That One Great Desire || Acharya Prashant

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 20.01.20, Shastra Kaumudi, Greater Noida, U.P  Context: What is knowledge? What is devotion? Which path is better: Knowledge or devotion?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~ .  #acharyaprashant

Transcript

00:00 Brahm grows by tap. What does that mean?

00:17 The fear relates to desire. Desire is making the impossible happen. The

00:41 impossible cannot happen. So obviously that which is happening is a mirage, a

00:48 chimera. Brahm cannot grow. Brahm cannot take shape. Brahm cannot expand, take forms

01:01 or names, move from one thing into the other, become measurable. Not possible.

01:14 But desire is maya. Maya is making the impossible happen. For whom? We come back

01:26 to our favorite question. For whom? Whom does Brahm grow? For itself? Not at all.

01:40 Brahm has no need, no capacity, no limit, no obligation to look back at itself, to

01:53 reflect at itself. Brahm does not indulge in anything, let alone these kinds of

02:07 fragmentations. But Brahm grows. What does growth mean here? Growth means that the

02:22 formless assumes a form. The complete becomes incomplete. And it's quite

02:41 interesting how the complete turning into incomplete has been referred to as

02:51 growth. But that's what desire is all about. What you actually want is not at

03:15 all beneficial to you. And what you want actually turns you into someone,

03:28 something lesser. But you call it growth. So tap. What does tap mean here? The

03:39 force of desire. The feeling that there is something amiss. That makes the

03:54 imperceptible, complete, formless, intangible Brahm. Assume tangible

04:03 proportions. It all starts from that fundamental desire. That desire is Maya.

04:15 That desire is the most fundamental power inherent in Brahm. So Brahm grows.

04:33 Into something very subtle. And then from that subtle something comes gross

04:51 material, matter, which has been referred to as un. And then from that arise all

05:03 the worlds, the various universes. And then when there is so much spread, so

05:26 much manifestation, then comes the desire to break out of this net, the net

05:41 of mortality. Hence the desire to be immortal. Hence the desire to move into

05:54 formless, complete Brahm again. And that completes the circle. Do you see what is

06:06 happening here? There is just Brahm. Nothing else. And then there is desire.

06:14 For whom? The desirous one. And then there is desire. The desire is initially on

06:24 only in the form of something very subtle. It is not very clearly, sharply

06:31 expressed. You call it just a primitive tendency. Then that tendency starts

06:43 taking shapes. Firstly the shapes are mental and then the shapes are material.

06:51 And ultimately those shapes multiply, diversify, interact with each other and

06:56 turn into the many universes. But all these universes, they are nothing but

07:05 multiple webs of death. So the desirous one caught in these universes then

07:14 struggles to break free of these universes that he himself spawned.

07:22 Remember the previous verse? Like the spider builds the web and then takes the

07:36 web in into itself. Similarly, desire creates worlds and worlds with itself at

07:48 the center and then finding nothing in those worlds, turning utterly

07:57 dissatisfied with the worlds it itself has created, it then aspires to be

08:04 relieved of its worlds. Desire relieved of its own shadows, its own hopes,

08:16 expressions, is back to Brahma. You see how the entire cycle has been explained?

08:33 Your world is with you at the center.

08:48 Brahma is just the substratum. It has been referred to in various ways in

08:58 Vedantic literature. Sometimes it's called the substratum, sometimes the

09:04 background, sometimes the space, the ether in which everything is happening,

09:11 sometimes the watcher, sometimes the progenitor, sometimes the mega controller

09:27 who operates only at the meta level. The idea behind all these expressions has

09:35 one thing in common. Brahma has no interest in any participation at the

09:43 macro level. At the micro level it's your own doing.

09:52 Getting it? It's the play of your own tendencies. Getting it? Your own tendencies make you

10:12 see a problem where there is none. You imagine and then you do a lot to get rid

10:35 of that problem and then obviously to do a lot you create the entire space in

10:49 which a lot of doing can happen. If you want to play a game you cannot just play

11:03 it. You want to play golf or tennis or cricket. You cannot just randomly and

11:18 suddenly initiate the game. If you're a serious player as we all are then you in

11:29 fact require to build an entire stadium. Why? Just because you wanted to play one

11:36 game. That's what desire does. Because it has to do what it has to do therefore it

11:45 has to create an entire universe. That's the reason why our universe exists. So

11:50 that we may do just a few things. Even if you have to play a ten over match you

12:09 need to create an entire infrastructure for it. Our life is that ten over

12:17 match amounting to nothing. Nothing much at all. But what do we do? We build an

12:34 entire...

