You Are Recycled, Not Young
Questioner: Good evening, sir. Good evening, everyone. So the question is: in a world full of distractions and constant comparison, how can a young person discover what truly matters and stay rooted in inner clarity?
Acharya Prashant: See, nobody starts from a clean slate. What’s your name, please?
Questioner: Kasturai Chaudhary.
Acharya Prashant: Right. Nobody starts from zero. When you say, “How does a young person discover what to do when there is so much noise, clutter, and confusion?” Please reread the statement.
Questioner: In a world full of distraction.
Acharya Prashant: And distraction and comparison.
Questioner: How can a young person discover what truly matters?
Acharya Prashant: And stay?
Questioner: Rooted in inner clarity.
Acharya Prashant: Rooted in inner clarity. But I do not start from zero. I start from somewhere, right? When you say “young person,” it seems as if you are referring to someone who is just starting out. But that’s not true. You might be young, yes, you are young, but are you at zero? Psychologically, do you have a clean slate? I’m asking you. Did you have a clean slate even when you were five?
Let’s say you’re twenty-five today. Even at five, did you have a clean slate? No one starts from a clean slate. So do not ask, “How do I proceed forward from here?” The first thing is to ask, “How did I come here? Where am I standing?”
We are very interested in knowing the way ahead, but we are not interested in questioning our coordinates. We say, “No, this is where I stand, and I’m a young person, and I have a life to live, and there are these fourteen paths forking out. Sir, how do I choose?”
First of all, do you need to stand where you do? First of all, do you need to own these coordinates and operate from there? I’m asking you. Maybe the way is not ahead but in.
Maybe you don’t need to ask what more to write on the slate. You first need to wipe the slate clean, and then a new story may emerge on its own.
We do not know.
Confusing? No.
We don’t have a clean mind. Yes, you are young, granted, but you are already very cluttered. The world does not allow the child to remain a child. The child is filled up with old nonsense, and so the child becomes old very quickly. Yes, physically he remains a child; she remains a child. Yes, physically you are young, but psychologically you might be very old, an eighty-year-old grandmother, because the grandmother is sitting here (pointing towards the head).
Tell me, is there anything in life that you aspire for and that was not aspired for by your grandmother as well? Fundamentally, you want security, do you? I don’t know. You don’t want any security? You want to be liked, you want to be appreciated, want some money. Anything here that the grandmother was not wanting? Want a good house? Anything here that the grandmother was not wanting? Share many of your beliefs with your grandmother, about the world, God, religion. Chances are, the same religious line, the same caste, all those things.
So are you young? Where is youth?
The child is born, and the grandmother enters her within two months or five years. The face remains young; the psyche becomes old. All the old beliefs, opinions, prejudices very quickly get transferred, no, not transferred, implanted. Implanted without consent. This is a violation. Penetration without consent. You were never asked, but all those things were drilled into your mind space, and now you’re old. And that’s why this confusion.
Otherwise, life is an open field, and you are educated, you are healthy. The world is yours. Do you see what is happening? We don't need to ask what to do next. We need to ask what has already happened to me.
Do you play Holi? On the Holi day your face, your hair, your entire body is smeared with colors, rang, gulal, even mud, or other kinds of paints. And you come and ask me, what to wear on this? How do I reply?
I would say: you first go clean your face. Don't ask me what more to put on it, because you have already put on so much. You don't need to add to it.
Your mind, just as your face carries all those colors, your mind too has been deeply colored without your consent. Before you ask which dress to put on today, the first thing is to go and have a ruthless scrub. Clear away all this that you are carrying from the past, from influences, from society, from peers, from media, television, the algorithms.
Allow me to get a little personal, would you?
How do you know you must have this kind of haircut, that hairstyle? How do you know?
Questioner: I ask my hair stylist to do it according to my face.
Acharya Prashant: So is your haircut your own? Please tell me, is this hairstyle your own?
So are you young? Are you young?
Okay, another question, deeper. This one behind you has hardly any hair. Why do we rarely find any women having as little hair as this one? If we were to take an average, the length of the ladies here and the gentlemen, I mean, even accounting for baldness, I understand that brings some bias into the data, why is it so that the women, in general, have longer hair? Please tell me.
You are born much the same way as any other kid, as the other sex, and then you are gendered right today so much that you find it inconceivable that there is a woman with very short hair. Whenever you close your eyes, close your eyes and think of your lady love, does she have short hair? Really short hair?
Are you young?
These are centuries-old prejudices. Centuries-old. That's your age, not twenty, but one thousand twenty. How old am I? One thousand and twenty years old. Because I'm carrying all the length of the centuries. That's my age.
Now you know, in spite of getting clean from here, why I choose to keep long hair. This is not a hairstyle. This is a message.
If this is where we stand, this is where all our decisions about the future will come from, right? If we are so full of the past, this past will now become the future. Right or wrong, if everything inside here is coming from the past, this same past will now become the future of this young person.
