Why should I understand the mind? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Acharya Prashant

6min

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Why should I understand the mind? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Questioner (Q): What is the need to differentiate between the self and the mind?

Acharya Prashant (AP): I will make it a little easier for you. I will rephrase this question into: What is the need at all to understand the real self? Because only when you go into this process does this distinction come: that the mind may not be the real self and such things.

Ultimately his question is: Why must I know myself? What is the need to go within? What is the need for self-enquiry? I mean, life is going on nicely, pleasantly; there has been no hiccups. I have my set routine, I have my normal spectrum of pleasures and pains, and I am cruising along. What is the need to find all this out? This thing called self, the mechanics of the mind, why must I understand them at all? In other words, why must a course like this be floated at all? Because that is the very objective of this course.

So, it is a beautiful question that you have asked, and we start with this.

Why must I understand this? Because only in the process of understanding this do we come across this distinction: that there is a mind and that mind may not be me.

How many of us, young, free men and women, are interested in leading a life of slavery? Hardly anybody, right? Who is a slave? Whom do we call a slave? A slave is someone who has no free will of his own; his actions happen due to the influence of others. That is a slave, right? Simple.

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Kritajnananda Swami

1y ago

Then you are merely a puppet—merely a puppet who is just enacting a pre-scripted role, whose life is entirely predictable. The beaten path, that is what he is taking. There is no fun in that. There is no energy, no vitality in that. There is no youthfulness in that.

Vibhanshu

2y ago

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