How to pause in life to take a stock?|| Acharya Prashant (2021)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...  ⚡ Want Acharya Prashant’s regular updates? Join WhatsApp Channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va6Z...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Want to accelerate Acharya Prashant’s work? Contribute: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/contri...   Want to work with Acharya Prashant? Apply to the Foundation here: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/hiring...  ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 16.05.2021, Shastra Kaumudi - Live, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India  Context: ~What is a spontaneous life? ~What is the value of spontaneous reflection in life? ~What role does thinking play in life? ~What is the difference between thinking and knowing?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~ .

Transcript

00:00 "Acharya ji, you spoke about to pause in your life.

00:08 So when I was hearing to that, so usually I see when probably when I go back in my daily

00:14 routine, I don't see these pauses coming.

00:20 I usually feel that it must, for example, in this session when I was listening, I felt

00:26 that pause coming up.

00:27 But usually when we go back to our daily living, we usually have a lot of things and then this

00:34 pause doesn't come.

00:38 And at the same time, you have also told us that you must have a life wherein there is

00:42 nothing like, there is nothing where you even have a thought for yourself.

00:47 So how to..."

00:48 See, in the ordinary life, if you take a pause, that pause will ruin you.

01:02 That is why so many people prefer very occupied and busy lives.

01:08 Because if they pause, if they have spare time, they will necessarily do something self-destructive.

01:15 Don't you see that?

01:16 The moment a person has spare time, what does he do?

01:21 He self-destructs.

01:22 So, reflection is not something that you do by taking out time exclusively devoted to

01:38 reflection.

01:42 If you have to take time out to reflect, it merely means that the life that you are leading

01:52 has problems.

01:55 And if your life has problems, then the time that you take out from life will not augur

02:05 well.

02:08 You will misutilize that time.

02:13 Therefore, reflection or stock-keeping has to be spontaneous.

02:22 It has to be something concurrent.

02:26 Your life has to be such that it forces you to be spontaneously reflective.

02:39 Only when your life is bad, you will not be spontaneously reflective.

02:45 Then you will want exclusive time for reflection, like people want spare weekends.

02:53 But the moment you want exclusively devoted time for reflection, you have already proven

02:58 to yourself that you are leading a bad life.

03:01 Getting it?

03:04 Life is good.

03:07 Who will have the time to break away from it, even to reflect?

03:14 Life is great.

03:17 Who wants to even reflect at it?

03:23 Lead a life, I repeat, that forces you to be spontaneously reflective.

03:30 That must be the kind of work you pick up, the relationships that you make.

03:39 They should not allow you to stay unconscious.

03:43 If you stay unconscious, you should receive a jolt.

03:48 And reflection has happened.

03:50 Why must you reflect after 24 hours?

03:53 If you are falling asleep, then the reality check, the reminder should come immediately.

04:04 Or do you want to waste the entire day and then reflect in the night and conclude that

04:10 the day was wasted?

04:14 So when must you be reflective?

04:17 Continuously.

04:19 And that's the mark of the right life.

04:22 I repeat, it forces you to be continuously reflective.

04:27 It demands attention from you.

04:29 If you do not give attention, then that life will be spoiled.

04:37 To maintain that life, you will have to keep supplying attention.

04:45 Opt for such a life.

04:48 On the other hand, you can conveniently go for a life where you can happily remain unconscious

04:58 and still make a living and proceed with your daily worldly matters.

05:11 In that kind of a life, there would be suffering.

05:14 And when there would be suffering, then you will be forced to reflect, if you are lucky.

05:19 But that reflection is just a kind of grief in retrospect.

05:34 You are grieving over that time.

05:39 It's gone.

05:40 What's the point in reflecting now?

05:43 Therefore, all reflection, all attention must be in the moment.

05:53 Do not say that 7 to 8 is my appointed time to look at my day.

06:00 Do not say that when I close my day, I write my diary or journal.

06:09 Even if in that journal you discover that everything was wrong with your day, would

06:14 you now recover your day?

06:22 Be so occupied with the right life that you do not even have the time to write a journal.

06:32 And when I say be so occupied, I mean attentively occupied.

06:37 I am not talking of unconscious occupation.

06:42 I am not talking of mechanical movement.

06:47 I am talking of a complete continuous flow of conscious activity.

06:57 That's how you should be.

07:00 You must be in such deep love with perfection that anything short of that should just shake

07:11 you up.

07:14 The word that I just uttered was suboptimal.

07:21 The thing that I just did was avoidable.

07:28 The task that I just completed was quality-less.

07:36 This should be clear to you even before that task is completed.

07:43 That you are losing it should be clear to you in the very moment when you are losing

07:48 it.

07:49 In fact, it should be clear to you even before the moment you lose it.

07:58 The warning should come in advance.

08:01 A little bit in advance.

08:04 When you are in love, that happens.

08:08 You become very sensitive to all that can go wrong.

08:13 You have something very precious with you.

08:14 You do not want to lose it.

08:18 You are continuously alert.

08:27 And when you are not continuously alert, then at the end of the day you say, you know, please

08:34 give me half an hour to take stock of things.