But she'll continue to claim, “I'm young, and I'm setting out toward a new, fresh life.” There is no newness. There is no freshness. It's just the past recycling and rolling on. Do you call a recycled product as new? How many of you do that? Please tell me. Do you call a recycled product new? No.
Why don't the men color their lips? What's wrong? Lips are much the same, right? Lips are so much like noses. Lip, nose, much the same. Hardly any gender variation. Hardly any gender variation. So you cannot justify by saying, “But we are women, so we have distinct lips.” Lips are the same. Lips are like tongue. Lips are like teeth. Lips are like kidneys. You can have a kidney transplant from a man to a woman. Much the same. Lips are like blood.
The woman can donate blood to a man, much the same. How is it that women have colored lips and men can’t even think of it? For men, it is scandalous. Think of a man here with colored lips and you would say, “Look at.”
Are you young? These lips are so old. So old. These lips are ancient, like the lips of a mummy. Those Egyptian mummies. Think of their lips. We are still carrying those lips. Ancient lips. Mummified lips. And then we say, “Yes, see, look at these lips. They are so welcoming.” No, they’re not welcoming. They’re scary. You look like a mummy.
Is a mummy young? That woman died so many centuries back. All that has been preserved is the young body. She is young only in the body. She died many centuries back, but the body has been preserved the body is young. The woman is not even old, she is no more. She doesn’t exist.
Do we even exist?
That’s what Western philosophers are hinting at, and that’s what is at the core of Indian philosophy. If you are dependent, you are not existent. That’s what is advait, non-duality. Duality is dependence. The one who is dependent is not even existent. If you depend; obviously physically you’ll have to depend, you’re standing on the earth. Yes, physically you are dependent. But psychologically, if you are dependent, you don’t even exist. You don’t even exist. And we are all dependent so much on the past, on trends, on everything outside of us. Are we young?
Youth is the ability to change. Youth is the ability to give birth to the new, think of it as symbolic, not physical. The ability to give birth to the new.
Let’s say this is wood (pointing towards the table). Let’s say this comes from a tree. When the branch is young, green, fresh, and alive, what can it do? Two things. It gives rise to fresh leaves. Secondly, it bends. It bends. It doesn’t follow a fixed course. It doesn’t say, “I have a shape and I stick to it.” Right? That’s what defines youth.
Can you bend this (table)? Can you change course? If you can change course, you are young. Else, you are dead. Dead wood. And dead wood is very useful to others. What do you want to be, alive or useful?
Listener: Alive.
Acharya Prashant: Most of us are very useful, especially in India, and especially Indian women. We are the epitome of sacrifice. No? Very useful, and therefore respectable. Look at her. She has nothing of her own, not even a bank account. Even her life is not her own. It belongs to the family, to the husband, to the kids, to the parents, to the in-laws. She has nothing. And therefore she is to be worshiped like a goddess, because she sacrifices so much.
I’m asking you: do you want to be useful or alive?
Listener: Alive.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah. Then you are young.
The fact is, this (table) can’t even be useful because it is not alive. All it does is obey orders. I place it here, it stays here. I place it here, it stays here. And this too is wood under my feet. Do you want to be the wood under somebody’s feet? Do you want to be randomly placed by others and by circumstances, here or there? Please tell me.
Well, “placed” is a very significant word on campuses. No? This one is placed here. Did it choose to be placed this way? How many of you await placements? Tell me. Yes. Come on.
This one, somebody placed it. It got placed. And now everybody is rejoicing. The parents are so happy, distributing sweets. “My kid got placed.”
Do you want to be placed or alive?
Listener: Alive.
Acharya Prashant: Good. The management is happy now. This one is settled. No? See, can it (a wooden object) move? Leave it here. It will stay here for a century. Leave it here, it will stay here. Do you want to be settled? It’s well settled. And that’s what everybody is asking you: “When would you be settled, girl?”
Do you want to be settled or alive?
Listener: Alive.
Acharya Prashant: Then never be settled. Do you get this?
Don’t ask about the future. First of all, gain freedom from the past. Otherwise, the past becomes the future. All questions about the future are meaningless because we are prisoners to the past.
Somebody in a jail cannot ask about the sky. It’s such an absurd question. You don’t need to ask, “What does the sky look like? What does it feel to fly?” It’s such an absurd thing to ask. What you need is freedom from the jail, not visions and images of the sky.
The past is what captivates you. Question it relentlessly, ruthlessly. Stir things up, and don’t be afraid of dirtying or sullying the waters, because that’s what happens. When you question, then there is confrontation and controversy. Don’t be afraid. Tell them, “Bring it on. Fine. I’m not afraid.” Let there be tension. Something good would come out of it.
Existence proceeds through creative destruction. No? If you do not demolish the existing nonsense, then no fresh goodness can take birth. Therefore, destruction too is important. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t be so sold out to continuity. You know, “This thing has been happening, and how can I now obstruct?”
Do obstruct. Let there be discontinuities. Break away. Break free. Those breaks are needed. And then you don’t have to ask, “What about the future?” Then the future shapes up on its own, very beautifully, without much of your planning and beyond your imagination.