12:40 Like somebody deciding to fly to a place just 200 kilometers away. The place

12:48 might be just 200 kilometers away but if you have decided to fly then what all do

12:54 you need to build? What do you need to build? Imagine. You actually need to

13:04 launch satellites. You need rockets. You need rockets that go beyond the

13:18 atmosphere of the earth. You would be flying well within the limits of the

13:27 atmosphere. Needless to talk of all the infrastructure that you need to build on

13:34 the ground. The airports and such little things. Just because you wanted to

13:42 experience one flight. So just because we want to live that small happy life of

13:57 60 years with two or four or six of our near ones, the entire cosmos has to exist.

14:11 Entire cosmos. No, it does not exist on its own. It exists because you want a

14:22 nest within it. Your nest necessitates the entire cosmos. So your nest is not

14:35 within the cosmos. The cosmos is within your nest. Poetically you have always

14:43 said that. Have you not? But it turns out that it is true conceptually as well.

14:51 Poetry meets mathematics.

14:56 When you say, you know, my little house is my universe, you are horribly right.

15:15 It's your desire that breeds the universe. Else there is nothing. Else there is

15:33 nothing. So there is desire that gives birth to the worlds and then there is

15:46 desire that gets fed up of the worlds and returns to the pure, the original, the

15:59 immutable. The first kind of desire that brought us where we are. It's not much

16:12 use discussing it now. Because the deed has been done. We do exist today at

16:23 least in our own frame of reference. Right? Evolution has taken place. We

16:33 cannot de-evolve now. What do we do then? We make use of the second kind of desire.

16:47 What is the second kind of desire?

16:51 That will take you back to where you came from.

17:07 Getting it? That's the import of this verse. One has to be very careful. Otherwise it's

17:25 quite easy to be misled by the use of the terms 'tap' and 'an' here. Remember

17:38 that Vedanta has nothing to do with stuff miscellaneous. It talks only of the one.

17:51 And if the one is too difficult to talk of, it talks of two. Truth and the mind.

17:59 And if the listeners clamor too much for detail, then at most it talks of three.

18:13 Truth, the mind and the body. The Rishis were simple people. They loved

18:32 relaxation. They were too wise to indulge in needless details. When the thousand

18:54 are all included in one, how wise is it to talk individually of the thousand?

19:15 Like efficient mathematicians, they referred only to the one. Which one am I

19:24 talking of? Mind. Why refer to the thousand things in the mind? Simply call

19:33 all that as mind stuff. Full stop. Otherwise there is no end. With nothing

19:42 at its center, the mind still has the magical capacity to keep weaving an

19:51 infinite net, innumerable things the mind can breed.

20:08 The wise one says, why talk of all that diversity? Why be so interested in it?

20:17 I know all those things are just one.

20:27 Otherwise one can just be lost in the count. There is no end to diversity. If

20:43 you cannot see the commonness behind stuff, the oneness behind things, then

20:54 you'll be consumed by the count. So they don't talk of too many things. So the

21:03 Rishis have no business talking of food or grain, cereals, mundane things.

21:15 Moment you see such a thing being talked of, you should immediately know that

21:21 something else is being referred to.

21:24 Never deviate from the first principles. Never. All the verses have to be read in

21:42 the light of the first principles. And the first principles have nothing to do

21:49 with food.

