Let Each of Us Have a Hundred Names
Questioner: Hello, sir. I observed that Arjun has been basically called by Krishna by multiple names — Parth, Bharath, and then Kaunteya, that one clicked. So, I was just curious that it is just an ornamental value, or is there any significance to it?
Acharya Prashant: I think that's a very beautiful thing that I have admired about the culture of naming and addressing people, not just in Gita and Mahabharata, but in other books as well, other Indic books, which is that you do not address the person just by one name, it's an admission of multiple identities. And multiple identities do not necessarily mean, that the fellow in front of you is fragmented. It also may mean that the way you look at that person keeps changing. So, it's not about the fellow; it's about your relationship with that, the fellow in front of you.
Questioner: Our perception.
Acharya Prashant: Our perceptual perception of it, that's the reason you have things like Vishnu Sahasranama. So, you address your respected ones or the important ones or the loved ones, with a hundred or a thousand names. Because they are not one thing to you, not one thing to you. So, at some point, he is Madhusudan, he is Rishikesh, he is Keshav, and you can have a long list of names. Even Arjun has so many names. Coming from Pratha, he is Parth. Coming from Kunti, he is Kaunteya. At some point, he is Gudakesh.
So, that merely means that the fellow in front of you is proximate enough, intimate enough, to know your various aspects, or he realizes that his relationship with you is multifaceted. And this is something that has intrigued me, fascinated me for a long time. I used to wonder why should there be so many names of the ones, who cannot have any name. And then I got into the psychology of it, and I understood. I think I understood.
So, which is that it is just too restrictive to call someone by just one name. Restrictive and very egoistic. I have given you one name, or the world has given you one name, and I will continue to imprison you within that one name. But the thing is, the fellow is much more than the name that you have given him. So at least address him through several names. That is what is happening over here. It's a beautiful thing.
I think this is one of the things that we must preserve in our culture. And it is no longer preserved. Instead, all the trash remains immortal. We should be able to recognize the various flowering and bloomings of the Truth acknowledge them and address them all by the different names that they deserve.
On a lighter note, it must be quite boring to be addressed only by one name. So, it is quite refreshing someone comes up with a unique name, a nice one, fine, good. If you go into it, that's probably the reason why you are kind of, should I say, baptized when you move into a hostel. There is an entire ceremony, so I can say baptized. And you are given a new name that befits your personality and your relationship in that setting.
Let's say your name is Satya Narayan, and you have just moved to a boy’s hostel. This is quite a misfit. How can you be Satya Narayan in a boy’s hostel? So, they will give you a new name, a new name that is truer to your personality. Because Satya Narayan, that name was given to you when you were like three months old, and there is no Satya and no Narayan in your personality. Not at all, nothing.
So, your hostel mates will realize that they will say, “We will address you through something that more truly represents who you are.” So, they will give you a new name, let's say Guji or something. And that's quite, I suppose, quite nice and quite just. And also, the names should keep evolving over time, just as personalities keep evolving over time. You are not the person today you were five years back. So, today you deserve a new name.
And if these names can keep evolving, that will keep reminding us of the variable and impermanent nature of the self. Since the entire self is a flux, so it should not be contained in one permanent name. You are not the fellow today that you were in 2016. So, tell me, how are you carrying the same name then? When you have changed, your face has changed. Even your core can change over time. Such are people. Why should your name not change?
So, it's a beautiful thing, and it would liven and lighten up our lives a bit if we adopt this practice. The names that we are given are actually quite useful. Maybe they are well-intended, but they are also quite fake. And it doesn't matter what the intention is. If the intention is too distant from the Truth, then intention won't help. All people have great names, and those great names do not help them. It's much better to give them names that are, I say, truly representative of their reality. Even if those names do not sound too great.
You have somebody, I mean, give me a wonderful name, Brahma Singh Shastri, something related to… and he has been in jail for 20 years because he was the head pickpocket. What's the point? Does the name Brahma suit his reality, his choices? It does not. He should have been given a more realistic name — Chotta, and that would have done him some degree of good because it would have reminded him like a mirror, of how ugly his self is. You call a pickpocket Brahma Singh; how is it fair or even useful? Is it?
Questioner: Sir, can it also be indicative of the fact that you keep saying as well that there is repetition in Prakriti? So, can it be indicative of that as well, giving multiple names?
Acharya Prashant: It is definitely indicative of impermanence. Impermanence and the constant change that is there in Prakriti and naming can be an exercise in wisdom. Naming can be almost a spiritual method. You see, people are not renamed just when they go to a hostel, they are also renamed when they take sanyaas, and that's for a reason. So that naming thing should keep happening.
People should be wise enough and open enough and fun-loving enough to give realistic names and also tolerate them. Because you cannot slap somebody with a nice name and get away unscathed. You give him a name, and you will get a name. I think we must have the appetite for that. Today I keep talking of Ram to all of you. Do you know what my name was in the hostel? — Ravan. So, it's okay. They must have seen something in me, and I better acknowledge that they saw something very Ravan-esque in me. It's okay. They still call me that.
Questioner: Thank you, sir.
