Break Free from the Need for Approval
Questioner: Namaste Acharya ji, my name is Abhishek and I first interacted with you in a virtual discussion at IIT Kharagpur when I was in my final year in 2022. Thereafter I joined the OLA Electric as a product manager. But in that company I understood I don't want to be here. So I switched to an early stage startup and from that startup I came here to now preparing for UPSC for the last four-five months.
During this journey, one thing I understood, at every point, was that I don't want to be here. So I just moved on to the next thing. I could see that it would be better for me. The problem, the major question that I have been facing from all these experiences I've had, is that I have a nature of conforming to a social setup. Why do I need to conform in a social group, even to the point of going further, just to take social prestige from them?
So to cite an example, if in a group discussion, if I have to talk about something which is secular or which is general, let's suppose climate change or politics or society, I'll go oppose, I'll defend, I'll put my point forward. I'll do every kind of thing. But when it comes to the topics that are very near to me, I have been a Gita student for the last few months and if I have to talk about it, I have to talk about philosophy of life, talk about relationship of mind, talk about anything which is very intricate; I hesitate. I hesitate and I just want to conform.
Okay, I know that I'm pretending, but still pretend in that situation. When I come back, I see that I have pretended, conformed just to seek the prestige of the group that I'm someone good enough. I have not challenged their notion or the particular notion. I keep giving myself one or other reasons, delusions, so to say.
The second part of it is ‘delusions’ that everything will happen at the right time, and will have its own process. So I don't need to put it on right now. Maybe later I'll do it. Maybe in due course of time, I'll be able to do it.
For example, I had thoughts of contributing to the foundation or contributing in the work around what your teachings are. But the one reason I keep finding myself weaving is that I'll do it after my mains exam, after my this or that exam.
So two important questions I am facing challenges with. One is the issue of social prestige and social conformity. To be a good boy or to be a respectable person. The second is how do I fight my these delusions? Encounter these if I'm thinking in the right direction.
Acharya Prashant: That's the way one is born and educated and brought up. You're made to think that you can exist only with social approval. It's very simple. There is no great secret here. So you have been told that you need to have these supports, crutches, sanctions and only then you can remain in one piece. Else something unthinkable, devastating will happen. And because you are born small and when you are educated and conditioned, you are still small and also quite helpless.
You buy into all these things. There is a childish innocence. You believe in what all these elders are telling you and they've continuously told you. When the others approve of you, then you are a good boy. You are still that child wanting to be a good boy. Nothing else. Nothing else. How to challenge it? It's simple.
The argument was if you do not conform to them, then something absolutely apocalyptic will happen. Check whether it happens. Challenge them. That's all.
You were told that if you throw these crutches away, you won't be able to walk at all. Check that. Maybe a little experiment, maybe one step at a time. What holds you back is the fear that something very devastating will happen to you. Check that belief. Inquire, is that really happening?
Next time they are talking about random rubbish, introduce the Gita. You will be afraid, you are doing it for the first time. But see whether something as cataclysmic as your apprehensions really happen. When that won't happen, then you will realize you have been fooled. The trouble is we have just too much respect for those who have fooled us for so long. We don't want to admit that in the name of love, care, security and education, we were exploited and fooled. We don't want to admit that.
And we have no resistance against those who exploited and fooled us continuously. Instead of them, we have resistance against the one who is trying to liberate us. Currently, there is so much resistance that we cannot even utter his name in a social setting. If you have to be angry, why not be angry at those who conditioned you? If you have to be ashamed, why not be ashamed of those who continuously exploited you in the name of love, care, relationship?
No, but you are angry at and ashamed of the one who is telling you that you have been exploited. You are alright with the one who exploited you. You are not alright with the one who is telling you that you have been exploited. And you are not alright, let's say with me. So you cannot utter my name in society. What have I done?
I'm only telling you that you have been exploited. Why be angry at me? Go and be angry at those who exploited you. Or prove to me that I am uttering nonsense. Prove to me that they have indeed been your well wishers, your friends, your whatever. Otherwise it's a strange situation.
