Why all this in weddings? || Acharya Prashant at Mithibai College Mumbai (2022)
Questioner: Why are some social norms told to be followed that don’t make any sense? For example, we apply mehendi (Henna) in marriage, what’s the use?
Acharya Prashant: Kid, when I was your age I would ask much the same question and I had actually never imagined that the questions would survive even after twenty-five years. I had thought that these are just relics of the past and within a few years or maximum a decade or so, all these things will be gone. Right? I think I was wrong. I had underestimated the strength of dead stuff to just continue. It continues. It continues, well because there is something within us that continues.
Every child, you see, that is born is born with a lot of inner ignorance. Think of a newborn child, keep aside the fact that it looks cute and all, how intelligent is it at that moment? Can it make sense of what’s going on? Does it know what is right, what is wrong? What is useful, what is not? Is it free and independent or is it totally dependent on others? Does it have language, knowledge? Nothing at all. Wisdom? No. But it certainly has hunger, thirst, even anger and envy. Am I right? Fear, a lot of it. And misery, immeasurable—all the time wailing. Ask mothers. The kid is crying all the time. That’s how we are born—with a lot of misery, lot of ignorance, fear, anger, envy but no wisdom, no language, no knowledge, no sense of right and wrong. Do you get this? That’s what is continuing.
Every newborn brings with itself a lot of primitive ignorance again to the world, primitive ignorance; animalistic ignorance right from the prehistoric jungle. That primitive prehistoric ignorance from the jungle takes birth again and again in the form of kids. Equally, the kid has the potential for illumination and liberation but illumination and liberation are present in the kid just as potential. Whereas ignorance, etc. are present in the kid as its reality. Liberation, enlightenment, all these are merely potentials. Potentially, the kid can achieve greatness but its reality is that of ignorance and misery. Getting it?
So, that’s the reason why all the things that are related to ignorance, they keep continuing. Some part of us supports them because the ignorance that was there in the kid continues lifelong in the adult.
What’s ignorance?—"I don’t who I am? I don’t know what I need? I don’t know what I must do?” So, what do I do then? Because I don’t know what I must do, so I simply copy what has been historically done. I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what is good for me, I don’t know how to live. So, what do I do? I do what has been done yesterday because that appears safe to repeat.
Marriages were conducted yesterday in a particular way. Now, I do not know what it means for a man and a woman to come together. I do not know the real meaning of that relationship. So, what do I do? I make them marry each other because I do not know what relationship really is or love really is. I make them marry each other in much the same way they married historically. The way Mumma and Papa got married, beta(son) and Munni(daughter), too, will get married in the same way, much the same way. Why? Because they are carrying the same ignorance that the parents did. And ignorance is always very scared, it cannot take risks, it cannot tread a new path. Because it is so insecure, so all that it does is follow, it hankers for safety and security.
Most of us are insecure, are we not? And because we are insecure, we repeat. What do we repeat? What others have done in the past. We say, “You know, they did something in the past and it seems it worked out well. So, I’ll simply repeat it. It seems safe.” Don’t we do that? Does that not appear very safe? So, marriages happened yesterday in a certain way, they are happening today as well in the same way. Forget about the Mehendi and all that you talk of, please tell me, had you not been told that the way a man and woman can come together is by the institution of marriage, would you have married on your own, ever? Marriage is a concept, am I right? You understand what a concept is? Marriage is a product of thought, that’s a concept. We said, “Let there be an institution like this, this, this and so, there will be marriage. Now, this concept for you is a borrowed concept or is it not? Or did you originally think of it? How many of you are originators of the concept of marriage? Please, tell me. Nobody. You were told that something like this exists, and because you do not know whether an alternative is possible, so you simply accepted what is going on. You said, “Fine, we, too, will do the same thing.”
