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बड़ा मकान और महँगी शादी || आचार्य प्रशांत
1.3M views
2 years ago
Financial Slavery
Social Conditioning
Materialism
Fear of the Future
Marriage
Spirituality
Maya
Simple Living
Description

Acharya Prashant responds to a questioner whose parents warn her that she will regret her current lifestyle when she is old, around 60. He humorously suggests that if one has to regret after 60, they might as well enjoy the next 30 years and then die at 60. He questions why one should ruin their entire life and youth worrying about what might happen after 60. He clarifies that he is not against marriage but against improper and worthless kinds of marriages. He explains that people get trapped by the unnecessary burdens they take on. The main traps are the desire to buy a very large house, which leads to a lifetime of paying installments, and the compulsion to display luxury during the wedding and in married life. He states that you get stuck when you want to buy a house worth crores, and you spend your whole life paying its installments. For that, you need immense money. You also get stuck in marriages where it is mandatory to display luxury. Acharya Prashant argues that one's standard of living can be managed with half of what one earns if these major expenses are avoided. He says that spirituality, in a way, is the name for avoiding these major expenses. He gives an example of his IIT/IIM batchmates whose average annual salary is 2-3 crore rupees, yet many of them do not have enough money due to their huge expenses. He points out that people have considered certain expenses mandatory when they are not, such as extravagant weddings, large houses, and expensive cars, often influenced by films and society. He says people have considered expenses as mandatory which are not at all mandatory. He challenges the fear of financial insecurity, stating that an educated person with work experience will not starve. The real problem is the manufactured need for money for non-essential things. He contrasts the joy of riding a Bullet motorcycle in the mountains with the supposed comfort of an expensive SUV. He deconstructs the cycle of needing a big house for a lot of stuff and accumulating a lot of stuff because of the big house. He questions the societal pressure to have large families, which then creates the very financial slavery people complain about. He concludes by calling this illusion 'Maya'—that which is not, but appears to be. There is no real blockage; the problem is the belief in these artificial needs.