Soaring Eagles in College, Caged Birds in Life?
Questioner: Sir, as a law student, Every student has a concern about whether it is about environmental concerns, there is a lot of environmental pollution etc. Also, it is about poverty concern or corruption or any other social issue but then when we get out of college we get start ignoring the inner consciousness that tells us these concerns, and by social conditioning we are forced to earn in whatever ways or to have the children's and get married. So, what is the hope for us to keep on our mission and not get trapped by this?
Acharya Prashant: The way you have modeled the question is: we are good people inside the campus and we become bad people outside the campus, to put it very crudely. When in the campus, we are good people as students, and when we step out, we become bad people, and social conditioning takes over.
Son, why are you in campus in the first place? Is it not because of social conditioning? Will Social conditioning start operating only after you step out of the campus, or is it operating right now? Social conditioning is not only after the exit gate; it was before the entry gate. Else, you wouldn't have entered the Law College at all, and it is continuously there between the entry and the exit points, in your entire duration of three years, five years, eight years whatever it is.
It’s just that we do not realize that every single action of ours is a conditioned thing. That's the thing with conditioning; because you are conditioned, you will never know you are conditioned. So, even these thoughts come to you, they come to you because it is trendy to have these thoughts regarding the conservation of this, that, flora, fauna, environment, animal, and species. It's a cool thing to talk about these things in the campus.
You know, when I was in campus, they used to say that there is nobody who is not a socialist while in campus. In campus, everybody is a socialist, and if you can continue to be a socialist after you are 25. You are an utter fool between 15 and 25. It's a hip thing to talk of equality, revolution this and that till you are 25 when you are in campus after 25.
The other side of the dialectics should show up. You should not know when the turn from communism to capitalism occurs, and that's how the society wants you to behave. Don't you see how the ashram system mandates? It says till the age of 25, you ought to be an obedient student with all the virtues that the ideal student must possess. So, you display all those virtues; you are inquisitive, you display a social consciousness, and you display a concern for bigger causes.
But on your 25th birthday, you are supposed to graduate into the next ashram and then you are supposed to worry only about your wife and your kids. Now, you are Gṛhastha . You understand Gṛhastha ? So that's how you have been conditioned. Even now, if the kind of things you might be having in your campus are not an expression of people's freedom or liberation, those things happen because they are supposed to happen. For example, some caste operation takes place somewhere in the country, and at your college, in your campus, there is a candlelight procession. These are cool things that must happen.
The same fellows who are holding those candles today would be circling bigger fires within a year or two. The candles would have become very dim by that time, no candles. So, do not take your passions in college too seriously; they don't mean anything. Everybody is an activist within the safe four walls of the campus; everybody is a revolutionary when the time is right.
You probably be having one cell or some section dedicated to planetary concerns, the species are getting extinct; there are biodiversity laws, there is climate change, and there is overpopulation. And the ones who would be yelling hard on overpopulation would be mummies and daddies within two-three years of passing out. So, that's the way the game is played; everything has its due time and place. The campus is the place to raise slogans and Gṛhastha Jivan is the place to raise babies. So, you do what is mandated.
Had you really understood who you are and what it means to be alive as a mortal being on this planet, how could you have forgotten those concerns? Truth, if seen, cannot be unseen. Had you really understood something how could it become less meaningful for you later on? But that does happen, and that simply means nothing was ever understood. A trend was being followed, a custom was being adhered to. Does that not astonish you about our fickle ways, our centerless lives?
How we profess love towards one cause and very soon all love is forgotten. From campus to the corporate: raising slogans to raising babies. Let it hit you a little, please wonder on this thing. What kind of fickle people we are? Should not even wonder about this? Probably, we will not wonder about this because that's not the social mandate, right?
Q: But it is a hope for us to choose the right path and then stick to that because most of the time the fear comes toward that right path.
AP: How do you successfully choose all the wrong Paths without exception? That cannot be a coincidence, right? You already know some formulas. Had it been just coincidental, then there should have been some probability towards choosing the right path as well, just randomly, even if a small probability. Let us say one by six, one by ten, one by hundred. How do we unfailingly ensure that we choose only the wrong path every time? That cannot be a coincidence. There is a Formula there.
