Beware of fake depression || Acharya Prashant, with NIT-Silchar (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information:  NIT-Silchar, 22.02.2022, Rishikesh, India  Context: What is depression? How to distinguish the reason of depression? How to deduce inner cause of depression?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #depression #acharyaprashant

Transcript

00:00 Good evening Guruji, my name is Shashi Kanthapakar and I am from Jharkhand, Zimbabwe.

00:06 And currently I am pursuing M.Tech from IIT Silchar, Assam.

00:09 And my question is like, if I am tired of something and so for that reason I am in depression,

00:15 so if I suddenly move away from that place and everything started working fine, so after

00:21 sometime when I come back to my previous stage where I was, where I was staying, so everything

00:26 goes started same from where it was started.

00:29 So like, just like feeling hopeless or an emotional state or reaction, so why does it

00:34 happen actually, it happens actually?

00:38 Would you repeat the happening?

00:41 Like if I am suffering from depression or tired of something like anything whatever

00:47 like study or my financial issues or whatever it is, so when I change my place from one

00:54 place to another place then everything started working fine, but suddenly when I come back

00:59 after my previous stage, so it was started same as like where it was started, emotions

01:05 or all those things like, so why does it happen actually?

01:11 Because of mind of state or what?

01:12 It happens because the root of the disturbance is within you.

01:22 Only a change of surroundings helps reduce the disturbance, but the mere change in external

01:33 situations cannot help beyond a point.

01:40 So once again when the external situations are not conducive, you will find yourself

01:47 internally flustered and to make things worse, you probably keep on returning to places that

01:58 made you flustered in the first place.

02:03 So it is no surprise that you once again start feeling uneasy.

02:11 Have you understood both these points?

02:16 First point is that in absence of self-knowledge, we give ourselves very cosmetic solutions.

02:27 We try to change the external environment.

02:30 We say well I am feeling suffocated today in this place, so let us go to a bar and have

02:37 a drink and try to forget what is going on or let us go to the movie hall and enjoy the

02:44 latest release or hang out with friends or sometimes we say let me just fall asleep and

02:51 forget it all.

02:52 These are the kind of things we do, right?

02:56 You want to have a change of mood, you try a change of shirt.

03:04 Now this displays a lack of intention to get into yourself.

03:12 You do not really want to know what is happening inside, what is the real cause, the root.

03:19 So the treatments that we offer to ourselves do work for a while and then fall apart.

03:31 And to make…

03:32 But Guruji…

03:33 Yeah.

03:34 Sorry, sorry.

03:35 No, please.

03:36 But Guruji, actually, but my state of mind is changed.

03:38 Like I just had a hangout with my friends, just go and enjoy any other place like right

03:45 now in Himachal.

03:46 So for that reason, like my state of mind is changed.

03:49 So why when I back then everything has started same as like before?

03:54 Because my state of mind is changed now.

03:58 Because the mind is not just its superficial state.

04:03 The mind is a deep thing, right?

04:07 Almost like the ocean.

04:10 Winds on the surface change the state on the surface.

04:15 They do not change what is happening deep within the ocean.

04:19 And what if a volcano is erupting inside the ocean?

04:26 How much can then the winds on the surface help or affect or matter?

04:37 But we do not know ourselves.

04:38 So all that we know of is the superficial state of mind.

04:42 And that is easy to address.

04:47 Escape away to Himachal with friends and indeed you will feel jolly for a while.

04:56 See how happy you are.

04:59 Not that you should not be happy.

05:02 You should be deeply happy, not superficially happy.

05:07 Wisdom or spirituality or Vedanta, they are definitely pro-happiness.

05:17 But they want you to have happiness that means something.

05:21 They want you to have a happiness that is not affected or degraded or reversed by worldly

05:32 losses or random outer happenings.

05:41 Why not go for that kind of happiness?

05:43 And that kind of happiness is difficult to obtain if one uses such recipes, you know.

05:56 Friends, hill stations, a little bit of beer, hanging out, water sports, paragliding, all

06:08 of these do offer happiness.

06:14 But how deep is that and how long lasting is that?

06:17 And we are not talking of depth or permanence for morality's sake.

06:25 We are talking of these things because we want those things.

06:28 Don't you want deep happiness?

06:31 Don't you want the kind of happiness that circumstances cannot take away?

06:37 You want those things, hence we are talking of them.

06:40 It's not some kind of morality or idealism.

06:44 Exactly.

