Duty vs Desire: How to Choose or Balance?

Questioner: Hi Acharya Ji. My name is Shubhang Agarwal, I have recently joined as a faculty in Computer Science. So yeah, after coming to Dubai, I'm facing a bit of a dilemma. The dilemma is that while being in India, I had a lot of dreams — dreams like starting an animist, doing some work for underprivileged kids, starting a telling school. Those things are not possible here, right?

So the question is: when we chase our dreams for a better lifestyle, respectable job, better salary — are we running away from our responsibilities? The responsibilities towards a nation, society, family? If I am being selfish for myself, for my immediate family, am I being a bad person? Am I running away from my responsibilities? How do I overcome this dilemma?

Acharya Prashant: Implicit in your question is a dichotomy, a division that you are probably assuming as necessary. The division between desire and duty, between pursuing your ambitions and fulfilling your responsibility. You are seeing these as two different things, right? And because you're seeing that these two are not simultaneously possible, probably in your case, given your situations here. You're asking: how do I choose between the two? And if I pick any one of them, then there is a resultant guilt, or sadness, or feeling of incompletion, right?

So your question pertains to making a choice, a choice that does not leave you with guilt or lack of fulfillment. That's the question, right? I have my desires, my needs — whatever you want to call them. And then there are things that I wanted to do as a matter of my responsibility towards the planet, towards the community, towards the environment, all the good things.

So the questioner used a word, selfishness. He said, on one hand, we have to be selfish at least to some extent, because we have our personal goals and dreams to take care of. And on the other hand, something within us impels us to be broader in our approach and take care of the society beyond our immediate circle, right?

And that's how most of us look at this thing, right? That these are two different planes, almost impossible to reconcile. If you take care of your personal desires, then you'll be missing out on the social. If you take care of the material, then you'll be missing out on the spiritual, right? That's how we look at it commonly. And this kind of thought is reinforced when we find that those who have pursued spiritual or selfless lives have actually gone away from the society and from the material, right? Those are the examples that we have. And when we look at those examples, then the feeling, the assumption is further reinforced.

Yes, it's an either-or thing.

A choice has to be made between the personal and the social, between the material and the spiritual. That's a belief that we are carrying. We have been told that you cannot have both of these together. If you maximize on one of them, then you are minimizing on the other one — the usual either-or thing, a 0-1 relationship as they say, a zero-sum game. You increase one part of it, and you find the other part decreasing. That's classically called a zero-sum game, right? We know that.

Does it really have to be a zero-sum game? Is the choice necessarily between being selfish and being socially responsible? Between being hugely desirous of material consumption and being spiritual and not touching the material — I mean, whatever that means in a practical sense, I don't know. Does it really have to be that way?

Let's ask ourselves, because the question is founded on a belief. Must we take the question as it is and support the belief? Must we? It's not a question. All questions are expressions of assumptions behind the questions. Can you see, sir, the assumption behind the question? Both are simultaneously not possible, that these are two necessarily different centers. That assumption is there. And the question is not about challenging that assumption, the question is carrying that assumption forward. The question is not challenging that assumption, the question is simply carrying that assumption forward.

So should we take the question on face value, or should we question the question?

Listener: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Right, let's question the question. I mean selfishness, selfishness versus responsibility towards others, right? When you say "self," it in some way indicates your responsibility towards yourself, right? I'm being selfish, so I'm taking care of myself — loosely put, as it is commonly understood. We are proceeding from there. So I'm being selfish, I'm taking care of?

Listeners: Myself.

Acharya Prashant: And if I am being socially responsible, then I'm taking care of?

Listeners: Others.

Acharya Prashant: Others. And I find that there is a dissonance between these two, that's my belief. I see a necessary dissonance between these two, between taking care of the self versus taking care of others. And that "others" could mean anything. That "others" could mean endangered species on the planet. That "others" could mean ecosystems, river systems.

That "others" could mean people belonging to a different country. That "others" could mean brothers and sisters from my own land who have not been so privileged. The "others" could mean anything. "Others" simply includes everything that's not me.

