When it is hard to let go || Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2021)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 22.11.21, Shastra Kaumudi, Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh ~~~~~ Context: ~ How to get rid of attachments? ~ How does renunciation become a celebration? ~ What is really important in life? ~ What is right knowledge to get rid of misery? ~ How does Vedanta help?  Music Credits: Milind Date  #acharyaprashant #vedanta #attachment

Transcript

00:00Acharyaji, the next question comes from Bangalore.

00:12The participant is a quality analyst and she says that, Acharyaji Pranam, when you say

00:21renunciation is celebration, it is for the one who is already a king.

00:28But for us who is not really living in that reality, we are not any kings.

00:35So sometimes the whole renunciation act seems like a punishment.

00:44Our love for renunciation is a strange thing.

00:47Sometimes it is brimming with pleasure and with gratitude and sometimes it is very weak.

00:55So how can our renunciation still be a celebration?

01:02Knowledge is the key.

01:05It is not the object of renunciation or the object of attachment that matters to you.

01:18Rather what matters to you is the idea that you have of that object.

01:30Because we anyway do not really know.

01:33We know neither ourselves nor the object.

01:36Now let's say there is this object in my life and I am very attached to it.

01:42What am I attached to?

01:45The idea of this object.

01:49And the idea obviously I take as the truth because we all need truth.

01:52When we do not have truth, we use ideas as the truth.

02:01So first of all, the suffering does not lie in giving up the object.

02:09It lies in giving up the idea of the object.

02:15Let's take for example, you are very attached to something or somebody and then somehow

02:28you lose your memory.

02:34Would you still be attached to that person?

02:37So that attachment is not to that person because that person still exists.

02:45What is it that you have lost?

02:47You have lost the idea of that person.

02:50That same person might still be sitting next to you but you will no more be attached to

02:54that person.

02:56You have not lost that person but you have lost your idea of that person and now there

03:00is no attachment.

03:03So firstly understand that it is ideas that we deal in.

03:08Vedanta is a destroyer of ideas.

03:15It tells you where your ideas come from and what the reality of those ideas is.

03:23When the idea is gone, the attachment is gone.

03:27The object may still remain but the attachment won't remain because the attachment was in

03:32any case never with the object.

03:39You had a story with respect to the object and the attachment was a part of that story.

03:47The memory loss example might appear an extreme one.

03:51Take another example.

03:52You are very attached to a person and somehow you come to learn that the story that you

04:00have with respect to that person is flawed or there are things with respect to that person

04:08in the life of that person that the person kept hidden.

04:12Some kind of secret information gets revealed to you.

04:17You hired a private detective or something.

04:20All kinds of things happen and you come to know of something and having known that particular

04:28something what happens to your attachment?

04:30Attachment is gone.

04:31Is the person gone?

04:32No, the person is not gone.

04:34The person is right in front of you.

04:37Is the memory gone?

04:38No, even the memory is not gone.

04:41We are not dealing with something as extreme as the memory loss example.

04:49Memory is there, the object is there and the attachment is gone.

04:52Why?

04:53Because the story is gone.

04:54The idea is gone.

04:59In our usual lives, one idea is gone when it is supplanted by another idea.

05:09We drop a story or modify a story only when some other story makes its way, pushes itself in.

05:19Vedant does something far more deeper.

05:28It goes to the root of storytelling itself.

05:33It does not destroy one particular story.

05:37It exposes the storyteller himself.

05:43The storyteller is called the mind.

05:44The mind is a great storyteller.

05:47It just keeps telling the stories.

05:49Why?

05:50Because it wants to avoid the truth.

05:51Therefore, it must have stories.

05:53It keeps weaving stories.

05:55The mind lives in narratives.

05:58Once the narratives are gone, the attachment is gone.

06:08And then renunciation is a celebration.

06:12Because what you have dropped is not something precious.

06:25What you have dropped is your misery itself.

06:33Nothing but right knowledge can save you.

06:38Nothing but knowledge of the knower can save you.

06:46Therefore, knowledge makes renunciation facile.

06:55Having known something truly, dropping the false becomes so easy.

07:08Let's have an example.

07:22You are to go to Chandigarh from Delhi.

07:35You have to take a train.

07:39And you already have a confirmed ticket, first class.

07:44You forgot.

07:46You forgot you have a first class ticket.

07:50First class confirmed ticket.

07:55So you come to the station.

08:00And you rush to the ticket counter.

08:06And he gives you an unconfirmed ticket of the lowest class possible.

08:13Unconfirmed ticket of the lowest class possible.

08:18And clutching that ticket in your fist, you run towards the platforms.

08:32And then suddenly, somehow, somebody reveals to you that you have a confirmed first class

08:42ticket.

08:44Now what happens to this closed fist?

08:48What happens to this?

08:50It opens and the thing drops.

08:52This is renunciation.

08:55Having known that you already have something far more magnificent, far more lavish, far

09:03more luxurious, what will you do with this lowly ticket?

09:09This is renunciation.

09:10Therefore, I called it celebration.

09:13The fist has opened in celebration.

09:16You are celebrating.

09:17It's a wow.

09:20So the thing opens and the measly thing drops.

09:24This is celebration.

09:27Remember, Vedanta is not about getting a fresh first class ticket.

09:31Vedanta is about realizing you already have it.

09:38You already have it.

09:39You just have forgotten.

09:43That forgetfulness is called maya.

09:48To feel that you do not have it in spite of having it is called maya.

09:58And to feel that this petty thing is important in spite of it being really very unimportant

10:07is called maya.

10:08Maya does these two things.

10:16Getting it?

Category

Transcript

Recommended