08:39 Please give me half an hour to make sense of what I have been doing since the last 10

08:45 hours.

08:46 You now require time to make sense of what you were doing since the last 10 hours.

08:51 What the hell were you doing since the last 10 hours?

08:56 Surely something very unworthy.

09:02 No?

09:04 Getting it?

09:08 Brooding or contemplation is a good thing.

09:34 But only for those who are not living rightly.

09:38 They must contemplate.

09:41 The best thing is to live so rightly and so fully that there is neither a need nor the

09:49 space and opportunity to contemplate.

09:52 There is neither the need to contemplate nor the opportunity to contemplate.

09:58 You are so full.

10:00 That's the best thing.

10:01 However, if you are living wrongly, then you must take time out, go somewhere, be on the

10:10 hills for some 20 days and figure out that you have wasted your life.

10:20 Does that sound great?

10:23 Going to the hills only to find that you have wasted your life.

10:31 So there is nothing so very fascinating or romantic about being pensive.

10:38 Leave that to the thinkers.

10:41 If somebody is thinking a lot, it merely means that he has a lot to atone for.

10:51 The mark of the one living rightly is that he does not really have the need to think

10:59 too much.

11:06 Thought in some way is a compensatory mechanism.

11:15 What you could not do right, you want to think right.

11:19 But you cannot think right what you have done wrongly.

11:23 Or can you?

11:29 In the answer sheet, you spoiled a mathematics question.

11:36 And now, once you are out of the hall, you are mentally solving the problem and doing

11:42 it right.

11:48 That cannot undo what you have done wrongly.

11:56 Write the paper in such a way that there is no need to think after the exam.

12:00 Emerge from the hall, go play football, get kicked around, have a nice little brawl and

12:13 fall asleep.

12:19 Thought is good when you are in a bad situation and you want some incremental improvement.

12:34 But a thinker is not of much use in missions that require total dedication.

12:46 Because a thinker will always remain uncertain.

12:57 Not only is he uncertain, his consciousness is still plagued by doubt and illusions and

13:07 the rest of it.

13:09 He has not yet sorted it out.

13:12 And if he has not yet sorted it out, how can you push such a person into the battle zone?

13:21 He is inwardly already at war.

13:24 How will he fight for any kind of mission?

13:34 In our kind of work specifically, we require people who are internally very sorted, who

13:39 are not found sitting in some forlorn corner and brooding and envying the rabbits.

13:53 That kind of a person who is found scratching his forehead or beard is dangerous for the

14:00 mission.

14:01 He has a lot of uncertainties within.

14:09 Any day he will fall off.

14:15 It's fine if you have uncertainties for a while.

14:18 But if you have been cultivating them since years and years, it merely means that you

14:22 want to keep them.

14:23 Why?

14:24 Because certainty requires sacrifice.

14:32 And in uncertainty there is security.

14:35 In uncertainty, you are keeping one, two or four many options open.

14:42 I am uncertain, so many options are open.

14:45 That gives you security.

14:47 Certainty means committing yourself.

14:51 The ego does not want to do that.

14:58 The ego would rather say, you know, I am still chewing it, still thinking over it.

15:05 You know, I am still thinking over it.

15:08 It's not that I have problems with thought.

15:10 What I am saying is that at a certain level of work, thinkers are problematic.

15:22 At the same time, at lower levels of work and existence, thought is a great faculty.

15:29 We require more people who think and think deeply.

15:42 Getting it?

15:54 When you are thinking too much, that which you are calling as reflection, spare time

15:59 for reflection, would essentially be thought.

16:04 And when you are thinking a lot, then you are missing out on the reality.

16:10 You are confined to your inner arena.

16:17 And there is some kind of a silly game going on there and you are charmed by it.

16:26 You are not available anymore.

16:31 You are not available to reality.

16:35 You are not available to the fact.

16:38 You are not available to action.

16:42 You have been handicapped by your internal demons.

16:48 Are you getting it?

16:55 What we need is clarity.

16:59 Clarity is contentment.

17:06 Clarity is settlement.

17:11 Clarity is spontaneous.

17:15 I immediately see who has the need to think later.

17:25 And if you have the need to think later, it is a proof that you are not seeing.

17:37 Just see.

17:39 And that's your stock keeping.

17:40 Just see.

17:41 So what you said, Acharyaji, was quite new to here.

17:48 I think because probably, when you were saying, it came to my mind that our education has

17:53 given us the highest thing is probably the thinkers.

17:57 Maybe probably which I have, like Jopal Sathre or I would have Albert Camus or you know.

18:05 So probably, and you keep on, like you have seen their lives, you have seen their pictures.

18:10 So probably we idolize that.

18:12 And they are just sitting and they are writing.

18:16 A thinker obviously is to be respected.

18:20 A thinker is far superior to an unthinking person because an unthinking person is a silly

18:26 automaton.

18:27 What I am talking of is the spiritual zone.

18:40 In that zone, thinking is not to be taken as something very worthy or desirable.