The doctor is telling you that you have bacteria that needs to be killed. And you kill the doctor. You kill the doctor for telling you that you have bacteria that needs to be killed. You're not ashamed of the bacteria. You're carrying them all day, all over. Not ashamed of the bacteria at all. Not ashamed of carrying them.
But you are very embarrassed of the source that brings you your pathology report. Why the hell are you telling me that I am sick? Don't tell me I am sick. As if not telling you that you are sick would heal you. Think of the irony. Somebody has been exploiting you. You are not angry at that person. Somebody tells you you are being exploited, you are mad at that person. What kind of ethics, or logic, or whatever is this?
I'll tell you where your hesitation comes from. You still believe that you won't be able to walk without crutches. So I invite you, I exhort you, keep the crutches aside for a while and try a few steps. Check it for yourself. But irrespective of my advice, you won't try that.
That's why it has been said that sometimes physical nearness is important. Once I wrote that you have to be in the slapping distance of the guru.
No, I'm not a guru. But sometimes, when you are not prepared to throw your crutches away, you need someone who can forcibly take your crutches away and kick you hard from the behind and order. Now run. You won't do it on your own. I may keep telling you.
Those who are with me, sometimes I wonder why I need to kick them. Sometimes I wonder, have I kicked them enough? You don't need my reply. You need my…. which unfortunately cannot be delivered electronically. You will remain like this all your life.
People die like this. At 70-80-90 perfectly socially amiable, perfectly conditioned, known as the perfect gentleman. You know, he is such a nice fellow, never hurts anybody. You need to hurt a few people. You need to kick some ass.
Are you getting it? How does it feel?
Questioner: Getting it.
Acharya Prashant: Does it hurt?
Questioner: Not enough.
Acharya Prashant: You're not getting it. I have a solid kick. It hurts. Isn't hurting, you're not getting it.
Questioner: I understand this, but I have to break down from this fear again. I understood the part that this is the conditioning at being in, or the perfectly ordered.
Acharya Prashant: Sir, conditioning is not just something that you comprehend from your brain. It is something that penetrates every cell of your body. It becomes physical, it becomes bodily. Then it has to be physically challenged. Sitting here like an intellectual, you can say, yes, I understand. Conditioning needs to be challenged and all that. And tomorrow you will go back to your office and behave in exactly the same way. Intellectual comprehension doesn't help.
You need tremendous love or a tremendously loving one. Either that love should arise from your own being, or you require someone around you who loves you so much that he's prepared to kick you hard, irrespective of how you would react and irrespective of what damage you can cause in return.
Otherwise, you will just keep saying, yes, yes, yes, I know exploitation is bad. Yes, yes, yes. Armchair spirituality. Freedom is an explosion. Spirituality is not for people who want to have composed faces. It tears you apart. It makes you look like an idiot. It makes you feel as if you are absolutely naked in front of everybody.
Liberation doesn't come without an internal earthquake. Those who want to live balanced and respectable lives, liberation is not for them.
One passes through tears. One passes through deep heartaches. One passes through great abominations. One feels like burying his head in shame. One has to go through all this. That is the process of challenging what one has become.
You cannot have your respectability and sit like a gentleman and say, you know, yeah, I'm learning the Gita. The rubber has to meet the road. One has to experience the heat, the fire, the dust, the insults, the rejections. Whatever exists within that is vulnerable, to be destroyed. One has to go through the pain of letting it be destroyed. As long as you carry vulnerable stuff within you, you will be afraid. Anybody can attack you.
Questioner: Then a thought comes to my mind very often that I should, as I'm preparing for this entrance exam, that I should put it and join the foundation or contribute.
Acharya Prashant: Why do you think the foundation won't have an entrance exam? As if the foundation is a public park.
So UPSC, such a great institution. It has a prolonged entrance process and you can just stroll into the Foundation. You can clear the UPSC. But the foundation entrance exam, you won't be able to clear. It's very, very tough.
You meant that, sir. First of all, admit that I want to join the Foundation. Go and tell them I want to join the IAS. From tomorrow, can I come?
