Why Should Someone Study Philosophy?
Questioner: Hi sir, I would like to relate my question which I have experienced since my childhood: that our teachers, parents want our prime focus to be on academics. We are taught that scoring good in subjects like Maths, Physics, and other subjects is like the path to success, and reading non-academic books is just a way to kill time.
So, my question is not to choose one over the other but to understand the philosophical relation between these two: like why should someone study topics which are not related to academics? Why should someone study philosophy? To follow up with my question, I would like to highlight a quote which I came across while reading your book: Truth Without Apology, “The defining characteristic of real education is that it liberates you from within.”
So, what does real education mean? What do you really mean by “Liberating you from within?”
Acharya Prashant: “Why should one study philosophy?” This in itself is a philosophical question. This is why you should study philosophy, because you already have this question. Philosophy is your affection for the Truth, your leaning towards the Truth. That’s the etymology. Your regard or your love for the Truth. That is called philosophy. That’s where the word philosophy comes from.
Don’t you want to know the Truth? How many of you are happy with lies?
By the way, the cover page there reads, “For those tired of sweet lies.” How many of you are happy with lies? Nobody, right? So, it is this love for truth that we all innately have; that’s called philosophy.
Philosophy is not about frameworks and systems and thick books. Philosophy is this basic question: “Why should I carry such friends?”
You want to know the Truth, right? “Is this fellow even a friend?” This is a philosophical question in the broadest sense. “What should I do after my B.Tech?” Again, broadly speaking, this question belongs to philosophy.
Philosophy is not just about Marx and Kant and Schopenhauer. No. Getting it? And that’s the reason your parents very wisely advised you to read stuff beyond your school or college curricula. I wish we had more parents advising the same thing to their kids, because education as we have it today tells you a lot about all these things (pointing towards the outside), and does a very good job at telling you of all these things: the bridge, the ocean, the space, the car, the computer. Yes, we have done well there.
But there is no subject, no course called “I” or “Self.” Or is there one? It wasn’t offered to me at least. Is your institution offering one? It should. All institutions, not just colleges, even schools, should have a course called “Self 101,” because you are reading science, you are not science. You are doing technology, but you are not technology.
Shouldn’t you know about yourself first?
You are taught history, are you historical? You know what happened in the past, but you don’t know who you are? How wise is that? Right? You are taught how airplanes work, but you don’t know how you work. Do you know how your mind works? You don’t know that, right?
If I ask you: why do you desire such a thing? You won’t be able to tell because you don’t know your inner mechanics. And that’s what the formal education system lacks in; education of the self. And because the formal education system does not provide that, hence that has to be done at home in an informal way, or the student has to be curious enough to take it up on her own. I did that.
Use the internet. Now you have AI, use AI, be self-educated. You require both these things; knowledge of how the world functions, how politics functions, how economics functions, right? What’s there in your constitution? Yes, you must know that. You must know why, for example, the lizard doesn’t drop off from the wall. You must know that, yes.
But you must also know why you feel like showing off, why you feel disappointed when somebody doesn’t praise you. You must also know these things. These are very important questions, are they not? Are you not important? If you are important, then education of the self is important. Getting it? And if you don’t have education of the self, then you’ll be a very educated person when it comes to all this (pointing towards the outside), but very, very illiterate within.
And what happens when an illiterate one gets to wield a lot of technology and a lot of power? What happens?
If you are uneducated within, if you don’t know what darkness pervades your insides, but you have a lot of power: economic power, technological power, military power, all those things you have, then you just finish off the earth itself, as we are doing today. The horrible spectre of climate change and nuclear conflict.
We have great technology out there and great darkness in here (pointing towards the inside). And this darkness is commanding that technology, that power, that everything.
Questioner: You were talking about education of the self. So my question is basically: if it is natural to have individualistic freedom, which I believe it is natural to want individualistic freedom, then Occam’s razor, why is it so difficult to get there? Why isn’t it the path of least resistance?
And how do we, I don’t think it’s right to accuse anybody of not understanding this because it’s difficult. It takes time, and there is complete oversaturation, not only in the media but well, like, this counts as a self-help book. It’s going to help you, but it also confuses people because the media is oversaturated. Not even the media, even our mentors, educators, even institutions; it’s just a confusing mess. How do you see through this oversaturation?
