Without self-awareness, your life is not your life || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Question: Sir, so are you saying that we lack self-awareness when we are not able to decide what is good for us?
Acharya Prashant: Obviously.
Listener 1: So, we lack self-awareness?
AP: Obviously.
L1: Like when in 10th standard, we could not decide whether we have to choose Biology or Maths as optional subject?
AP: Alright. Four of you come on the stage. Come. Come.
(Four listeners walk up to the stage)
AP: (Giving them a string). Hold this at different places. Hold this and face towards the audience. Now, keep pulling this towards yourself.
(Smilingly) Not too strongly, otherwise it will break.
(Everyone laughs)
Now, this is you. (Pointing at the string which is being pulled from different sides)
You have a choice to make. (Pointing at the members holding the string) . One is the uncle. The other one is the mother. This is the father. This is the brother. And this is neighbor, or let us say, teacher (Speaker pointing at himself).
(Telling the members on stage) Keep pulling the string. Now what is happening?
Now, you say, ‘Engineering’. You say, ‘Architecture’. You say, ‘Medicine’. You say, ‘Commerce’. And keep repeating this. (Each one of them starts repeating the assigned word).
Arts (Speaker himself starts repeating).
That is the problem with this. (Holding the string up and showing it to the audience)
It has nothing of its own. No consciousness of its own.
Father is pulling it in one direction. Uncle is pulling in one direction. Teacher is pulling in one direction. Society is pulling in another direction. It does not have anything of its own. We are like this (Holding the string towards the audience). Is it necessary that we should be like this? Is it necessary?
L: No.
AP: We have a mind and an intelligence of our own. We have an intelligence of our own. Why should we be dependent on others, to pull us towards one particular direction? Why should we be dependent on others?
You want to spend life like this? (Pulling the string in different directions)
Ultimately it will be broken. A thousand forces pulling it in a thousand different directions- friends, media, corporations, wife, kids; and it will be broken. You want to live a life like this?
L: No.
AP: Then wake up! Look at life with your own eyes. (Swinging the string in the air) Otherwise this is going to be your fate.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