Questioner: I admit that I thought of having the possibility.
Acharya Prashant: See how far it goes. Look at the balance of respect. And it is this imbalance that is causing you all kinds of trouble. You have just too much respect for the world and too little respect for the truth. And that is why you hesitate uttering the truth in front of the world.
So much respect for the world. I am preparing for a great entrance exam. I am thinking of joining the Foundation. I will come tomorrow at 2:30pm. So much respect there and so little here. That's why you suffer. How does the kick feel? I'm just beginning. Yes?
Questioner: How should I go ahead?
Acharya Prashant: Just turn around. I don't know what kind of turnaround. Like a corporate turnaround. A life turnaround.
Questioner: So how should I take this turnaround?
Acharya Prashant: Just take this. What how? I cannot teach you how to love. I cannot teach you how to have a heart. If you are a man, why do you want a method? You spoke to me earlier as well. You are a student. You are an IITian. You understand things. Basic IQ you have. What you lack is a heart.
And that's not something I can give to you. You have to decide to live by your heart. I repeat, freedom and truth are not for those who care about their reputation. Izzat Ki Dhajjiyan Udvani Padati Hain.
You are preparing so hard for something that I kicked aside and came here. And then you say, you know, I'll just come here. Not everybody can come here. This is higher than any of the aspirations you can have. This is higher than any of those in your circle. When you will see that, then you will naturally experience no hesitation in being truthful to them.
Right now, you see them as very powerful. You see yourself as relatively weak. And that is obvious. Because no man has any strength. The strength that a man has comes from his devotion to the source of strength. Sans the source of strength, no person can have any strength and if you do not respect the source of strength, you will not get any strength. And you will continuously keep feeling weak in front of everybody.
There is nothing called personal strength. All the strength that a person has, comes from his devotion to that which you can call as the Truth, Liberation, Freedom, the highest whatever.
If you find yourself weak in this or that area of life, it is not your personal weakness. Personally, everybody is anyway weak. If you find yourself weak here or there, it is because you are disloyal to the Truth. The truth is the only source of strength to any person. And how does that strength come to one? It comes when you value the Truth more than anything else, when you respect the Truth more than anything else.
If you have listened to me, I have repeatedly used a phrase, healthy contempt. A young person must have healthy contempt towards the world. And that healthy contempt is possible only when first of all you have deep love for what is real. Otherwise you will keep bowing your head to this and that. You know, everybody would be a Sir or a Ji to you. Just everybody.
One of you wrote to the community that something very amusing is happening these days. Acharya ji goes and speaks to anybody on a podcast. And he is doing that because he needs to go places to address audiences who would otherwise not listen to him. He says people from our community then go to those YouTube videos and suppose, let's say what, give me a random name. Rekha.
Rekha has interviewed Acharya Ji. So our community members would go there and write, 'Rekha Ji Aur Acharyaji Ko Shat Shat Naman.' Anything is respectable. Anything is respectable. Whereas it is quite possible that Acharya Ji is going to Rekhaji exactly because she is not respectable.
And therefore all the not respectable ones would be found on her channel to make them respectable. I'm going there. But for people, gentle people, respectable people like us, everybody is respectable.
Sri Duryodhana Ji. You cannot say Shri Krishan Ji and Duryodhana Ji in the same breath. If you respect Shri Krishna and Duryodhana equally, then you respect only Duryodhana. And that's the reason behind your weakness. You have to learn to disrespect people.
That's Neti Neti. That's how the whole thing starts. Withdraw your respect. Withdraw these regards. Even a criminal can attain liberation, but not someone who wants to be respected by the society.
Simple.
Questioner: Acharya ji, I will take steps to withdraw from now on.
Acharya Prashant: Okay, let's see then.
Questioner: Then I'll make it a point to come visit you, if you will allow.
Acharya Prashant: Come, come, come.
Questioner: No, I am not putting anything value in it, but I really see that I can get something out of it. I can be on the right path somewhere.
Acharya Prashant: Forget the right path. Forget the right path. Kick away the wrong one. Right, Right bahut ho gaya. Badass.