So there is my responsibility towards myself, and there is my responsibility towards others, and I see that these two are not mutually compatible. So what's the assumption here? You'll have to be with me. Even as I speak and you listen we both are equal participants, right? So you'll have to be with me. It's just on the surface that I'm doing something different from what you are doing currently. I happen to be actively speaking, but you also have to be actively listening. So we stand on the same plane in that sense, right?

So I see a necessary dissonance, division between taking care of my interests versus taking care of others' interests. What is the belief behind this then? Come on.

Listener: Others.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. That there is a necessary separation between my interests and the interests of others. And that's called a zero-sum game, right? If I do something that's good for me, that will always be at the cost of hurting or harming others, that's the assumption. And that's why selfishness has been morally considered bad and despicable, no? Because the more you do for yourself, the more you are harming others. Because the assumption is that if something is coming this way, then the same thing is being taken away from somewhere. Are you getting it? Is it not so?

Isn't that why we consider being selfish so bad? And selfishness is indeed bad if being selfish means taking care of your good, your welfare, your interests at the cost of others, then selfishness is a problem.

But then we are born selfish. And those who have known have told us that your primary responsibility is towards yourself, all else automatically follows. If you can take care of yourself, all else will fall in place. That even the others exist only to you. So fundamentally, the entire universe exists only to you. Even the universe comes later, you come first. So you have to take care of your own self-interest.

In Vedant, The highest truth is called the Self. How will you not take care of the Self? Atma, Atm the Self — that's the highest truth in Indian philosophy. So how dare you not take care of the Self?

In fact, even if you try to, you cannot absolve yourself of your responsibility towards the Self, right? And if you try too much, all you will get is hypocrisy. You'll be trying to take care of the Self while pretending that you are being selfless, and that's a lot of hypocrisy, right? So Self is something you cannot get away from even if you display it that way, even if you pretend, or even if you try a lot, the Self is there. Self is there.

And if there is a necessary division between the interests of the Self and the interests of the society, then we are all doomed. Because we are bound to be selfish, and if you are bound to be selfish then we are bound to be socially violent, because the Self and the society cannot go together, as per our assumption. Now that's where the thinkers, the meditators, come in. They say the division is not between the Self and the society, between desire and duty — that's a false division. Are we together till this point, first of all? So —

The division between the Self and the society, the individual and the universe, between duty and desire, that's a false division. The real division is between the lower kind of Self and the higher kind of Self.

Are we together?

You see, we are challenging the question itself. The question said that there is a necessary division between taking care of the Self and taking care of the society. It's not an "and" relationship, it's a "versus" relationship: the Self versus the society. Either/or — you take this, or you take that. That's what the question had implied. Now, that's not necessarily true. If you look into it, the real division might be between a lower kind of Self and a higher kind of Self.

For the lower Self, what you said is definitely true and that's why it's called the lower Self. It's not for no reason that it's called the lower one. Because when you choose to be the lower Self, it's a choice. When you choose to be the lower Self, then definitely this Self is violent towards others. This one says, "I am born to consume. I'm born to extract. I'm born to anyway fulfill my desires at the cost of others," That's the lower Self. That comes from not knowing the Self, not knowing who you are.

When you do not know who you are, what do you do? There is an inner unfulfillment, and to take care of that inner unfulfillment, inner hollow, you want to consume the world.

See, we are born incomplete, right? Every kid is born desirous. We are born incomplete. We are born incomplete and if we do not understand that incompleteness, then what will we do? The eyes will say, "You know, there, there, there are some lucrative objects out there, so go and grab them. And if they are currently possessed by somebody else, go and snatch, loot, kill, fight wars, but get those things because that's what will give you fulfillment."

That's a lower Self. That comes from not understanding the Self. When you do not understand where your lack of fulfillment is coming from, then you think that having a longer car, or more money, or a larger group of friends, or more prestige, or more pleasurable experiences, or even more knowledge will give you fulfillment. Because that's the fundamental condition of the ego. That's what it is born with, born as. Discontentment is the name of the ego, right? The Self. So —

When I do not know what that discontentment really is, then I am carried away in the direction of the senses. And all the senses relate only to the external world.