06:46 Exactly.

06:48 You want that and I want that and we all want that and if we want that, then it's our

06:53 responsibility towards ourselves to go and attain that.

07:00 That is the entire process of wisdom, of spirituality, nothing else.

07:10 See you are already afraid that you will return to your place and the old self with all its

07:18 miseries will re-emerge and even as I mentioned this, see you have already become a bit nervous

07:28 thinking of the checkout date and time.

07:34 The thing is why login into the kind of happiness where the checkout date has been set in advance.

07:47 Sometimes you know the checkout date, sometimes you don't, but it's a kind of hotel you cannot

07:53 permanently reside in.

07:59 You need real estate of your own, not the hotel of happiness, but that's the kind of

08:07 names these hotels have, Hotel Fun, Hotel Pleasure, Hotel Paradise.

08:20 Ask them what kind of paradise is this?

08:23 You keep reminding me of the checkout time and if I overstay an hour, then you start

08:30 subtly threatening me.

08:32 Sir, you know, sir, we are booked, sir, somebody else has to check in, sir, and if you want

08:38 to stay for another six hours, why don't you pay half a day's tariff, sir?

08:45 That's the reality, that's the reality of this, of this rented happiness.

09:02 I can only tell you that as a young man, it is surely possible for you to do better than

09:11 this, right?

09:15 Travelling to places is a great thing, but don't travel in search of happiness.

09:23 Travel in your joy, travel in your deep purpose.

09:30 If you don't have a great purpose in life, if you have nothing that keeps you internally

09:36 joyful and you still keep meandering from place to place, it won't mean much.

09:55 I seem to be spoiling your evening.

10:00 Bone fire and whiskey must be waiting somewhere outside, right?

10:09 Must be cold in Himachal.

10:14 So, actually, what should I do to overcome all those things?

10:23 Just need to accept or what?

10:32 Be a real hedonist, real hedonist and that means having taste for suffering.

10:50 Observe the real thing so much that you feel prepared to accept any challenges, any degree

11:02 of hurt.

11:08 The joy that we are talking of, you have to fall in love with it.

11:13 You have to be a real pleasure seeker.

11:20 I might not be making sense to you.

11:24 Let's know that in advance.

11:30 But unfortunately I don't have many other ways to communicate this to you.

11:42 Maybe when you will reflect later in the night today on what we discussed, maybe things will

11:52 be clearer to you.

12:00 Compromise has to be, what must I say, hardcore.

12:10 Know that you deserve joy and for the sake of joy fight it out.

12:17 Know where your real thing lies and don't compromise on it.

12:29 Know that it's possible to love and that you are entitled to love.

12:38 I am talking all in abstractions.

12:41 I can see that, but how else do I express myself?

12:56 There is nothing else that would help you except plunging in the battle for the real

13:03 thing.

13:05 That real thing is one, but the battles that we all must fight are all separate and individual.

13:15 You will have your own personal battle to fight.

13:18 I too will have my own battle to fight.

13:21 Though we both would be fighting for the one same real thing.

13:32 So fight it out.

13:34 And in that fight what you get is blows and hurt and wounds and that makes you man enough

13:48 to experience real happiness.

13:53 Without those wounds and without that hurt you can anyway never know what happiness is.

13:59 Happiness does not lie in flimsy pleasures.

14:04 Happiness lies in those deep wounds you take for your deep love.

14:13 And if you keep avoiding those wounds, where is real happiness?

14:19 Okay, I will think about it.

14:30 I will change my thoughts.

14:35 I am already having fun visualizing how it would be over the bonfire and probably the

14:42 cocktail.

14:48 I have given you enough to anyway make your evening, right?

14:54 I feel I got your point Gauravji, actually, what you have explained.

15:03 I am not sure I have said something that anybody can get so easily.

15:08 Yes, actually, but a little bit I understand like I have to fight it by myself kind of

15:17 things like what I feel like I have to enjoy all those things.

15:23 I have not said that.

15:27 That's just not what I have said.

15:30 Yes, like enjoy the happiness kind of thing.

15:39 But it is good that you are intrigued.

15:42 So, let it be there in the mind.

15:53 I think I will see you again someday, maybe a few months down the line, a few decades,

15:58 who knows.

15:59 Yes, yes, definitely.

16:00 Okay, thank you.

16:01 Thank you, Lohri.

16:02 Okay, thank you.

16:03 Thank you so much.

16:04 [Music]

16:05 [End of Audio]

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