How are the Upanishads useful? || Acharya Prashant, at IIT Kanpur (2020)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl... ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 27.06.2020, IIT-Kanpur - Webinar, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh  Context: ~ Why should one read scripture, if one can learn from life itself? ~ Are reading scriptures just an acknowledgment of knowledge? ~ What is scripture? ~ How one can gain from Scriptures? ~ What are Scriptures? ~ Do scriptures heal? ~ How to read the Scriptures?    Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00The next question is from Avinash, 24 years from civil engineering department.

00:17He is asking, don't Vedanta and Upanishad too contain words and information?

00:29And the mind is prone to forget any information.

00:37How is remembering the information contained in the Upanishads useful for self-realization?

00:45Avinash, you seem worried that the mind will forget the information that comes to you via

01:05the Upanishads.

01:08You probably want to memorize it and keep it with you forever.

01:19On the contrary, that's not at all the objective of the Upanishads.

01:36The Upanishads do not want you to carry them in your mind by way of memory for too long.

01:50Let's understand.

01:55You see, why does one require Vedanta or Upanishads at all?

02:01There has to be a reason.

02:05If you're otherwise and already perfectly fine, then why do you require anything additional?

02:16You're living your life in your particular way and all is well with you.

02:22Then you do not need to read anything, or do you?

02:28The Upanishads are not a thing of fashion or a thing of compulsion.

02:42You do not go to them just because a lot of people do, neither must you go to them because

02:51religion or tradition demands so.

02:56There has to be a substantial reason if you are to go to the Upanishads.

03:04The reason is your worried mind.

03:09The reason is your taxed and loaded mind.

03:21You're anxious, you're stressed, you're confused, you're agitated or you're depressed.

03:32In either case, your mind is not healthy.

03:43Sometimes you find yourself excited, sometimes you are dejected and desolate.

03:50Sometimes you are extremely hopeful and sometimes you are the epitome of nihilism.

04:07And with this and due to this diseased and centerless mind, one goes to the Upanishads.

04:27And the Upanishads themselves make it amply clear right at the outset.

04:34They say you are diseased in many ways, that's why you have come to us.

04:41There are many Shanti parts associated with the various Upanishads and if you read them,

04:49you'll get a fair idea of why the Upanishads were composed in the first place.

04:57They want to help you in matters of the mind.

05:03They address your fear, they address your insecurity, they address your inner conflicts,

05:11they address your ignorance.

05:14That's why you go to them and which means that when you go through the Upanishads, you

05:22are already carrying a lot.

05:25What is it that you are carrying?

05:27Ignorance, conflict, fear, agitation and all else.

05:37And all this that you are carrying is actually sitting in the mind as information.

05:44So it is with a lot of information that you are going to the Upanishads.

05:52You are looking at the Upanishads as a body of information, whereas first of all you should

05:59be talking about your own body that is carrying so much information.

06:04And it is with this body and body centricity that you are approaching the Upanishads.

06:10It's a bundle of, it's a mountain of information that's coming to the Upanishads.

06:16And this information is very concretely set in your being.

06:23It is not merely a thing of the mind.

06:26It is running in your veins.

06:29It has become your life matter.

06:37Your face has become a depiction of all this knowledge that you are carrying in your mind.

06:48Every cell of your body is feeling the burden of this that you are carrying in your mind.

06:58In fact, the mind is not much except the informational load that it carries.

07:11And we are people with bloated, inflated minds.

07:17If some kind of a diagram of our subtle body could be drawn, it would be 99% just the top story.

07:39In your day to day living, tell me, how much do your knees matter to you?

07:51Does the word knee even occur to you usually?

08:03It's the brain that the ego identifies with and lives in.

08:10Are you getting it?

08:15And human beings are especially identified with their brain, with their intellect, with

08:21memory and all else.

08:26So look at this person who's going to the Upanishads.

08:29He is just a huge truckload of information that he calls his knowledge, though it is

08:37not.

08:43And he's going to the Upanishads and here are the Upanishads, very sleek bodies of subtle

08:52numbers, very, very sleek bodies, even if they contain information, their information

09:02is not too much.

09:06They're not really encyclopedic, very pithy, very terse.

09:16Nevertheless, when you read them, you do get some information and a lot of information

09:23you already have.

09:24So, what's really happening, the information contained in Upanishads is of a special type.

09:32It does not really sit well with the information you already have.

09:43The knowledge that the Upanishads give you and here I am using information and knowledge

09:48interchangeably, just for the purpose of this discussion.

09:54The knowledge that Upanishads give you does not get co-opted into your existing structure

10:03of knowledge.

10:05It's a very special and exquisite type of knowledge that the Upanishads contain.

10:10You will not be able to absorb it nicely into your existing system.

10:17See you take in some food and what happens to that food?

10:20That food becomes your body, right?

10:22That food gets co-opted, that food gets absorbed.

10:27Upanishads are not that kind of food that your body can absorb.

