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प्यार भी पहला नहीं, हार भी पहली नहीं || आचार्य प्रशांत, वेदांत पर (2021)
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4 years ago
Maya
Impersonality
Suffering
Ego
Liberation (Mukti)
Detachment
Kabir Saheb
Cycle of Birth and Death
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that feelings like jealousy and pain are not unique to any individual. One is not the first to experience these emotions. This is simply the nature of existence, the play of 'Maya' (the phenomenal world), which operates by its own rules. Objecting to or protesting against this reality is futile and will not bring any benefit. When such feelings arise, one should simply acknowledge that this is how things are. He emphasizes that these events are not personal. They have happened to countless generations before and will continue to happen to generations to come. He states, "I am not the first to be born, nor the first to die. I am not the first to fall in love, nor the first whose heart is broken." These experiences are an inherent part of being in a body; they are bound to happen. It is an old, recurring game, not a new wound. The wise have described liberation ('Mukti') as escaping the cycle of coming and going, meaning one does not have to return to this repetitive cycle. There is nothing to be gained by repeatedly participating in the same old drama of desires, bickering, profit, and loss. The ego's greatest deception is to make one feel that these impersonal, universal phenomena are happening personally to them. You are separate from all these happenings, yet you enter this "stranger's house" (the world of Maya) and take everything personally. If the house is abusive by nature, you will hear abuses, but they are not directed at you. You cannot reform the house, nor is it yours. The only solution is to exit the house. As Kabir Saheb said, "Do not live here, this is a foreign land."