And I'll say, I want this, I want this, that is wonderful. Oh, that threatens me. Kill that. Let's have a world war. But I want to take care of my interests. Let's hack the jungles down. Let's burn as much oil as possible. Let's colonize the entire planet. Let's wipe out millions and billions of species. Do whatever is needed, but give me some contentment — contentment, because I'm burning from within.

That's the very predicament of the self, the ego. It's a burn, it's a hurt, it's a wound. It exists here, and it does not know why it exists. So it guesses by way of experience. I guess that if I can obtain stuff from here and there, then maybe I can get some peace. This is the lower self. This is the lower self that has no self-knowledge. What is the lower self? When you have no self-knowledge, then you operate from a point that can be called as the lower self. You are the lower self. And the characteristic of lower self is a relationship of violence with the world. Relationship of violence.

I need to satiate my taste buds, so bring me more animal flesh. I'll eat more animal flesh. Let's just keep on killing. I care about my taste, because that taste, at least for a moment, makes me feel fulfilled. After a sumptuous meal, I say, "Ahh.., wonderful!" So the inner burn has been taken care of, at least for 5 minutes — even if that involves killings.

How many living creatures do we kill every day? Any ideas? Any guesses? Any guesses?

Listener: 50 Millions.

Acharya Prashant: Millions would be an underestimate — so much, millions! It could run actually into trillions, if we also take into account the ones that we are killing inadvertently. But the ones that we kill deliberately, that's 1 billion a day. 1 billion a day we kill deliberately for our consumption. And the collateral damage? That's different, additional and that can be many times the number that we deliberately kill daily.

And I have to kill all of these because, you know, I want to take care of my taste and my body, my taste even if for a moment it relieves me of the burn that I am. Do you get this lower self? Do you see how it operates? There is a hollow within, a problem within, and the lower self is the one that says that the problem, the hollow, the burn, the wound, can be solved by inflicting violence on the world.

What is the planet for? The planet exists to be mined, to be used, consumed, chopped off, dug up, that's what the planet exists for. That's the lower self. When I do not know what would help me, then I simply go insane and my only objective in life is to consume as much as I can.

And because others also want to consume, so there is competition. All competition is just this: there is this thing I want to consume, he also wants to consume the same thing. He too wants to consume the same thing. So then, there is competition. And then there are wars. That's the lower self.

In the lower self, from this point, there is a necessary division between the interests, the perceived interests of the self and the society or the planet or the entire universe, if you may say.

Then there is the higher self. If the lower self comes from not knowing the self, what would be meant by the higher self?

Listener: Knowing yourself.

Acharya Prashant: Knowing yourself. And when you know yourself, the first thing you find is: all this has not been ever of any help to anybody. It has not been of help even to me.

The Upanishads remind you, Kṛto smara, kṛtaṁ smara. Just remember what you have done throughout the history of mankind. Just remember. Just remember. By remembrance, they mean recalling. Can you recall? This is the same thing that you were doing millions of years back, and this is the same thing that you are doing today as well.

If it has not helped you inwardly for millions of years, how will it help you today? And this morning you are planning for exactly the same thing that you as a human being were planning for 10,000 years back. Keeping aside the external appearances and the evolution of those inwardly, are we much not the same as what we were 10,000 years back? Or even a million years back? Inwardly, yes. What are our fundamental drivers? Fear, greed, right? So I said I have to earn a livelihood for myself. Survival. Ambition. Lust. Anger. Those were the things that drove us thousands of years back, and those are also the same things that drive us today.

Fundamentally, we are just the same. So the Upanishads tell us, "Please see that you are much the same, and you are trying the same kind of stupid tricks that you were trying even a million years back. And if those things have never succeeded, what makes you so hopeful that they'll succeed today?"

