Why are others able to dominate me? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Listener: What to do when an external force tries to stop me?
Speaker: There is one central law of existence, which is, that nothing can really stop you without your consent. Nobody can exercise control over you, nobody can make a slave of you without your own agreement. But we really do not see how we have agreed to the whole thing, how we are a participant in the process of slavery, and we complain that others are holding control over me. The others have no power over you. It’s just that you have traded away your freedom and it’s a question of anybody who ever feels himself under compulsion. We trade away our freedom for a few basic privileges and luxuries.
You want to go that way (pointing towards a direction). Now, somebody is stopping you. What is he doing? Is he physically stopping you? Is he coming and saying that “no you can’t go that way?” Somewhere, you have a particular greed that he satisfies. Somewhere, you are getting a few luxuries and privileges from that person. That person could be parents, a teacher or anybody in the world and you are afraid of losing those privileges. That is why you allow that person to have control over you. I will not say that your freedom is being snatched away. A better expression would be, ‘you are trading away your freedom.’ You are not being robbed of your freedom, you are trading it away in order to get some goodies, a little bit of security, some food, shelter, conveniences, respectability. Once the mind sees that what you are giving away, your freedom, is far more valuable than what you are getting. What you are giving away is worth a trillion rupees and what you are getting is worth just ten rupees, then you will stop making this transaction, then this trade will no longer happen because you will see that this is a highly unprofitable trade.
Right now you are not valuing your freedom, your intelligence properly. You are thinking that your freedom is only worth five rupees .So, I am getting material worth ten rupees; let me give away my freedom. When you go close to it, you will find that your freedom is not worth just rupees five, your freedom is priceless. Once a young man like you discovers that freedom is priceless then he will not give up his freedom whatever be the cost, whatever be the temptation. He will say, ‘My freedom is priceless, I cannot trade it away. You might be offering me something wonderful but, it cannot be more valuable than my freedom. So, I will not give up my
