Should You Sacrifice Your Pleasures - When and How Much? || AP Neem Candies

Acharya Prashant: You have to ask yourself what your primary identity is. If your primary identity is that of the body, then do what the body commands you to do. Good. The body has an inbuilt software of its own, and it’s a self-improving software. Its capacity to keep improving is called evolution.

You could even say that the body has a certain intelligence of its own. Though I will use the word 'intelligence' with caution, but very loosely it can be said, so the body in fact knows a lot of things. You can let the body rule you, you can let the primitive tendencies of the brain rule you and you will indeed get certain benefits. You will have to decide whether you have the courage to forgo those benefits. That is what is called as sacrifice.

That is the real meaning of sacrifice, whether you are prepared to sacrifice all the benefits that come from following the traits of the body. If you can let go of those benefits, if you can really sacrifice, then there is another realm that opens up to you in which there are higher benefits. Now, this is not a temptation, this is probably the only way in which it can be explained why certain people decide not to listen to their instincts, their tendencies, traits, and all such things - why do certain people raise up and challenge their fears and limitations. So, that’s why I have to use the word ‘higher benefits’. The fact is, spirituality does not really bring you any higher benefit. Liberation cannot be called a benefit. In liberation, the beneficiary himself gets liberated of himself. How can you call it a benefit? Purely speaking, it is not, but we have to say something.

Similarly, stuff like meat-eating; from an evolutionary perspective probably it is good, probably! Probably, research might establish that a certain amount of meat consumption is indeed good for the body, and it might be established beyond any doubt.