Nothing anyway matters. So why should I not commit suicide? || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 26.08.2023, Sant Sarita, Goa  Context: ~ Why do people commit suicide? ~ What is the end of suffering? ~ Are we actually living? ~ What is the worst that happens when I die?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Pranam Acharya ji. You said that we should only pick bigger and important battles and

00:08 ignore the small battles. But I know somebody who is kind of nihilistic and we can say suicidal

00:13 as well. So he says, I don't want to pick even the bigger battles because even if I

00:19 pick bigger battles, I'll have to go through a very difficult path, the path of truth,

00:24 as we say, it is difficult. And even though I walk on that, there is still a possibility

00:27 that I might not win. And even if I win, there is a lot of trouble. So why not I just commit

00:33 a suicide and my life because in the end, nothing matters. After life, there is no afterlife,

00:38 there is no concept of paappunya. So why can't I just end my life right now? And why should

00:44 I choose to walk the path of truth and knowledge?

00:48 No, this simply means that one does not know the bigger battle. The bigger battle is either

01:01 not known or if it is known, it does not leave you with a choice to not to fight it. If you

01:13 are not fighting the bigger battle, that does not mean that you understand what the bigger

01:19 battle is and are yet choosing not to fight it. If you are not fighting the bigger battle,

01:28 that simply means that you are too obsessed with all the small things in life, so obsessed

01:34 that the big, the great, the immense has remained unknown to you and how can you choose to not

01:44 accept something that is unknown to you? You can accept or reject only the known. The thing,

01:59 the condition with the big is that once it is known, it overpowers you and that's called

02:08 love. So you cannot say I know the great and yet I choose not to move towards it, not to

02:19 be enchanted by it, not to be dedicated to it, that's not possible. If the immense, if

02:31 greatness do not call you, do not appeal to you, appear disinteresting to you, it simply

02:53 means you do not know them, full stop. Truth and love go together. To know the truth is

03:04 to fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love with it. You cannot know the truth and say

03:13 oh I know it but I reject it and you will feel a lot of such people, you will meet a

03:18 lot of such people. Because it pleases the ego to say that I know and it pleases the

03:26 ego to say that it has the power to reject even the truth. Both of these things are quite

03:32 pleasurable. I know the truth, you know, I know the truth and then I am such an authority

03:39 that I can even reject the truth. This is the statement of ego deeply steeped in ignorance.

03:49 Neither do you know the truth nor can you ever reject the truth. Rejection of truth

03:56 is simply an ignorance towards the truth. Truth leaves you choiceless. Truth leaves

04:06 you choiceless and that's the reason the ego is so afraid of the truth. It knows that

04:11 once it has seen, it cannot be unseen. So let me choose never to see it at all. Now

04:18 that's something the ego can possibly do. Wear blinders, wear blinders so that you never

04:30 see the truth. The truth is immense, it cannot be avoided. But to the ego the avoidance is

04:40 possible. How? Wear blinders. Even the thought of suicide, if you will see, with great sympathy

04:58 and compassion towards those who are in that kind of misery, I am saying even the thought

05:06 of suicide is something of the ego. The ego says I am prepared to let the body die then

05:26 be disidentified with the body. Even that is a kind of stubbornness. A greater death

05:43 is when you let the body be and attain your own true self. Let the body be for what it

05:55 is. The body has its own mechanisms, its own dynamic nature, works in a certain way, came

06:08 about and will fall. I will do my own thing. I cannot stop the body and the body cannot

06:21 stop me. I cannot stop the body, can I? I can't. But I find that the body is stopping

06:32 me. So what do I do? I say if I can't stop you, I will kill you. That's not the way to

06:42 stop interference. That's interference doubled, redoubled. Instead of saying I will stop the

06:57 tendency of the ego to be identified with the body, I say I will stop the body itself.

07:06 Why stop the body? That's why the knowers have repeatedly talked of dying before death.

07:15 They call it the great death. They say the death of the body is a very small thing. Happens

07:20 to everybody, to all insects. There is no being here that does not die. So death is

07:29 such an ordinary and very common thing. What is the great thing about dying today? You

07:35 will anyway die tomorrow. You will anyway die tomorrow. So what's the great thing about

07:42 preponing your death in the way of suicide, let's say? The great thing is about dying

07:50 before death. The great death. And if you go into philosophy, yes, over the last century

08:02 that's been one of the more important questions. Why to live at all? Why not commit suicide?

08:09 They don't like when we use the word commit anymore. So they say why not die by suicide?

08:14 So why not die by suicide? And wisdom has the answer. Because if you choose suicide,

08:30 you are giving up on something much higher. You are closing the possibility. What is the

08:44 possibility of living as a Jeevan Mukt? Of living joyfully as the dead one? Who is the

08:52 Jeevan Mukt? Who is the dead one? And in death there is great joy. So when you choose suicide,

09:04 you are closing on yourself the tremendous possibility of that joy. Jeevan Mukt implies

09:15 you are still alive and blissful. Alive and blissful. And if you are no more alive, where

09:23 is the bliss? Where is the bliss? So that potentiality has been forsaken. If you die,

09:37 you probably can claim that you have avoided the misery now. But now you have also closed

09:46 the possibility of joy. What joy is there after death? And those who have known have

09:56 said that it's not a bad deal if you choose the torment of life for the sake of that joy.

