What is arrogance? || Acharya Prashant (2019)

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: Vishranti Shivir, 24.01.2019, Bengaluru, India   Context:  What is arrogance? How can we avoid arrogance? How can we come out of it? Why arrogance is bad? How can ego be reduced? Is spirituality the only solution for this?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Arrogance does not lie in expecting the highest.

00:23You are not condemned to live lowly.

00:29It is not arrogance to expect the highest for yourself.

00:36Arrogance lies in expecting the highest while remaining exactly as one is.

00:55You could call it arrogance or you could call it a miscalculation or you could call it childish

01:13stupidity.

01:14You are entitled to the highest.

01:26Shruti constantly reminds you that you should never never even estimate yourself let alone

01:38underestimate yourself.

01:42You are inestimable.

01:51Such is your potential.

02:02Shruti says if you underestimate yourself, you are doing a disfavor to yourself.

02:14If you overestimate yourself, you are still giving yourself a raw deal.

02:25The basic fault lies in estimation itself.

02:32You are infinitely big.

02:36So how are you trying to draw a line around yourself?

02:44How are you trying to limit yourself because estimation requires limitation?

02:59In the name of humility, in the name of avoiding arrogance, kindly do not start belittling

03:07yourself.

03:09That is not at all the purpose of spiritual discourse.

03:22So what would the scriptures and the teachers do?

03:30They would work on two concurrent tracks with you.

03:38On one hand, they'll keep reminding you of your inflated ego and just as you get demotivated,

03:53deflated, defeated, they'll tell you, you are not even the son of God or daughter of God.

04:10You are God himself.

04:18And the moment you again puff up, they'll say, who do you think you are?

04:28How dare you accord yourself so much respect, such vanity, come down to earth and now again

04:42with drooping shoulders and a fallen face, you get de-energized and they come to you

04:54and say, see, God is sulking, they'll keep doing this till you hit the secret, till you

05:12get the point.

05:15You are great and wonderful, but not as you are.

05:25You are higher than the highest, but not as you are.

05:38And the story doesn't stop here.

05:41How to go higher than the highest?

05:46By seeing yourself as you are.

05:53So fact is the door to truth.

05:58In your impartial and honest observation of your current state lies the key to all spiritual

06:08elevation.

06:12You might be in the dumps, but you cannot just avoid or ignore the dumps.

06:20In your honest appraisal of the dumps lies your ladder to the sky.

06:37You cannot reach any height without first of all entering the lowliest parts of your

06:50mind, your life, your being.

06:56It is counter intuitive.

06:59We think if we have to go high, we have to go upwards.

07:05If you have to go upwards, first of all visit all the places that are down and lonely.

07:25There is no contradiction here when it is said that you are higher than the highest,

07:33but not as you are.

07:35That does not mean that you can turn blind to the one that you currently have become.

07:46You don't have to turn blind to it.

07:48You don't have to reject it.

07:50Instead, you have to acknowledge it, enter it, know it, in fact be a little sympathetic

08:02to it.

08:05If you come down too harshly upon yourself, you will not have the courage to look at the

08:18totality of your being.

08:22Yes, the ego is arrogant and cunning and many bad things, but do not forget that the ego

08:35is miserable as well.

08:39It longs for empathy.

08:44If you are not empathetic towards yourself, many many parts of your inner life would remain

08:54hidden from your eye.

08:57They would remain hidden just as a mischievous child having committed a mischief hides from

09:09the eyes of the strict father.

09:22He is afraid that if he shows up, he will be punished.

09:35So don't be too much of a disciplinarian.

09:41Look at yourself, not with identification, but with a bit of empathy.

09:53These two are not the same thing.

09:57When I say empathize with yourself, that doesn't mean that you have to support yourself

10:07or defend yourself or identify with yourself.

10:14Can't you look at something with empathy but without identification?

10:26Is it not possible?

10:31You know what you are looking at is mischievous, so you need not identify with it, but still

10:41you also know that it is not merely mischievous but also miserable.

10:50That's the way to look at oneself.

10:56The ego is a rascal, no doubt, but it's a suffering rascal, don't forget.

11:13The deeper its mischief is, the deeper is its misery.

11:23And nobody knows what comes first, the mischief or the misery.

