Swami Vivekananda, and Gita || Acharya Prashant

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 23.01.23, DTU, Delhi  Context: ~ On Subhas Chandra Bose Jayanti  ~ What does Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose have in common? ~ How can youth be brought closer to Gita? ~ What is the importance of the Bhagavad Gita? ~ Was Subhas Chandra Bose spiritual?  ~ Was Bhagat Singh an atheist?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Pranam Acharji, my name is Ashank, I am a alumnus of this college, currently studying

00:05 in IIT Delhi. Sir, today is Subhash Chandra Bose's janti and as we know that like at

00:12 the young age of 15 only he read the biography of Swami Vivekananda and subsequently he read

00:19 the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and the Upanishads also and this is like not known

00:28 mostly about this part of his life is not known apart from being a revolutionary and

00:35 we also know that Bhagavad Gita was like the teachings of Bhagavad Gita was really inspirational

00:43 for him and has a special impact on his life. So, sir my question is like how the youth

00:49 of today can be brought closer to the scriptures so that we can have more revolutionary like

00:56 him with having deeper understanding of life. See, there is no revolution possible without

01:03 the Gita. We have lot of self-declared, self-appointed micro rebels these days. Everybody wants to

01:19 be seen as fire brand rebel in his own right. But there is no revolution possible without

01:26 the Gita and when I say Gita I do not mean a particular book, a particular scripture.

01:34 By Gita I mean a particular class of wisdom literature. So, to me the Upanishads are Gita

01:47 and anyway even if you just say Gita there are at least two dozen Gitas that I would

01:54 have spoken on and most of them are truly remarkable. So, when I say Gita that would

02:05 also mean let's say the words of Ramana Maharshi or the discourses of Jiddu Krishnamurti.

02:15 There is no revolution possible without the Gita. Do you know what I mean by the Gita?

02:22 Something that uplifts your consciousness that is Chetana from its prakritic slavery

02:37 to liberation. Please pay attention, this is very important. I am glad this question

02:44 came up. Your default condition at birth and in life is one of slavery. We do not realize

02:51 that. In fact, it took the West very long to realize that otherwise the West would have

03:06 said that man is born free but is found in chains everywhere. Who was that who said this?

03:13 No, Lord Dickens. So, no we are not born free. Birth itself is slavery. Birth itself is bondage.

03:29 Have you seen a stillborn baby? Does it have any knowledge, any realization? Is it independent

03:36 of its body? Is it free of fear, of temptation? Can it control its impulses? So, when you

03:53 are born, you are already a slave. In the moment of conception itself in the mother's

04:00 womb, it is slavery that is conceived. So, liberation has to be attained and because

04:08 that slavery is so fundamental to this body, therefore a great revolution is needed and

04:16 that revolution can come only from the Gita. By implication, if there is no Gita in your

04:23 education, you are condemning yourself to lifelong slavery. How exciting! And that is

04:32 the reason why even those who are not remembered particularly for their spiritual inclination,

04:45 people like Subhash Chandra Bose, even they founded their core on Gita. When you think

04:52 of the armed revolutionaries, Rajguru, Sukhdev, even Bhagat Singh, you do not think of them

05:11 as particularly spiritual people. You think of them as young, dashing firebrands with

05:18 guns in their hand. What is not shown to you is that they also had the Gita in their hand.

05:37 And some part of that propaganda has been deliberate. For example, we are told that

05:44 Bhagat Singh was a diehard atheist and the title of one of his books is often quoted.

05:51 But if you really go into his life, oh very short lifespan he had, 22-23 years, you will

05:58 find he was a voracious reader and he had a great love for spiritual scriptures as well.

06:07 There is no revolution possible without the Gita. And if you are someone who thinks of

06:14 the Gita as something old-fashioned and this and that, I won't even wish luck to you.

06:23 No point wishing luck to you. Luck cannot save you. Finished. Game up. It is therefore

06:35 very important to read on your own of the people in the world who have contributed in

06:42 remarkable ways. Those people can be counted on fingertips but they are the ones who have

06:55 made life worth living. And if you go into the details of their lives, you will invariably

07:04 find very strong spiritual imprints. It is impossible to be a great person in any field

07:11 without being spiritual. And being spiritual is not about confirming to the images of spirituality.