10:10 That joy is so immense because it comes from the immense. It comes from that greatness.

10:16 That joy is so immense that it makes all the torment worth it. Know that your problem

10:37 is not life. Had your problem been life, suicide might have been helpful. Your problem is your

10:44 notions about life. Don't drop life, drop the notions. Animals typically don't choose

10:59 suicide. There might have been one odd case and when those cases are there, then they

11:06 make headlines precisely because they are rare, exceptional. So the general rule is

11:11 that animals do not take that option. Why don't they? Because they don't have notions.

11:25 They are creatures of Prakriti. They don't have a future, they don't have expectations.

11:32 They don't say my life should be my way. To them life is as it comes to them. Life is

11:42 as it comes to them. Man lives in his notions and expectations and then a great betrayal

11:52 is experienced. You feel you have been let down by life. You wanted something and life

12:02 has not been up to that. The problem is that which you want is not so big that it will

12:12 enable you to bear all the pain that is caused in the process of attaining it. This is that

12:28 which we usually all of us want. What is it? Name it.

12:35 Liberation. Who wants liberation? Come on. What is it? This is your next black shirt.

12:49 This is your next car, next girlfriend, next race. What else? Whatever. Promotion, foreign

13:02 visit, whatever you want. Yes? Desires. So all the desires. This is that. The thing with

13:12 the world is nothing is served to you on a platter. Nothing comes for free. So if you

13:19 want to have it, what do you need to put in? Effort. If you want pleasure, you will have

13:28 to go through pain. So there is pain involved in coming to this. I am here. There is pain

13:37 involved in coming to this. So I come to this bearing a lot of pain. That pain is on the

13:44 debit side in my ledger. Correct? Debit. Nukshan. This is the cost that I have incurred in trying

13:54 to come to this. And now I come to this. And having come to this, what do I discover? This

14:02 appeared quite lucrative. What do I discover? But what is the nature of this one? It didn't

14:17 deliver what it promised. So let's say the cost that I incurred in coming up to this

14:23 is 100 units. And what do I get from this? Let's say only 10, 20, 50 units, whatever.

14:32 Whereas it had promised 500 units. Now the promise of 500 made me spend the 100. But

14:41 I come to this and how much do I find? The worth is just 20 units. So I have lost out

14:47 on something. But having come here, something else appears here. And this one says 1000.

14:55 So you will recoup all your losses. Now I am already in debt. My debit side is already

15:02 high. And it is saying come to me. Plus 1000. So I expend another 200 in going to this.

15:12 And how much I find on reaching here? Let's say 50 or 80. So my losses accumulate and

15:22 a point comes when it becomes clear that if I pursue the next desire, I will only gather

15:31 more pain. Also I do not see any option except pursuing my desires. So what do I say? I am

15:39 giving up. I am giving up. That's like declaring bankruptcy. Now if you declare bankruptcy,

15:46 obviously all your accumulated losses are offset. Nobody is now going to come to you

15:56 to collect his dues. Equally having declared bankruptcy, where is the possibility of any

16:02 future profits? If you have declared bankruptcy, where is the possibility of future profits?

16:11 Please tell me. No possibility. Right? Because the concern itself is now gone. Just as in

16:18 suicide the body is gone. So this is the corporate body. Declared bankrupt, it's gone. So fine.

16:25 One great thing about this is that now you don't have to pay those you owed some money.

16:32 But also the great potential of profits is now gone. On the other hand there is this.

16:45 This is that which we are actually meant to pursue. The immense that we are talking of.

16:55 The wonderful thing with this is that it delivers many times more than what it promises. Many

17:10 many times more. Equally the cost it extracts is also many times more. So you remember in

17:20 going to this, it promised 500 and the cost you incurred was 100 and it turned out to

17:30 be 20. That was the equation. Here this will promise, let's say, you know, this is another

17:41 goal. It promises, let's say, as much as this one or a little more. It promises 1000. It

17:45 promises 1000. You want to go to this. The cost that you took here was 100. The cost

17:53 that you bear here is 500. Therefore people will not take this path because the cost is

18:04 much higher here. But then if it had promised 1000 or it had remained ambiguous, just silent

18:11 about what it will give you, once you reach here you find this delivers you 10000. Just

18:17 that reaching here is difficult. The cost that it asks for is higher. But then what

18:24 it gives you is many times more than what you can expect. So this is what makes the

18:36 cost bearable. That cost is the daily process of life. All the trials and tribulations in

18:46 our daily living. Unless you are pursuing this, the costs will build up to such an extent

18:57 that you will have no option but to declare bankruptcy or to keep piling up the costs

19:03 by going after hopping from one target to the other. This is where the real deal is.

19:15 But also this is where the real costs are. Now you can, there is this one in Hindi. Sasta

19:23 rohe? Bar bar. Mehnga rohe? Yeh mehnga sauda hai. But here what you get is assured. It

19:41 says that you are needed to surrender everything that you have. The investment is yourself.

19:50 Invest it. It requires a heart. You do not build a company to declare bankruptcy, do

20:09 you? Somebody is starting up, you go to them and ask them why you are starting up and they

20:15 say to get bankrupt. How does that sound? Similarly you do not live to die by suicide.

20:25 It is as absurd as that.

20:26 Thank you.

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