22:07 Disputably, the Rishis were fun-loving people, but they had higher sources than

22:19 food to extract fun from. They won't be so particular about 'an', as to give it a

22:38 place of pride adjacent to 'brahm'. In the same verse where you are talking of

22:47 'brahm', if you find 'an' too mentioned, then you should know it's just a pointer

22:55 towards something else. Right? So what does 'an' refer to? Material. Gross

23:07 manifestation. Gross mind. So there is nothing. Then there is just the little

23:21 sensation, that little vibration, the beginning of movement, which is nothing

23:31 but the beginning of deviation from the center, which is nothing but the

23:37 beginning of maya. And then that which is in the beginning, just a little vibration,

23:52 a bit of a spasm, in due course of time explodes into the entire universe, which

24:12 in due course of things sees its own futility and therefore recedes back into

24:21 the source. Getting it? The entire curve is the movement of maya or desire. You

24:39 should know the point you are standing at on that curve. If you know where you

24:54 are, you also know what you ought to do.

24:58 You've already come a long distance, cannot undo the journey, you cannot

25:20 untravel the distance. What do you do then? Complete the cycle. Have the right

25:37 desire that stimulates you into the right action. And therefore the verse

25:46 says, "Satyam lokah karmaso camritam". The right works, the right actions that lead

26:03 you into immortality. That's what you need to do now. Now that you have chosen

26:13 to be in the world of action, you cannot avoid action. Act rightly therefore. Act

26:22 vigorously, act rightly. Would have been wonderful had you not needed to act at

26:31 all, had you not been present at all, had you not taken birth at all. But you are

26:47 born now. Past is irreversible. In our own eyes we exist and we exist as creatures

27:03 of suffering. Therefore what we do? We do justice to this birth. Having chosen to

27:21 be born, now justify your birth. No, but we didn't choose to be born. You see, if you

27:41 know that much, I too know that you know that much. So if I am saying that we have

27:49 chosen to be born, obviously there is something I mean. Kindly try to grasp.

28:01 Our consciousness goes into our self only to a small degree. Your self is like a

28:18 deep well, deep well. And your consciousness is like the light of a

28:29 feeble electric torch that you throw into the well. How deep does the light

28:36 penetrate? And the well is old and deep.

28:45 It's not as if it is a reservoir of clean and clear water. There is all kind of dubious,

29:11 nefarious stuff cluttered within it.

29:17 Primitive spiders have woven webs that your torchlight cannot penetrate. The

29:38 area illuminated by a torchlight is the conscious mind. It is only a small part

29:43 of yourself. Beneath that there is a lot that you do not know of. So your choices

29:52 come from there. You refuse to own those choices because those choices aren't

29:59 conscious choices. Your refusal means very little. They are your choices even

30:10 if they were unconsciously made. So being born is one such choice. And how is it

30:18 possible? When I am not yet born, how do I decide to be born? How is it even

30:26 conceivable that a child decides to be born? Maybe only the body is born. Maybe

30:36 the tendency that decides to take birth exists even before the body. Maybe what

30:43 you are calling as birth is just the physical appearance of the desire. Maybe

30:51 the desire pre-exists its gross appearance. How is it possible? You mean

30:59 that I existed even before my birth? Of course you did. Not in a physical way.

31:07 Not in a physical way, but you did exist. And I'm not talking of the Atman here. I'm

31:13 talking of that primitive tendency that pervades all existence. The tendency

31:19 which keeps taking birth again and again in the form of every new child. The

31:29 tendency decided to take birth, right? That tendency is you. So you decided to

31:34 take birth. Now, fine. Having decided to be born, now make good use of whatever is

31:52 available to you. To put it realistically, let's make the best use of a bad situation.

32:07 Where we may decide to entertain ourselves by thinking that it's great to

32:20 have taken birth and we are here to really have a good time. It's like being

32:28 invited to a party or something. No one is born on a Saturday night.

32:39 Unfortunately, it's not quite that way and we know that. Yeah. The first step in

32:50 spirituality is to honestly acknowledge that it's not quite the great situation

32:55 we keep telling ourselves it is. So let's make the best of a bad place, right?

33:07 Which is that you are condemned to desire, at least desire rightly. You

33:15 cannot not desire. You cannot not act. You cannot not want. The best is to obviously

33:25 be in a situation where you don't need to want, but you need to want. You need to

33:34 want. You need to be attracted. You need to beg. You need to practice. You need to

33:43 work. You need to love.

33:49 Desire rightly, act rightly, think rightly, work rightly, love rightly. The result of

34:01 the right pursuit that it will be, that you'll come to a point where you will not

34:07 need to work or desire or act or even love.

34:17 [Music]

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