07:21 Wearing particular colors, following traditions or superstitions or rituals, no no no. Spirituality

07:30 is none of that. Spirituality is simply what our friend here referred to. An opening up

07:37 of the mind, an awakening of consciousness. There is nothing esoteric, nothing mystical

07:45 in it. What we are having here is a spiritual process. It is much the same as any other

07:54 classroom lecture. There can be a textbook and there can be a syllabus. And this field

08:01 deserves that. It is called education of the self. Knowing what your mind is like. It is

08:09 close to psychology. It incorporates elements of neuroscience as well. But it is not a spiritual

08:22 field. But it has one thing that sciences do not want to touch. The urge of the ego

08:29 for liberation. Therefore, spirituality includes love. Love of the highest order. The love

08:39 of the ego for its liberated self, for its liberated state. That is not a state but still.

08:52 Are you getting it? If you are somebody who wants to really be big in life, then you must

08:59 realize that bigness is the prerogative of what the Upanishads call as Atma. Atma Anant

09:07 Asim. Not just big but infinite, limitless, boundaryless. Bigness means nothing. It is

09:19 just a matter of having a bigger boundary. Bigness has a meaning only when bigness means

09:26 infinity. And everything about your body, your mind, your thoughts and material universe

09:47 is simply finite. Therefore, bigness lies in being untouched from that which is small

09:54 meaning finite. Can I just see that the hunger within me is not going to be satiated by anything

10:03 that is limited? So why waste my time running after these small things? Because I have already

10:17 had enough of a run. 5 years or 10 years of experimentation is sufficient. Even 2 years

10:24 suffices. And I have seen, irrespective of how much I have of what this, this, this has

10:32 to offer, there is an internal clamor for more. The world outside is innumerable. The

10:41 world outside is innumerable. It can be put in numbers. Is there ever a number that is

10:48 final? You can always add one more zero. And you just have 10% of what you had. Are you

10:58 getting it? 10% is not something you can ever be satisfied with. And you were reduced to

11:08 10% just by addition of a zero to what you have. Therefore, the limited world is never

11:15 going to satisfy you. And you deserve to be satisfied. You are not born to suffer. You

11:23 are not born to remain restless. You are not born to keep feeling like a slave. Do you

11:35 see how, when you talk of S. E. Bose, his quest for independence was actually a manifestation

11:42 of his inner quest for liberation. Externally, politically, what was independence from British

12:02 yoke was internally, spiritually, liberation from the default condition of prakriti-gat

12:09 slavery. Internally, I want to be liberated. And the result of that internal fire is my

12:26 external action. Do you see this? If you cannot have that internal fire within, your external

12:33 action will just be lukewarm. There will be no fire, no dynamite in it. You will be always

12:51 afraid of death. What kind of revolution can you do if it's the body that's always at the

12:57 top of your mind? You require a Gita to tell you that this is perishable and would anyway

13:04 go. Don't be too bothered about this. This is just a resource to be used. This is not

13:17 a master to be served. You remain in that which remains whether this remains or not.

13:24 You require a Gita to remind you that there is something that never gets destroyed because

13:36 it never gets created. And therefore, there is no need to be afraid. It is not a master

13:45 to be served. It sounds so melodious when somebody says spontaneously, "Na hanyate

13:52 hanyamane sharire". Let the body fall if it has to. I'll do what I have to. You see, it's

14:00 not just about facing bullets. It's also about facing rejection and poverty and what not.

14:08 Let's say you want to start something great as a business venture. What stops you? I'll

14:15 tell you. What stops you is the fear of failure. And if you go into this fear of failure, you

14:21 will ultimately find that it is the body that you are afraid of. What will happen to this

14:25 body? What if I am pushed to the streets? What if there is no shelter over the head?

14:32 So ultimately the war is against the body. Therefore, it is the body that you must put

14:39 in its place. Come on. When it comes to the body, we were just discussing yesterday or

14:46 day before in the Gita session. When it comes to the body, the Gita says, "Titikshasu".

14:59 No point raising a big hue and cry. Tolerate. And when it comes to the right action, the

15:06 Gita says, "Yudhyasu". Fight. Your job is to fight. And in the process of fighting, be

15:18 a what you have to. Now do you see the metal that a boss is made of? Tolerate and fight.

15:25 And you cannot say that if you are far removed from the Gita. I said I won't even wish you

15:32 luck if the Gita is not the core of your life. And when I said Gita, I hope I made it clear

15:45 that by Gita I mean wisdom literature that pulls you up, that opens up the knots within.

15:55 It could be the Srimad Bhagavad Gita or any other book.

16:02 [Music]

16:10 [End]

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