So, we know the right path, right? And our formula, therefore, is built around avoiding the right path. And the formula is successful. It yields results. We choose anything and everything apart from what is right and that can be done only when there is no need to choose, only when all our choices have been already made.
That in Vedānta , the way of Prakṛti , the great mother, has already laid out all your choices, ready-made and pre-decided for you. She loves you so much that she leaves no decision-making for you. She says, ‘I love my baby. Why should I put him in the needless hassle of decision-making? I'll make all the decisions for him, he simply has to live by the decisions I've already made.’
You were interested in liberation, that was your first question. So, liberation is freedom from pre-decided ways of living. A lot is taken as obvious, understood. We surrender, we bow down and we take certain things as fine, we don’t challenge them.
Somebody wrote a script, and that becomes our life story. We don’t challenge it. But liberation simply means that there is not only life outside the script but there is joy outside the script. You can be happy beyond your imagination. You can have endless happiness outside the script. Don't be afraid.
Do you know how we look at this thing called liberation? We look at it as if we are doing it a favor by looking at it. We say, “You see, all the happiness lies in the path of Mother Prakṛti , that's where all the happiness lies.” So, I'm actually taking a hit by even looking at liberation. Because if I'm looking at liberation, I'm looking at a lack of happiness, right? That's our attitude.
So, outwardly we might behave as if we are respectful towards the Vedānta as if we are grateful to our teachers. But some point of us, internally believes we are doing Vedānta and the teachers, a favor by looking at them.
The calculation is obvious. The calculation says, “You know, I am a creature of happiness. I am born to be happy and happiness lies in the path I am already traversing, which is the path of the script given to me by the grand old Mummy ji–biology and society.”So, I'm already on the path of happiness but just as a gesture of respect, I look at Vedānta , I look at all the nice-sounding things, the old sages said.
So, I look at them and when I look at them, it's at a cost, the cost of Happiness. No, it's not at the cost of happiness. If you look at them, you will get happiness. You are terribly unhappy right now.
And unhappiness is always accompanied by foolishness. Foolishness says, “No, I'm not unhappy, I'm actually happy. And if I leave my unhappiness (18:22) then I'll become unhappy. Who is happy here? There is nobody who is really happy here. Yet people stick to their ways. There has to be an assessment problem somewhere, right?
The sensor is malfunctioning, the car is moving at 10 km/h and the sensor has gone bonkers, it displays 80 km/h. You have no happiness but you have been conditioned to think that this lack of happiness is called happiness and since I am already happy, if I look at Vedānta or spirituality or wisdom I'll become unhappy and therefore fear. You said, ‘I feel afraid when I look at alternate paths in life’. That's the reason. Else, there would have been no fear. You think you have something that Vedānta will take away. That free life will take away. Yes, surely the free life will take away something. But what is it? Not your happiness, that you anyway don't have. It will take away your bondages.
Questioner: Sir, can I ask the next question, related to this?
Acharya Prashant: Yes.
Questioner: Sir, as we witnessed on the 26th of December, the government declared the ‘Veer Baal diwas’ on the martyrdom of two sons of Guru Gobind Singh. So, they were bricked alive at the age of six or nine. So, they have the option to save their life but they stand firm and fearless. So, as we have been told, we are born slaves by the Prakṛti . So, how can one at such a little age be so firm and fearless?
Acharya Prashant: Their father was the guru. Either have your father of the stature of the guru or accept the guru as your father there is no other way. The first option is always by chance, you cannot choose your biological father.
The two extraordinary kids were supremely lucky, right? They had a very special father, but not everybody can have a special father. So, what does one do then? Realize who you are and see that we all need to be fathered. Even if we don't actively search for a father, at least acknowledge that you are a kid. That will prevent you from needlessly taking adult decisions.
It is very difficult to avoid the… Anupam if you may, I’ll say something… (referring to the host)
The way a kid is born, the path is already well laid out for him or her. Without a special effort, you cannot avoid your destiny. Your destiny is to be born like a pawn in the scheme of evolution. Play or required biological role and then disappear after a few decades. And that's what each of us would inevitably end up doing- unless we make special efforts.
