The hurt mind demands caution and restriction || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2015)
Question: Sir, we talk of the highest negotiation or interaction, the Love , which is basically completely forgetting our self and seeing the other person’s interest.
So, I would like to ask you that is it really practical in this real world? Is it really fruitful in this ever going competitive world to completely forget our self and look at other person’s interest?
Speaker: Sonakshi, at this moment do you really remember your ankle? (smiles)
I remember my shoulder, it is hurting. I was driving up the hills, riding my bike, it slipped, hit me here and it is still hurting and it is constantly reminding me of itself. Does your shoulder remind you of itself?
Listener: No Sir.
Speaker: What if you have a headache? Will the head make its presence felt? It would constantly be reminding you of itself. You said, “The third kind of negotiation is forgetting who you are”.
Do you see when you can forget something? You can forget something, especially yourself, only when you are completely healthy . What is healthy is forgotten, what is sick is remembered. Is that not so? You hurt your ankle and you will remember it very nicely. The entire day you will be conscious of it. You can forget yourself only when you are totally free of sickness. That is not such a bad thing. Is it?
As I speak to you, I really do not remember anything. There is nothing in memory waiting for disclosure. There is nothing in the mind squirming to be expressed. So, I can completely forget everything. In fact, you will have to remind me of the time as the last group had to. I do not need to remember anything. I am alright, peaceful, settled. Why do I need to remember anything? You are there and I am here and that is sufficient. What is the need for memories? What is the need for caution? You see, how this remembering is related to being cautious and suspicious. I need to put my ankle down with care and caution. Why? Because I am sick and the thing hurts. If it does not hurt who needs care. And is it not a blessing, to be care free? Like a bird; fly anywhere, sit anywhere, and sing what you want to. But no, not at all, if the birds were coached that this is an increasingly competitive world. (smiles sarcastically) It is good that the birds are not coached that way.
Is it really an increasingly competitive world or was the world always like this? Those who have to compete, kept competing and those who had to sing, they kept singing. The world is not at all a worse place than it ever was because man’s mind is the same. You have had instances of wars and violence and pettiness, all throughout man’s history. Kindly do not think that what you are seeing is a new phenomenon. That, all of a sudden we all have become corrupt, or that debauchery is raining from the skies or that the soil is now so infested with fertilizers and pesticides that murderers and rapists are born out of it. Nothing like that. The world was always like this. Mankind has fought thousands of wars. Entire population have been wiped out. And man has been autocratic, tyrannical and unjust; sometimes he has exploited on basis of race, sometimes on the basis of gender, nationality, religion, economic status.
People have always been competing. What else was colonism? What else was the king fighting against the other? Were not they competing for land? What else have been your great epic battles? Sometimes fight for land, sometimes fight for power, sometimes fight for respect, and sometimes fight for women. You know of India as having been under the British domination. But no, there were few other countries of Europe as well who were competing to exploit India. Competition has always been there and wherever there is competition there is the urge to exploit something. And there is that inner debauchery, the inner sickness that we talked off and parallely those who did not had to compete, simply did not compete.
There were the saints and the explorers and the scientists, who had nothing to do with competition. They were there 3000 years back, they were there 1000 years back, they were there 300 years back and they are there even today . It is just that what is it that you prefer to see, what is it that you value? If you value competition, then all that you will see in the world are competing faces and you will say, “He is competing, he is competing, he is competing and that proves that world is full of competition”.
But if your mind is peaceful then you will see settled faces, and loving hearts and you will say, “See such a peaceful man and that proves that the world is a peaceful place”. They are always there parallely, simultaneously. You have had an Aurangzeb, who is fighting and you have had a Bulleh Shah parallel to him, who is singing. You have had Nadir Shah and Tamerlane and parallel to them was the Bhakti movement. You have had the crusades in Europe and parallel to them were Newton and Galileo.
Depends what you prefer to see. And remember, you will prefer to see what you are . If you are competitive, all that you will see is competition.
So, does the ankle hurt? (Laughs)
What do you remember?
Listener: Nothing.
Speaker: That is called clarity. To not to remember anything.