10:35When Upanishads go in, forget about the body being able to absorb them, they go in and

10:43they start destroying all that is false within.

10:51Of course, your antibodies spring into action and do whatever they can.

10:56But then the Upanishads and their knowledge is too much for the antibodies.

11:02Soon your resistances all fail and fall.

11:08However, you can still deny the Upanishadic knowledge an outright victory.

11:15How do you do that?

11:17You do that by playing the biased referee.

11:23Remember that ultimately it's you who has to declare the winner.

11:31And in spite of the Upanishadic knowledge demonstrating its trueness and superiority,

11:39you may still choose to side with your old conditioned knowledge.

11:46That can happen.

11:48That can still happen.

11:49It is not really automatic that you will read the Upanishad and the knowledge will

11:53go in and the knowledge will destroy all the falseness within and the next morning you

11:57will wake up enlightened.

11:59That doesn't really happen.

12:08If the Upanishads are allowed to work, then it's a big ask.

12:16To allow the Upanishads to work upon oneself requires great commitment towards truth and

12:22liberation.

12:23Otherwise, the Upanishads are too much to handle.

12:28You will just not be able to tolerate their rigor, their vigor, their cut, they cut through

12:40everything.

12:43If the Upanishads are somehow allowed to operate within, then their action is thus.

12:51They would destroy the false patterns of knowledge that you are carrying within and having destroyed

12:58your false patterns, they themselves would then evaporate or sublimate like camphor without

13:10leaving any residue behind.

13:17Something that has come to you just to cleanse and once the cleansed object is gone, the

13:27cleaning agent too is not to be found.

13:32Otherwise, it would be a very absurd situation.

13:39The old dirt is gone and some other new thing has occupied its place.

13:47That is no relief or is it?

13:50Because those who have known the mind, they have categorically said that anything that

13:53starts occupying the mind too much and for too long is just a burden and a disease.

14:03So, even if it is an apparently holy verse, but if it becomes a permanent fixture upon

14:11the mind, if it gets situated very stubbornly upon the mind, then it is not good for you.

14:26Upanishads are like medicines.

14:32Medicine cannot become food.

14:34Medicine cannot become your staple diet.

14:38Medicine comes just to fight the disease and once the disease is gone, the medicine too

14:42is gone.

14:43So, you need not be worried that you need to memorize the Upanishads.

14:50Obviously, India has had a rich and a very practically useful tradition of memorization.

15:01We call our bodies of sacred literature as Shruti, then as Smriti for a reason.

15:11We hear, we memorize and that is how the knowledge was transferred generation after generation.

15:21All those things were there.

15:23But remember that memorization is not what spirituality is about.

15:30And the Upanishads, the real challenge does not pertain to memorization.

15:37The real challenge is about not playing the biased referee.

15:44We talked of him, right?

15:46When the Upanishadic knowledge comes in, you will find yourself greatly impelled to declare

15:56it as false.

15:57You will want to side with your pre-existing knowledge.

16:01Why?

16:02Because it is your knowledge.

16:06Before coming to the Upanishad, you are already carrying it.

16:08So it is yours.

16:11So there are two teams vying against each other and one of the teams belongs to the

16:18referee.

16:19The referee is saying this is my team.

16:22When the other team is winning, it requires great truthfulness and discipline on behalf

16:28of the referee to remain unbiased.

16:31You are that referee.

16:32Remember, it is your knowledge versus the Upanishadic knowledge.

16:36Upanishadic knowledge would prevail provided you provide it with a fair and level playing

16:42field.

16:44Mostly we don't and that's why the Upanishads remain ignored.

16:49We say how can all my patterns and beliefs and knowledge systems be proven so false and

16:58so absurd and that too so easily.

17:03Upanishads don't take long, you see.

17:07Five verses are enough to destroy five generations of your traditional knowledge system.

17:20Sometimes just five words of one verse, gone.

17:25Entire personality is gone.

17:29Entire history is gone.

17:33So they'll win but we don't allow them to win.

17:36That's where real discipline is required, not in memorization.

17:40We think, oh, we have not been fair to the Upanishads if we have not memorized them.

17:46No, no, no.

17:48You have not been fair to the Upanishads if you have not really considered them.

17:54If you have not really been just to them.

17:58If you have not given them a level playing field.

18:02If you have not been unbiased, that's the real challenge.

18:06Memorization is not the challenge.

18:08Remaining unbiased is the challenge.

18:12So let the Upanishads come to you and receive them in a neutral way.

18:18There is no need to be biased towards them.

18:20There is no need to be inclined towards them.

18:23And there are some people who do that as well.

18:24They say, oh, these are holy words.

18:27So surely they are right.

18:29So I declare them winners in advance.

18:33No, you don't need to do that.

18:36Just in a neutral way, in a fair way, receive them, consider them.

18:43Let them work upon you.

18:44Meditate on them.

18:47And that would suffice.

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