11:29Both promote each other.

11:32There is a word for this, compassion.

11:47Even when you look at mischief of the worst kind, you must know that behind the mischief

11:57lies misery and then you cannot come down too harshly or severely upon the mischief.

12:10Then you cannot have the attitude of the judge in the court room.

12:34Even when you have learnt how to deal with the most putrid parts of your being, then

12:50opens up a strange fragrance from within you.

13:02Was there ever a tall building without a deep foundation?

13:22What is greatness?

13:23Can it be there without an honest acknowledgement of one's smallness?

13:35Do you see the living relationship between greatness and smallness?

13:47Man cannot enter his greatness without knowing how to healthily deal with his smallness.

14:07Those who are all for greatness become critics of smallness.

14:16All they do is condemn, condemn and condemn.

14:21And if you condemn smallness too much, it will never leave you.

14:27Don't forget that we are born small.

14:36How is it your fault if the stomach yeans for food?

14:43How is it your fault if the body is configured in a certain way?

14:52Did you decide or choose that you would be subject to eight hours of sleep daily?

15:07When such sleep besets you, must you necessarily blame yourself and that too very harshly?

15:23Did you really choose your sexuality?

15:29In fact to many people, it comes as a shock, they don't even know that their body has

15:36been configured to be deeply sexual.

15:45To many girls, the onset of the menstrual cycle is a bit of a trauma because they never

15:53asked for it.

15:57It just happened.

16:04Why do you want to be so full of rejection towards the earthly parts of your being?

16:16By this I do not mean that you stand in their support and become identified with them or

16:27one with them.

16:28No.

16:29Please.

16:30That's not what I am saying.

16:31I am not asking you to be body identified or tendency identified.

16:36I am posing a simple question.

16:41What do you do now that you are born as a small human being?

16:45Throw away the body?

16:48Throw away the thoughts and the emotions?

16:54Yes one does feel attached.

16:58Yes one longs.

17:00Yes one wants to hold somebody's hands.

17:03What to do?

17:05If all this is so very condemnable, why was I born in the human body in the first place?

17:16Even if I accept that birth is the original sin, now having committed that sin, what do

17:25I do?

17:26Yes, it happened.

17:28Now, what do I do?

17:33Carry the cross all my life?

17:42And we talked of cut-throat tracks, the other track says, it is not at all your destiny

17:48to remain small.

17:49Human life is such a joke.

17:50One wants to catch hold of the one playing the joke upon us and give him one or two back.

18:12Enough of toying around with us mortals down here.

18:17You do need to get a taste of what it means to be in such an impossible situation.

18:24Some people say that when human beings get too revengeful towards God, then he has to

18:39come down as an avatar.

18:42People down here start shouting, they say you are comfortably tucked up there in your

18:52nice heaven, watching detachment, all the nonsense that is happening here.

19:03We have been dispatched to this dust and dirt and there you are enjoying everything formless

19:12ly.

19:13So, when there is such a unionized outcry like this, massive dissent, then he comes

19:34down and says, fine, I live with you and I will suffer as you do.

19:41That's the paradox of human life.

19:46Once more, you contain infinity in your heart and you cannot ignore either of these.

19:57In fact, they are not two.

20:00We have repeatedly been saying that the way to the infinity passes through all your littleness.

20:11You cannot be dismissive or contemptuous towards yourself in your little angers, jealousies,

20:22happinesses, sadnesses.

20:24That's where you will find something so tremendously important that will liberate you.

20:36You don't have to turn superhuman or anti-human.

20:45In your humanness is the key.

20:53But when you go to pick the key, don't get stuck.

21:06The key to the bright skies is kept in a dark cave.

21:16Enter the dark cave, pick the key and don't make your house there.

21:34Don't start sleeping there.

21:36Never forget that you entered the cave to pick the key.

21:42The body is the key.

21:44The world is the key.

21:47Enter the body, enter the world to get the key.

21:54Don't overstay there.

21:56At the same time, don't be too hesitant in entering the cave.

22:02It's a fine line.

22:05That's what all discretion, all Vivek is about.

22:11You cannot avoid the cave and you cannot make your house in the cave.

22:23Enter, investigate, figure out the key and then with gratitude in your heart, softly, silently leave.

22:40Om.

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