itself, that’s swabhav .
I'm not my opinions, thoughts, feelings, my body, my word, my age, my anything. I'm pure realization. Nothing less, nothing more. Yeah. *Aaham nirvikalpo nirakar-rupa chidanandarupa Shivoham Shivoham.** There is no action contained in this. It's not my job to act. It's not my job to impede action either. If action has to happen it'll happen I'll submit myself to the action and from this realization vigorous action results vigorous the ego when it acts it acts only for its petty purposes and for petty purposes only petty action can happen no how big are your desires look at the size of the universe what do you desire a grain of sand petty desires so when the action emanates from the center of ego it is always pity but when action comes from nothing but realization then it's unstoppable. The body can fall, the person can die but that action cannot be stopped. Getting it?
Questioner: I think it came from the conditioning where we trained from our childhood. Yes, if you win that thing you were super. Thank you so much. Thank you so so much sir.
Questioner: So thanks a lot for coming actually. So just one sentence I wanted to say first before asking the question is that you are doing the service to the Vedant what fineman has done to physics. So it's like the your lectures on uh the Vedantic philosophies. So uh I have actually one question but I will subdivide it into three parts uh based on today's sessions. So when you said at the very first like uh um how do you know that you think you I am so is it similar to um what the French philosopher Dakart had said like.
Acharya Prashant: No no he was giving supremacy to thought this is not that is not that, he said you are by virtue of your thinking. No no no being comes first thinking is a much later thing. Yes, next.
Questioner: you said like uh if the right desire is there then there is no need to think about the fulfillment. So it is very similar to one uh Gita shlok right that is correct. Okay, and the last one is actually regarding AI . Everyone is fearing that it will bring about, I mean the super intelligence. it will bring about maybe the destruction but since this spiritual process this enlightenment. It is actually nothing but a sequence of chemical reactions in the proper order.
Acharya Prashant: No, no.
Questioner: No because you said it like a thought.
Acharya prashant: It's a detailed thing. Come tomorrow to ISC.
Questioner: Okay, So is it possible that sometime in the future there will be a super enlightenment instead of super intelligence?
Acharya Prashant: There's nothing like that. Not even enlightenment is there. You are talking of super enlightenment. Fine. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