18:53 If you continue to think necessarily, compulsively, then when will you understand?

19:05 Thought at best can be a precursor to understanding.

19:10 Thought at best can be a facilitator to understanding.

19:15 And remember that all thought involves time.

19:19 Therefore, if understanding comes piggy-riding on thought, then there is a time gap.

19:28 You thought and then you became clear.

19:32 And that will not allow you to be spontaneous.

19:35 You are getting it?

19:39 You ask me a question.

19:42 How will I respond to you in real time if I have to first think about it for half an

19:47 hour?

19:48 How will I respond?

19:51 And that's the nature of life.

19:53 Does it wait for you to think and conclude?

19:57 No.

19:59 Life asks one question after the other, throws one opportunity after the other.

20:05 If you keep thinking about everything, then you are losing out on everything.

20:09 Because thought involves time.

20:14 And also remember that the output of thought is far from perfect.

20:22 There is no guarantee that your thinking will yield you a perfect or right conclusion.

20:33 Spontaneous understanding is a different thing altogether.

20:38 There is no possibility of an error there.

20:42 You just know.

20:45 Without time, without method, you just know.

20:52 That's what is real mysticism.

20:54 You just know.

20:56 And if somebody asks you from where did your response come?

21:00 You will just shrug your shoulders and wriggle your hands and say, "Well, if only I knew."

21:08 Then I do not know how I know.

21:14 That's mysticism.

21:18 To understand without thought.

21:21 To know without knowledge.

21:29 To know without time.

21:41 Getting it?

21:44 But that is not to be confused with the automatic operation of your conditioning.

21:50 Because these two, in some way, are very similar to each other.

21:55 A fellow who is deeply conditioned won't think.

21:58 He will just conclude.

22:00 At the same time, the Rishi of the Upanishad won't think.

22:05 He would just know.

22:07 So these two look dangerously similar.

22:12 You have to be careful.

22:14 Therefore, thought has value.

22:17 Thought has value for the conditioned mind.

22:21 Because it allows you space to temporarily at least break away from the conditioning

22:26 and look at it.

22:33 I have said both things, mind you.

22:36 The importance of thought and the limitation of thought.

22:40 Acharya ji, from observation, I have noted that one thinks about that scenario, that

22:48 person more about which one is afraid.

22:54 So I see a very close relationship between fear and thought.

23:00 Please, if you could elaborate on the relationship between fear and thought.

23:05 You see, if there is something that you hold close to yourself, then you work for it.

23:22 Right?

23:24 You work for it and if you feel it's secured, then all is alright, there is no need to think.

23:32 And if it's still not secured, then you continue working for it.

23:37 In either scenario, where do you get the time to think?

23:42 If I am fearful about something, if I think I might lose something, what do I do?

23:48 If I am an honest person, if I have some sincerity, what will I do?

23:52 I will work.

23:53 I will work.

23:54 I will do whatever it takes to be with that thing, not lose it.

24:00 I work and work.

24:07 I don't have time to think.

24:08 If I really love that thing, I don't have time to think.

24:13 If I really love that thing, I will not operate from my conditioning in working for that thing.

24:21 I will be very sincere because I love it.

24:27 I want to keep it.

24:29 I am afraid of losing it.

24:31 So I will be sincere.

24:32 I will be sincere in my work.

24:35 And if I am sincere in my work, how do I get the space to keep the work apart and think?

24:41 Now that's the difference between attention and thought.

24:46 Attention makes your action even more powerful.

24:54 Attention is like giving your action right direction and boost of energy.

25:04 When you are attentive while acting, then your action gets a shot of energy and also

25:11 the right direction.

25:13 On the contrary, when you are thinking while acting, thought saps away energy from the

25:23 action.

25:24 Have you not seen that?

25:25 Have you not seen that?

25:28 So if you are sincere about the thing that you are afraid of losing, would you think?

25:34 Because by thinking, you are impeding your work towards securing that thing.

25:43 By thinking, you are only ensuring more and more that the thing will be lost.

25:53 What kind of an inner slyness it is that professes to care for a thing and works to destroy the

26:03 same thing?

26:07 And how do you destroy that thing?

26:10 By thinking instead of working.

26:13 The time, the energy that should have gone into concrete work is instead squandered in

26:23 open-ended and endless thought.

26:30 And to keep yourself morally defended, you say, you know, I am thinking because I love

26:35 that thing, because I am afraid of losing that thing.

26:38 Had you really been afraid, you would have worked.

26:45 You really been afraid, you would have worked.

26:48 The house is on fire.

26:50 The kid is inside.

26:51 You are so afraid, you lose the kid.

26:57 You stand outside and brood.

27:00 Tell me, what do you do?

27:02 You would leap into action.

27:04 You would jump into the fire.

27:06 Instead of jumping into the fire, you are found scratching your forehead and your beard

27:11 and posing as a philosopher when the child is turning to ashes.

27:22 Sheer cunningness.

27:25 No?

27:28 Do you have any love?

27:32 That's the question.

27:33 Do you have any love?

27:58 Have you ever loved?

28:05 Have you ever loved?

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