To be Young is to be Real || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Speaker: To be young is not a physical age. Yes, there can be an 80 year old who is younger than you.
Listener: Sir, it is said that knowledge has no age.
Speaker: Whosoever has said that ‘knowledge is independent of age’ does not understand anything. Knowledge comes only with age because knowledge is an accumulation. So, knowledge is always dependent on time and age.
Listener: So, an old person can not study?
Speaker: An old person has already studied so much. He will not want to study because he will say that I already know.
Listener: Sir, there are many old people who want to study when they are 90.
Speaker: They are not old. They may be physically 90 years of age but they are still very young.
Listener: Sir, how does knowledge become barrier in our journey?
Speaker: When you already know, why do you need to know?
Whosoever does not allow the content of the mind a barrier in seeing, in listening, is still young. Understand this! We are not talking of the physical age, we are talking of the mind here.
Let’s try to define, ‘Who is a Child?’.
A child is someone who can not know because the physical apparatus, the brain, is itself not ripe. An old man is someone who already knows.
Then, who is a young man? Who doesn’t know but can know and that is beautiful. The humility is there that I don’t really know. And the faith is there that I can know. That is a young man. The child says I cannot know. And that’s right, the child cannot know. The old man says I already know. A young is the one who says,
I am not full of knowledge but I have the capacity to know.
I am not too full but I have that capability.
I have the surrender.
I have not become rigid.
I can open myself up.
I can surrender to reality and hence know.
That’s what a young man is!
There are tables and benches here. They are wood. There are these trees outside. We have very fine weather. And many of these trees are young. What is the difference between this wood and that tree?
Listener: Table won’t accept changes.
Speaker: It won’t accept changes and it already has a beautiful form and colour, etc. It is usable. The society will use it very nicely. But that tree. That tree is not really usable unless you cut it down. This, the table, won’t experience a breeze blowing. That, the tree, will experience the breeze blowing. And that is vulnerable. If there is a storm, it will harm the tree but no storm will harm this.
That is what is to be young. To be vulnerable. To be open. To be open to everything existence is. That is what is young. That is it to live. That is life. To be not to be present in a drawing room in an ornamented way. This(pointing at the table) you will find in drawing rooms. Nicely polished, shining, respectable, usable! That( pointing at the tree) will be found in the soil. That is, what it is be to young. Now look at your face. Does your face look more like this or that. Ask yourself!
Am I a creature of the drawing room or am I a creature of the soil? If you are a creature of the drawing room, you are not young. And the tree has dirt over it. This will rarely have dirt over it. And the tree is irregular. This is very very regular. That is not nicely shaped. This is nicely shaped. My mind, my body are they not nicely pruned like this table? Just as a chemical has been applied on the surface of the table to get shine in it, we also apply chemicals on our surface to shine it. Then how are we like the tree?
One in a thousand physically young people is actually young. One in a thousand is actually like the tree. Singing with the wind! Open to the Sun! Blossoming! Flowering! And dying! Others are like the table. Nicely decorated. They spend two hours daily on decorating themselves. The tree never decorates itself, yet the tree is much much more beautiful than any of these furniture. And we decorate ourselves so much, yet we are never beautiful. We are ornamented, alright! but we are not beautiful. We don’t know beauty. Beauty is not about having a face that is glossy and colourful lips. Is that what beauty is? We don’t know beauty because we don’t know the tree.
Go, and observe a tree really. And then you will realise what is it to be young and what is it to be really beautiful. This( the table) has been killed! This( the table) has been murdered! We too have been killed and murdered. At an early age. This has been given an artificial colour. This wood is no more the wood it used to be,an artificial colour has been given to it. You too have been given artificial colours. Look at your hair, look at your cheek, look at your clothes, everything is artificial. Is there anything artificial about the tree? And that is why it is young. because there is nothing artificial about it.
Listener: So, artificial in a sense is Ego.
Speaker: Ask yourself! All that comes from outside is artificiality.
Listener: Sir, even knowledge comes from outside.
Speaker: Yes.
Listener: Sir, but the this is the need of the hour.
Speaker: What kind of phrase is it? Who decides the need? It is like the tree says that I should be made the table, that is the need of the hour. What kind of statement is this?
Listener: Sir, knowledge comes from outside, but self-knowledge comes from inside.
Speaker: Let’s not call it knowledge. We cannot accumulate it. Knowledge is associated with memory, Self-knowledge has no memory component with it. You can not remember it. You can not experience it. Self-knowledge is not something that can go into the memory and if it is going in the memory, it is not self-knowledge. It is self-deception.
Listener: Can you please explain what does it mean to have Self-knowledge?
Speaker: Actually, it means nothing. Till the point it means something, it is not self-knowledge. It is just self-concept and self-concepts are cozy and comfortable. We live in self-concepts,we do not live in self-awareness.
– Excerpts from a Samvaad session. Edited for clarity.
