Why must I study the HIDP? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Question: What is the use of the course on Life-Education for B.Tech. student?
Speaker: Very good! What’s your name?
Listener 1: Sir, Kirtan.
Speaker: Kirtan is asking, ‘As a B. Tech. student why do I need this course on life-education?’ Kirtan, you have been undergoing a process of education since many years from now, more than a decade. Right? What is that your education has brought to you? It has brought you the languages, it has brought you social systems, History, it has brought to you the knowledge of Geography and the Sciences, Mathematics, World economics, little bit of Psychology. And now your education is bringing you knowledge about Systems and Technology. Right? That is what is happening. That’s the fact. Is that so?
But Kirtan, are you the languages? Are you English and Hindi? Are you the rivers and the mountains that you studied in Geography? Are you the wars that the kings fought? Are you the events that have happened in the course of History? Are you the theorems that you studied in Mathematics? Are you the laws of Physics? Are you the machines you study as a technologist? All of these are merely objects. All of these are merely objects that you perceive. Am I right Kirtan? Are we together? All of these are merely the objects that Kirtan perceives.
Education worldwide has been very proficient in bringing you the knowledge of objects. But Kirtan, are you not more important than any object that you study? Is Kirtan more important, or the machine that Kirtan studies? Is Kirtan more important or the hills, the glacier that Kirtan looks at?
But your education has never bothered you to introduce yourself. It has brought to you the knowledge of everything, all objects, it is extremely object- centric. Look at this, look at that! But never look at yourself! Never look at your own mind. Never understand your own processing and conditioning. Because the ones who have set the education system, themselves are object-centric. They think that everything that is of consequence and everything that is of importance, is outside of you. And because they think in this manner, they have designed an education system which is always looking here and there. ‘Look at the wall, look at the camera, look at the lights, look at the plants, but never look at yourself’! That’s the taboo. Never ask the question, ‘Who am I?’
Who is the one who is looking at all of these? And how is he looking and what is he feeling? And why must he look at this and not that? Why must he study this and not that? Why must he make such and such decisions?
That is the question that will never be asked. your education never brings you to yourself. And that is more than a short coming. That to me is a criminal lapse in education. It is a criminal lapse in education to not to look at ones’ own self. That is the first thing that must be studied. But that is never studied. So what do we have around us? We have great progress in technology, but greatly retarded minds.We have sophisticated machines, and somnolent people; Smart phones and stupid minds. Guided missiles and unguided men. That’s what your education does. I have been saying this to my audiences since years from now and I will repeat ” all your education kept on one side and self clarity kept on the other side, the self clarity will be more valuable than the rest of your education put together”. Because you are more important than anything else. Aren’t you?
Aren’t you important? You are living one precious life and that is more important than anything else. But who will talk about that? You are looking at the pendulum all the time, its time, its length, acceleration due to gravity, and who will talk about the mind who is looking at pendulum? My eyes are weeping while looking at the pendulum. Who will talk about my eyes, my heart aches. My mind is trembling in fear. Who will talk about that? Who will talk about that? And who will talk about love and freedom? Or am I a machine? Or even if I am a machine, who is the knower of that machine? Who will talk about that? Have a life to live! Please! This education that has been traditionally given to us is highly insufficient. It is a criminal lapse. Where is love in all these? Where is love? Or have you left it to the movie makers to tell you about love? And who will tell you what is freedom and what is silence? Does our attention ever go to that? We are missing out on life itself. Life is not theorem in Mathematics. It is not a principle of Physics. It is not a chemical reaction. Is that not so? But who bothers to inquire into all that? We do and we must. Shouldn’t we?
You said that you are a B.Tech. student. Don’t you take decisions daily, Kirtan? From where are those decisions coming? Have you tried to inquire? You would be making career decisions? You make decisions regarding choosing a particular course. Every moment of life is a decision in someway or the other. Do we even know what is the basis of our decisions? We want to calculate the efficiency of a cooling system, we calculate that to five decimal places. That precision. But we do not know that where our decisions are coming from. Great intelligence! You know everything about the engine of the bike that you ride; but you do not know anything about the rider. Great intelligence! You know everything about the road that you travel but you do not know why you want to reach a particular place. Why you want a particular kind of job? Why you want a particular future, you don’t even know! What is meant by future?
You may be a B.Tech. student but before you are a B. Tech. student, are not you a human being? Or are you just a B. Tech. student? Declare that I am no more a human being, I am only a B. Tech. student! No more a human being! Who am I? I am an engineer who has been shredded of all his humanity! You eat, you sleep, you breathe, you think you vote, and you do that even when you are in the process of your technical studies. You are doing that all the time. ‘Whether or not to attend a session,whom to be with, which course to choose, which assignment to write’, do you even know from where all this comes? Whom to be friends with?
The subject is more important than the object. You are the real subject. Not Mathematics, not Engineering, not Fluid Mechanics, not Complex numbers. You are the real subject. And that deserves to be studied first of all.
Alright!
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