They aren't going to succeed today either. Do you understand this? That's the higher self, to see the futility of your ways, to understand that the self — the crying, weeping, wailing, hurting self — cannot be healed or even consoled by way of the usual kind of relationship with the world. The relationship of exploitation and consumption. That won't help the self. Vedanta calls it the method of negation, Neti-Neti.

See that what you have been doing till today has not succeeded. And when you see that, an entirely new possibility opens up, new and unpredictable and unscripted. Nobody can tell you what that possibility is like. But what is certain is: in this new possibility, there would be no repetition of your old ways. That is guaranteed.

What is also certain is that this higher self does not accommodate any differences between the interests of the self and the society. Now what you do for yourself automatically becomes good for society. Now you don't have to be a social activist. Now you don't have to decide to be a messenger of goodness. Now you don't have to say, "You know, the entire day I was polluting the planet, so in the evenings I go and do some social activism or animal welfare."

"You know, the entire week I was doing something that really sucks, so on the weekends I go out and engage myself in some noble task." No. Now there is no distinction between a weekday and a weekend, between your professional life and personal life, between your material life and your spiritual life. They become one. You cannot say, you know, for my bread and butter I do this, this is my livelihood. And then to take care of my spiritual self, I do that.

The entire day I work in a slaughterhouse, but in the mornings I never miss my meditation. So all meditation is confined to that one hour of the morning, and my Guru ji has given me a particular kriya, so I sit and for one sacred hour I totally immerse myself in that kriya or activity. And then, after that, I proceed to my usual kind of vocation, which is inherently violent, exploitative, cruel. But I don't mind any of that because, you see, material life is different from spiritual life. That's the assumption in the question. No. Operating from the higher self, expressing the higher self.

I once said, the sound of your footsteps itself is compassion. You don't have to be additionally compassionate. You don't have to exhibit compassion. In fact, jokingly I once said, even if you sneeze, that's compassion. Provided you are operating from the higher self, then you cannot mark an activity distinctly as an act of compassion. You know, "this thing is proof of my compassion, sir."

I walk, that's compassion. I live, that's compassion. I eat, that's compassion. I operate from a point where there is no distinction now between the self and the world. What is good for me is now good for the world as well. I don't have to additionally take care of the world. Now my life itself is an exercise in social welfare.

If you ask me, "When exactly do you involve yourself in social welfare or animal activism or some noble uplifting activity for the soul?" I will be silent, blank. I'll have no answer. Because I never do that in a given time slot. I never do that as an additional activity. Whatever I do is that.

And unless you operate from that higher self, there would always be the same division that was the foundation of this question:

"Sir, how do I, you know, take care of my little circle of family and friends and my own personal interests? I need to have money. And how do I simultaneously also not fall in my eyes and feel guilty within? So I also need to do, you know, additionally, for 5% of my time, some good to society." That's been the usual traditional model. And that model is what has brought this earth to the brink of total destruction today.

People have allowed themselves to feel moral and noble by doing 5% of social work or charity. All your life, you are just an exploiter, but you certify yourself as good, moral, noble, by doing 5% of charity. By saying, "You know, I devote 5% of my 24 hours to something nice. On weekends I visit this orphanage, and I take some used clothes for the kids there. I am a noble woman, you see." That's what has brought us to total and absolute distinct destruction.

We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. It's not for no reason. This is the reason, operating from the lower self we still want to feel good about ourselves, we still want to feel noble. We still want to feel upright.

"I feed the birds, you know. And then I use the birds to feed myself. I suppose pigeons and chickens are both..

Listeners: Birds.

Acharya Prashant: So you feed the pigeons, and then you feed yourself with chicken. But you are morally upright, because you feed the pigeons. You're morally upright. You're a good man, and you get yourself photographed." That's what has brought us to a final and irreversible destruction today.

We'll need to have integrity. And integrity is not about just being superficially honest in your dealings. Integrity is about not having a division between yourself and the world.

And that requires a lot of attention and observation, to see that your interests and the interests of the world are not separable. If something is good for the world, it's bound to be good for you. And what's not good for the world cannot be good for you.

