Is it bad to carry identities? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)

Speaker: The question is: is carrying an identity a bad thing or a good thing?

See, first thing is that we have been told that we must label everything as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. And who taught us this? Is this the real me? ‘Good’ or ‘bad’ is a value judgement.

Listener 1: Sir, everything can give us pain or pleasure.

Speaker: But different people label different things as ‘good’ and ‘bad’. And different people derive pleasure out of different things. What is good in one country is very bad in another country. What is highly pleasurable to a man of one religion is highly painful to a man of another religion. What is acceptable in one family is deeply condemned in another family. Now a child born in the first family will have an entirely different definition of pleasurable experience. But we always begin, as you did, with asking, “Is it good or bad? Is it right or wrong?” We do not ask, “Where are our standards of good and bad coming from? How does this mind decide what is right or what is wrong? What is the source of these labels?”

Don’t ask whether it is good or bad. Ask, “What is it?” And if this is realized then ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is not needed. Just ask, “What is it?” You are asking, “Is it good or bad to carry identities?” Just ask, “What is it to be identified with someone or something?”