That was a long question. Yes.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, I’m just wondering where to pick the thread from. See, first of all, a few things. This is not individualistic freedom because the moment you call it individualistic freedom, you are framing it as individualistic freedom as opposed to social responsibility. That’s not a description; that’s an accusation. This is not individualistic freedom. And this is not freedom that liberates you of responsibility. In fact, freedom for the first time puts the right responsibility upon you.
If you’re not free within, how can you be of use to anybody? Please tell me. If you’re not free within, can you really be of use to anybody? So, it’s not that kind of paradigm, individually free but socially irresponsible. No, that’s not what we are saying.
Secondly, you said, “It is not that easy to understand.” Is it really not that easy to understand? I mean, as I have been speaking, have I been going overhead? Have I been incomprehensible?
Questioner: It’s difficult to implement.
Acharya Prashant: Implementation, you just don’t need to worry about it. Right now, you are imagining the obstacles in the way of implementation. Don’t do that. Implementation happens on its own.
What you have to be courageous about is understanding, not implementing. This is a cliché.
We say, yes, I understand. But when it comes to implementing it, then I falter. No, no. If you can’t implement it, please admit that you have not even understood it. Understanding leads to spontaneous implementation. You don’t then have to say, “Understood, but how to implement?”
Understanding is something as clear as seeing a fly in coconut water. Now, will you say, I have seen it, but how do I implement it? I’ll still drink it? Once you have seen it with clarity, the right action will follow on its own. You don’t have to worry about implementation. But often we impede, block seeing itself with imagined fears of implementation.
This is your time to understand, just understand. But you will block the incipient understanding by saying, even if I understand, I won’t be able to implement; because I’m afraid. Now, implementation won’t happen, but not because implementation was difficult, but because you didn’t understand. Yes, implementation will definitely not happen, nothing will be implemented, but the reason is misplaced. You are attributing the lack of implementation to the difficulty of implementation. No, there is no difficulty there.
The problem is that when it comes to understanding, fear takes over. Listening stops. All kinds of rubbish arguments spring up to defend falseness. That’s where you lose it. Just without care, without concern, without worrying, imagining the future, acknowledge facts as they are.
But that’s not the way our machinery operates. What do we do? We say, yes, this is there to be acknowledged, but in advance I want to first guess what will happen in the future if I acknowledge. So, before acknowledging it, you bypass the table. The fact is there on the table to be acknowledged, but before acknowledging it, you will leapfrog to the future and want to be assured that if you acknowledge it, you won’t be harmed in the future.
And when you go to the future, there is just imagination, and the imagination will tell you, you will be greatly harmed if you acknowledge this fact. So, you come back and say, no, I’ll not acknowledge it because I just referred to the future, and the future told me, if you acknowledge this, then there will be harm. So, I’m not going to acknowledge this.
And if you don’t acknowledge this, then obviously the future will be harmed, because this is the fact, no one can live without them. And when the future will be harmed, you will say, see, my assumption has been verified. I knew it was going to be difficult, and it proved to be difficult. Yes, it did prove difficult, but for an altogether opposite reason. Getting it?
This is something you can be totally convinced of only when you start taking baby steps. Start daring into the unknown, and you will see that no big harm comes your way. Yes, there will be small inconveniences, but you are strong enough to handle them. Don’t worry.
Questioner: Yes, it is possible to understand, it is possible to implement, and that is what I’m saying, it is possible. But often the issue arises when you’re starting to understand.
Acharya Prashant: you’re understanding right now, is there a difficulty now?
Questioner: Now I don’t, because I understand it. But when I was understanding it, it was difficult.
Acharya Prashant: Even as we move through this conversation, is there a difficulty in acknowledging what is obviously the fact? There’s no difficulty, and that’s all that you need to do.
Just submit to what is real, and there’s no difficulty there because it is real. Nothing more is asked of you. As you move through life, just keep surrendering to what is real and don’t worry about the rest.
Listener: So, can we escape this conditioning just by doing?
Acharya Prashant: You don’t have to do anything. Doing, real doing, happens a lot on its own. Real doing is such a powerful thing. You’ll be helpless before it. Real doing will just happen like an explosion. You won’t be able to stop it.
The problem is not the doing; the problem is understanding.
Understand, and then you’ll be helpless in front of your own understanding. Your understanding will become the master. It will command your life. Your actions will become super smooth.