It is impossible. Technically impossible. Impossible by law. To actually be joyful when your neighbor is weeping, it is impossible. We are not saying it is morally reprehensible. No. We are saying it is technically impossible.

You can pretend to be happy at the cost of others. You will never be joyful. Never be joyful by making someone else miserable, by chaining them, caging them, enslaving them, exploiting them, and killing them. You will never have peace. And that's, I repeat, not a moral dictate. That's a law of life, an inviolable law. And that's the higher self, to see that there is no dissonance, no dichotomy between the self and the society or the world.

Then you don't have to say, "You know, I'm a good man. I was always doing good for others, but see what I got in return. Nobody respects me.” Sir, If you were doing good to others, then you have already done good to yourself. Now why do you want more returns? And that's true selfishness. To realize the self is being truly selfish. And we need people who are truly selfish. We need people who are truly selfish.

They know who they are. So they also know what would bring them peace and they get into it with total courage with no apologies or excuses. They say, "I'm doing it. I know this is the right thing." Are you getting it? As long as you are saying, 'How do I balance these two lives?' and in corporate circles, that's a buzzword: “work-life balance.” As long as you're talking of this balance, you are operating from ignorance. There can be nothing called work-life balance. Work and life have to be one and the same thing, just as the self and society have to be one and the same thing.

If your work is such that it forces you to balance it with something else — you know, 'My work has totally consumed me, now I need to take a vacation' you are in the wrong kind of work. Work has to be something you can take pride in getting immersed in. Work has to be something that never stops for you, just as life never stops for you. Work and life have to be one. Selfishness and charity have to be one. My selfishness is of a nature that my selfishness itself is charity, and we need such people with such selfishness. Are you getting it?

As long as you are externally and additionally charitable or responsible, no, it won't work out. You know, 'But we also have responsibilities towards our kids and all. How can I be just selfish?' Sir, you take care of yourself, and it's only through yourself you take care of your kids. Right?

If you are a person who cannot take care even of his own life as a father, what emboldens you to think that you will be able to take care of your kids? We have a man in front of us who cannot take care of his own life. How will he take care of the kids? But he says, 'You know, my life is in doldrums, my life is so shabby because I have to take care of my wife and kids and aging parents.' What nonsense!

You will take care of them, right? And if you are full of ignorance, how will you take care of them? You will only radiate your ignorance to your kids. Your first responsibility, therefore, is towards yourself. And that's true selfishness — if I am all right, everything that will happen through me will be all right. On the other hand, if I say, 'Because of my responsibilities I am not caring to be all right, because I first want to take care of responsibilities,' then you'll be messing up all these responsibilities.

The fact is, fundamentally you won't even know what your responsibility is and what is not. How do you know what your responsibility is? That knowing is what characterizes the higher self.

We all feel we are responsible, right? 'Oh, I have such duties, I have responsibilities, I have this to take care of and that.' How do you know that you must take care of that, please tell me? You don't know. Most of us don't know. We have just been told — this is your responsibility. And had we been told something totally different and totally otherwise, we would have believed in that also, because our life is a series of beliefs not a flash of realization.

Who told you that this and this and this and this thing is your responsibility? Who told you? Did it emerge from within? No. Instead of responsibility, instead of this externally obtained set of responsibilities that characterizes the lower self.

The higher self operates from something called love. I have no responsibilities, but I have love. And all responsibilities are limited. And love is not. If you'll tell me I'm responsible, you'll also tell me I'm responsible to a particular extent, right? To a particular extent. So you have been taught in your moral science class, If you find an accident victim on the road, then this much happens to be your responsibility. And if you can do that much, beyond that you don't bother. You'll say, 'I am morally clean. I found him, and I did this.'

You see a beggar on the road — then, you know, give him this much, and that is your responsibility. Now you can be clear of conscience. 'I found a beggar and I gave him this much, and I'm done with my responsibility.' Love does not operate that way. Love has no limits. From the higher self, your relationship with the world is not of responsibility, but of love. And love and responsibility are just not the same thing.

