Love and Detachment  Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Delhi (2022) - video Dailymotion

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 15.04.2022, IIT-Delhi, Delhi  Context: ~ How do you define love, and how does it relate to the concept of detachment? ~ Can someone truly love without becoming emotionally attached? ~ Is detachment a healthy approach to relationships, or does it hinder the depth of connection one can experience? ~ How does practicing detachment impact personal growth and self-awareness in relationships? ~ Can detachment be a form of self-preservation in relationships, or does it indicate a lack of commitment? ~ What role does vulnerability play in both love and detachment?  Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~~~~~~~~~   #acharyaprashant #IIT-Delhi #IIT-D

Transcript

00:00Pranam Acharya ji. Sir, my question was that just some minutes before you told that it

00:11requires a deep thinking to arrive at what is the right thing to do.

00:20So my question was that in terms of like if we have to analyze something and it is quite

00:29a far thing.

00:30Like suppose we have to analyze the environment or anything that is happening outside.

00:39But when we try to objectively analyze something that happens with us or is associated with

00:46us, it gets a kind of a messy affair to arrive at anything that is worth following or anything

00:53that is clear.

00:55So my question is in the context of how you started this quest of finding out what is

01:02right and was it this thinking and how did you arrive at what was the right thing and

01:10how did you face this challenge of investigating those things which demand, which may have

01:18a risk of losing something that you have been holding for a long time.

01:23So how do we investigate those things?

01:28Right.

01:29What's your name?

01:30Siddharth Singh.

01:31Siddharth is asking, it's easy to investigate objective world, phenomena outside of us.

01:43You go to a laboratory and you can conduct experiments there because really you don't

01:50have much to do with the equipment there.

01:57You go and there is an engine you are conducting experiments on or a computer you are writing

02:03code on.

02:04You are not personally related there.

02:08So it's easier to be objective there but when it comes to investigating what is going

02:15on in our life within us then it becomes difficult.

02:20The word that he is struggling to come to is detachment and you will be surprised where

02:28detachment comes from.

02:32Detachment comes from love.

02:35If you really have self-love then you want to know what is going on in your life and

02:42he is right.

02:44It becomes a complicated thing.

02:46It becomes a hodgepodge, a mess within.

02:48You just cannot know what is happening, from where is this emotion arising, from where

02:51is that desire coming, why do I hate that direction, why am I falling for such a thing.

02:57All these things happen inside and it becomes so difficult to remain objective because now

03:01the subject itself is involved.

03:06In such situations you require to be detached and that detachment I am saying comes from

03:12love.

03:14Detachment therefore is not an opposite of love.

03:18Detachment is a product of love.

03:21If you are suffering do you really want to keep suffering?

03:26If you are in a bad situation do you want to remain there?

03:32If you love yourself you will say I want to get out of this place and if I want to get

03:39out of this place I have to very independently, very neutrally, without prejudice understand

03:49what is going on.

03:53That is called detachment, to not to be prejudiced towards yourself, to not to have inner biases,

04:03to not to say oh I am a good man but bad things are happening with me because the world is

04:09conspiring, no I am a good man, I deserve to be JEE 1, it's just that the examination

04:22center was too noisy and that's why I am JEE 2714.

04:32I do not know of your batch but most of us in my batch were aggrieved and kept fretting

04:42for all four years that we didn't get the JEE rank we deserved and all of us had reasons

04:49of this kind.

04:53You know the topics I specialized in, there was no question from those topics, there was

05:02just too much optics in the paper, physics paper, 25% of the paper was from optics, now

05:09who does that, this is a scandal.

05:15I had declared myself JEE 1 even before writing the JEE, even thrown a party, even published

05:21in the papers but look at my rank now, in four figures, we live very biased towards

05:33ourselves, sometimes we also live biased against ourselves, so what can I do?

05:42I cannot speak even in front of the mirror, if there are even four people in the audience

05:48I faint, I am no good, please take me away, hide me somewhere, better still bury me in

05:58the earth, we can be biased for, we can be biased again but hardly ever are we realistic

06:11and it's a very important thing to have in life, realism, know yourself rightly, know

06:17yourself rightly with the faith that your potential is infinite, irrespective of your

06:23infinite potential, if your current reality is of mediocrity, accept it, but accepting

06:31your current reality does not mean remaining limited to your reality, you should say this

06:38is where I stand, however I am not destined to stand here, very frankly, very honestly

06:45I accept I am standing at a very mediocre level but this is not where I will perpetually

06:51stay, my destiny is elsewhere, I will climb to the skies, I will not say I am already

07:00sitting up there, now both of these are problems, there are those who say we are born to be

07:06great, Swami Vivekananda told us, so I will declare I am already great, you are born to

07:10be great, that does not mean you are already great, be realistic and then there are those

07:15who say I fully well realize, I am in very in between position, I am not great and that

07:27seals my fate, my entire life I will spend like this, don't limit your flight irrespective

07:35of where you are, you are capable of reaching the highest and when I say highest I do not

07:40mean a plum job in the US and 4 luxury villas there, that's not the conception of highest

07:48you should have, I have nothing against the US, but the common conception that we have

07:57of being successful in life is deeply flawed and dangerous, self love, if I am being partial

08:10I am hurting myself, do I want to hurt myself, no I don't want to hurt myself, when you are

08:18preparing for the JEE, do you guys still use Irudov or is it out of fashion now, I

08:35do not know what your response to Irudov was, as far as I was concerned, first 3 months

08:43I didn't get a single problem right, not one problem, class 11th, I was told to pick

08:52it up in August or September, till the winter set in, I was clueless, what is going on,

09:00one pulley here, one mask there, something is hanging, now what do I do then, tell myself

09:09that I am already proficient, because the answers were there at the back, in the additions

09:15that we used to have, sometimes the hints too were there, you could pick up the answer

09:21and reverse calculate and say I have done it, is that what you do or do you honestly

09:28accept I am not yet there, please, that's also the thing you must do in life, how much

09:38of jealousy do I have, what's my jealousy coefficient, how possessive I am, how niggardly,

09:48how lazy I am, shouldn't you ask these things, should you be assessed only on questions in

09:59physics and chemistry, should you not assess yourself internally, what's my discipline

10:07quotient, what's my attention quotient, this thing has been on since an hour or so or one

10:18and a half hours, I do not know, how much have I been attentive to, should you not know

10:25that, or are you saying that everything in the world is important except yourself, this

10:32is important, so I will know about this, this is important, I will know about this, everything

10:36is important, this is not important, I am not important, my life is not important, how

10:43many of you want to say that, please, if you are important and your life is important,

10:51then which knowledge is the most important, self-knowledge, but we have been told that

10:59you must be knowledgeable about everything, history, constitution, geography, of course

11:04PCM, you must also know international affairs and geopolitics, you must also know NFTs and

11:10Bitcoin and crypto and you know all these things, what is it that you do not know of,

11:19the self, because the self is of no use, because we are worthless, everything is worthy of

11:25being known, but we are worthless, why should we know ourselves, when you want to know something,

11:35then your mind gains sharpness, have you not experienced that, when you really want to

11:41solve a problem, have you seen how your entire mental energy gets focused, then there is

11:47no question of attachment and prejudice, then you are just hell bent on tackling the problem,

11:54I want to know what is going on, the same thing happens, when you want to know what

11:58is happening internally, then irrespective of what your hormones are doing, what emotions

12:03you are experiencing, you still know the reality, are you getting it?

Love and Detachment Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Delhi (2022)

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