So, whatever the Mehendi thing is, it is continuing since ten generations, so the eleventh one is repeating it. What is the logic? The ten generations are the logic. Is there some logic? Yes, there is great logic. The logic is called Dadi Ma (grandmother). She did that, so I too am repeating that. That is the logic. There is no other logic.
Can you dare to be original? For that, you will have to go within yourself, for that you will have to ask yourself, “Who I really am and what is that I need in life?” This is not a question for cowards to ask. Those of you who have decided to live small and confined lives will not dare to ask this question. They will simply turn their faces away. The opportunity, the challenge I am throwing at you is only for the brave-hearted. “Who am I and therefore, how must I live?” And that’s the most important question a youngster should ask. Nothing more important than that, believe me. Don’t believe me, test it out for yourself.
“Who am I? Who am I? What is it that appeals to me and why? What are my desires, where do they come from? What am I looking for really? If I am looking for fulfilment, what is it that will fulfil me? I have already set some targets for myself, how exactly did I choose those targets? What is the process? How did I happen to be attached to that particular goal?” Ask yourself. How many of you have already thought of a few things regarding your future?—"This is the kind of job I need. This is the kind of house I need. That’s the country I would want to settle in. That’s the kind of degree I want to pursue next. That’s the kind of partner I want to have. How many of you thought of it?
Very important that you ask yourself where your goals and desires are coming from. You need to ask yourself, “Are these goals mine, or are they coming from Dadi Ma .” Very likely, your goals are not yours, they have been handed over to you by Dadi Ma . And, when I say, *“Dadi Ma,*” that’s the euphemism for the entire flow of history.
Your goals are not yours just as when a servant is sent out to fetch something from the market. The servant has a goal indeed, right? There is your servant and you send him out on an errand, you say, “Fetch me some salt, some sugar from the market.” The servant, indeed, does have a goal but is that goal the servant’s goal, his own goal? No, even if he successfully manages to fetch salt from the market, what has the servant achieved? Whose achievement it is, if at all? Whose achievement is it? The master’s.
Similarly, you have to ask yourself, “Are your goals really your own? Are your thoughts really your own? Are your emotions really your own or have you copied them from the movies, from the society, from literature, from family, from influences? Where are your emotions coming from? Where is your hairstyle coming from? Where is your language coming from? Where are your goals coming from? Where is your entire existence, your whole personality coming from?” Tough questions to ask or exciting questions to ask? Both. If it is not tough how can it be exciting? Right? I invite you to ask these questions. “How am I looking forward to such and such future? How come something or somebody has become so important to me? How come I say an obvious ‘Yes’ to something, and to the other things I say, ‘No.’ Why?”
“Common sense. What is this common sense I have inherited? From where is my common sense coming? And is this really common sense?” What is commonsensical to the Indian might be unacceptable to the American. What is obvious to the Hindu might be totally unacceptable to the Muslim. So, what is this common sense? What is this ‘obviously’? And, so many of us use this, right? ‘Obviously.’ What is this ‘obviously’? Is it not possible that all these are just indicators of deep inner conditioning? And if you are conditioned, how can you be free?
asking the audience Not right? Not happy? Too silent. Or am I being too much, too fast, too loud? I know I have only an hour or something with you and we have gathered here because we want to reach and rise. So, allow me to some liberties, would you?
Audience: Yes in unison .
AP: Thank you so much. I’m not against Mehendi, but you need to individually, originally figure out whether it has some symbolic meaning. If you are doing it just as a computer program would do it, a machine would do it, or a slave would do it, it’s not good or is it? It’s not good because a machine or a program or a slave can neither have freedom nor joy. How many of us want lives that have neither freedom nor joy? Can a machine have joy? Can a slave have freedom?
Audience: No.
AP: Yes, so we need to be original. We need to be really ourselves. We need to go beyond our conditioning. We need to ask ourselves whether we are operating from our wisdom, our intelligence or are we operating from the influences and conditioning and history. Is it an important question to ask? Is it or is it not? It is. Right. It surely is.