Most of us unfortunately do not know love. Not at all. All we know is coded, scripted responsibilities.

The wife comes to the husband, newly married and she already knows what her responsibilities are like. And if it's an arranged marriage or even a love marriage, chances are there is no love. But there's a lot of responsibility. She comes to the new house, and she already knows very well what her responsibilities are. And her responsibilities are exactly the same as that of the new bride in the house adjacent. Right?

How are their responsibilities exactly the same? Because those responsibilities come from neither of them. It's a script photocopied and handed over. And therefore it's the same for both of them. Both of them know what our responsibilities are. Isn't it a waste of life to relate to the other via scripted, predetermined responsibility rather than love?

And love is not something sir, that you can get from the lower self. Not possible. From the lower self, all you get is violence. Love is possible only when you are all right with yourself and you have something to give. The lower self is always hungry. It's always eager to grab and snatch and exploit. How will it have love?

The lower self is always eager to — 'I'm hungry!' how will it have love? Yes, it can have moral responsibility, which is just fear. If you do not do these things, if you do not fulfill your given responsibilities, then we will call you a bad man. Then we will not respect you. Then we can even hurt your material interests because you're not a good man. So responsibility is basically fear, something deeply related to the lower self.

From the higher self, there is a clear recognition of who you are and what you do not need. What you do not need. Then there's a beautiful relationship with the material world and with the people and the species around you. Is it too heavy?

Listeners: No sir.

Acharya Prashant: All these things that are said in the name of goodness, you know 'Let's all do our little bit' — these are very problematic. Please see. Because you are being told that 80 units you can exploit, and then do your little bit by contributing 10 units. On the net, what do you have? -70. And that's what we have done to this planet, -70.

This doctrine of being almost okay, doing some nice things over the weekend or sometimes, you know, 1% or 2% of my income I donate — this is a huge problem. You must come to a point where you do not need to donate at all. Where your life itself becomes a huge donation to the universe. That you could call selflessness or true selfishness.

You can donate a little bit only when you keep, first of all, the largest chunk for yourself. How do I donate anything? I'm already fully yours. I have kept not even 1% for myself. How do I donate anything? That's the kind of life we must come to. And this is not utopian. This is not some empty dreamy ideal. This is the right kind of life that's needed to save the planet — if it still can be saved.

We cannot lead lives of misery and exploitation and still have the guts to call ourselves moral and nice people. That's what we have done so far." You cannot say, "I emit so much carbon, but I offset 10% of it by having a little solar thing on my terrace. See, I am green." What kind of greenery is this? 100 units of emission and 10 units of greenery to justify that 100 units of emission, right?

Empty, hollow, and dishonest justification. Like some company that fleeces its customers absolutely fleeces them, by brainwashing them and subjecting them to all kinds of misleading ads. And it's doing all those things and then it says, "As a token of goodwill towards you, we are offering you a 5% discount."

Sir, 100% you have looted, and 5% you are offering at discount, and then displaying it to the entire world and clamoring for the Nobel Prize. "You know, give me the Nobel Prize for Peace — I gave them a 5% discount. See how noble I am!"

There has to be oneness, and that comes from self-knowledge. One has to look at himself. One has to ask, "Are my ways succeeding?" If we talk of responsibility, this is the first responsibility. I have done the same thing, what my parents were doing. I'm replicating the same model as millions of others around me. If they are not succeeding, if nobody in the history has succeeded, how will I succeed doing this? And I have only one life.

What do I do with this one, one life, one precious life? Should I keep spending it this way, or is there an alternative possible? See, no alternative will magically emerge. It slowly shows up.

But first of all, we need to have the courage to discard what is just not right, not right in the sense that it is never going to fulfill your deepest need.

Questioner: Thank you, Acharya. My name is Baldeep. So good to see you beyond the digital avatar that we were used to…… My question is largely on negative emotions — like, say, if I describe my anger, hatred etc. as the dark side of me. One of the ways that I see my dark side emerging is a way to embrace it. One of the ways is because it completes me as a person. The other, other way is that I do something about this.

But anytime that I do something about this, it invokes the limited self, and so I'm always in a dichotomy on whether I should embrace my negative emotions or do something about it. So the moment I do something, rather than seeing — I'm in that sense and I'll pause.

Acharya Prashant: There were a lot of metaphors in this. "It completes me as a human being." Where is that coming from?

That to me, sounds a lot like self-help language, found in very dubious kinds of books. "If I embrace my — what did you say? anger and….

Questioner: Negative emotions.

Acharya Prashant: Negative emotions and then I embrace them." What is meant by embracing negative emotions?

Questioner: Means that, I don't polarize myself — saying that, okay, I don't need it. Something like that. It's like, you know, if it is within me, suppose I'm getting angry. Anger, my anger is something that completes me as a person.

Acharya Prashant: What do you mean by "completes me as a person?"

Questioner: Completes me, means that I'm full.

Acharya Prashant: What do you mean by that? That's a translation of "completeness", "fullness". What do you mean by that?

**Questioner: …..It means that my attention on me is not polarized.

Acharya Prashant: What do you mean by polarized?

Questioner: Polarized means that I'm not only looking at the positive aspect of me.

Acharya Prashant: How do you know what is positive about you?

Questioner: Which are the positives...

Acharya Prashant: How do you know what is positive about you?

Questioner: Which are not negative, The...

Acharya Prashant: What is this answer? What is positive? What is not negative? Sir, anger by definition, is something that will eat you up from within. What do you mean by embracing your anger? Embracing that thing doesn't alter the very nature of it. You see, the distinction is not between rejecting or accepting your so-called negative emotions. That's not the distinction.

The distinction is between knowing yourself , where the anger is coming from versus just being blindly angry and not even knowing the entire process of anger. You do not know where your anger is coming from. You do not know the desires that have led to that anger. You know neither of these. And then you say, "I want to embrace my anger." That's a hollow metaphor, means nothing.

What do you want to embrace? You don't even know what you're embracing. So how can you embrace it? By embracing, you mean accepting. If I say, "You know, I'm accepting whatever is there in that laptop" — that's such an empty thing to say, because I don't even know what's there.

Do you know your anger?

So, the difference lies between just experiencing anger versus understanding anger. Anger is neither good nor bad. Negatives, positives, these are very vague words. Negative for whom? Positive for whom?

On a simple sheet of graph, you call one side as positive, the other side as negative. Shift the origin, what was positive will become negative. And what's positive for one person is negative for the other person. You won a bet against somebody this is positive for you, negative for that person, right?

So it's about seeing where your anger etc. are coming from. That seeing is of utmost importance. Can I see where it's coming from? And then whatever is to happen, let that happen. That's fine. Not intelligible.

Questioner: Maybe we can discuss this offline. I don't want to take up your time right now.

Acharya Prashant: Offline, you very well know I'm not going to be available. Please understand, even this thing is coming from seeing — that maybe it is coming from my defensiveness towards a point that I hold very close to myself. Look at this moment itself — am I available offline? No, I'm not. But we kind of want to get away. I'm just conducting an experiment, right? Don't take it otherwise. This is a live demonstration. Can we?

You have nothing but yourself, and your body, and your life. Then nothing else do we carry, right? If we do not know how we operate within, then definitely there is a problem. And it's not difficult to know. It's just that we have been trained to look in the external direction. It's not difficult to know what lies behind your anger, or jealousy, or greed, or whatever we call negative. Don't just brand them as negative. And don't brand other things as positive either.

Just as you look at things in a laboratory, Just as you watch traffic standing on a balcony — Can you watch the inner traffic or what it's doing to you? We experience these things. But it would be great if we can also understand these things.

When you understand these things, something very funny also starts happening. You can almost predict that you are now going to be angry, and it's very amusing. Then you can even tell others, "Five minutes later, I'll be very angry. So please get away."

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