Nothing anyway matters. So why should I not commit suicide? || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 26.08.2023, Sant Sarita, Goa  Context: ~ Why do people commit suicide? ~ What is the end of suffering? ~ Are we actually living? ~ What is the worst that happens when I die? ~What does Acharya Ji mean by "bigger battles" in life? ~Why does the ego fear the truth, according to Acharya Ji? ~What is the relationship between truth and love as discussed in the video? ~How does Acharya Ji view the concept of suicide in relation to life's struggles? ~What does "dying before death" signify in Acharya Ji's teachings? ~What role do desires play in our perception of life and happiness? ~Why is it important to pursue a higher purpose rather than succumbing to nihilism? ~How can understanding the nature of life help in overcoming feelings of despair?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant

Transcript

00:00Pranam Acharya ji. You said that we should only pick bigger and important battles and

00:13ignore the small battles. But I know somebody who is kind of nihilistic and we can say suicidal

00:19as well. So he says, I don't want to pick even the bigger battles because even if I

00:25pick bigger battles, I'll have to go through a very difficult path, the path of truth as

00:29we say, it is difficult. And even though I walk on that, there is still a possibility

00:33that I might not win. And even if I win, there is a lot of trouble. So why not I just commit

00:39a suicide, end my life, because in the end, nothing matters. After life, there is no after

00:44life, there is no concept of Paap Punya. So why can't I just end my life right now? And

00:50why should I choose to walk the path of truth and knowledge?

00:55This simply means that one does not know the bigger battle. The bigger battle is either

01:07not known or if it is known, it does not leave you with a choice to not to fight it. If you

01:18are not fighting the bigger battle, that does not mean that you understand what the bigger

01:25battle is and are yet choosing not to fight it. If you are not fighting the bigger battle,

01:34that simply means that you are too obsessed with all the small things in life, so obsessed

01:40that the big, the great, the immense has remained unknown to you. And how can you choose to

01:49not accept something that is unknown to you? You can accept or reject only the known. The

02:03thing, the condition with the big is that once it is known, it overpowers you and that's

02:13called love. So you cannot say, I know the great and yet I choose not to move towards

02:23it, not to be enchanted by it, not to be dedicated to it. That's not possible. If the immense,

02:37if greatness do not call you, do not appeal to you, appear disinterested to you, it simply

02:58means you do not know them, full stop. Truth and love go together. To know the truth is to fall

03:11hopelessly and irrevocably in love with it. You cannot know the truth and say, oh I know it but

03:20I reject it. And you will feel a lot of such people, you will meet a lot of such people. Because

03:27it pleases the ego to say that I know and it pleases the ego to say that it has the power

03:33to reject even the truth. Both of these things are quite pleasurable. I know the truth, you know,

03:41I know the truth and then I am such an authority that I can even reject the truth. This is the

03:49statement of ego deeply steeped in ignorance. Neither do you know the truth nor can you ever

03:58reject the truth. Rejection of truth is simply an ignorance towards the truth. Truth leaves you

04:08choiceless. Truth leaves you choiceless and that's the reason the ego is so afraid of the truth. It

04:16knows that once it is seen, it cannot be unseen. So let me choose never to see it at all. Now that's

04:24something the ego can possibly do. Wear blinders, wear blinders so that you never see the truth.

04:38The truth is immense, it cannot be avoided. But to the ego the avoidance is possible. How?

04:46Wear blinders. Even the thought of suicide, if you will see, with great sympathy and compassion

05:05towards those who are in that kind of misery, I am saying even the thought of suicide is something

05:18of the ego. The ego says I am prepared to let the body die then be disidentified with the body.

05:34Even that is a kind of stubbornness. A greater death is when you let the body be and attain

05:55your own true self. Let the body be for what it is. The body has its own mechanisms, its own

06:07dynamic nature, works in a certain way, came about and will fall. I'll do my own thing. I

06:21cannot stop the body and the body cannot stop me. I cannot stop the body, can I? I can't. But I

06:36find that the body is stopping me. So what do I do? I say if I can't stop you, I'll kill you.

06:42That's not the way to stop interference. That's interference doubled, redoubled. Instead of saying

06:58I'll stop the tendency of the ego to be identified with the body, I say I'll stop the body itself.

07:10Why stop the body? That's why the knowers have repeatedly talked of dying before death. They

07:21call it the great death. They say the death of the body is a very small thing. Happens to

07:26everybody, to all insects. There is no being here that does not die. So death is such an

07:35ordinary and a very common thing. What is the great thing about dying today? You will anyway

07:41die tomorrow. You will anyway die tomorrow. So what's the great thing about pre-poning your

07:48death in the way of suicide let's say. The great thing is about dying before death. The great

07:59death. And if you go into philosophy, yes over the last century that's been one of the more

08:09important questions. Why to live at all? Why not commit suicide? They don't like when we use the

08:16word commit anymore. So they say why not die by suicide? So why not die by suicide? And wisdom

08:28has the answer. Because if you choose suicide, you are giving up on something much higher. You are

08:40closing the possibility. What is the possibility of living as a Jeevan Mukt? Of living joyfully

08:56as the dead one. Who is the Jeevan Mukt? Who is the dead one? And in death there is great joy.

09:04So when you choose suicide, you are closing on yourself the tremendous possibility of that joy.

09:14Jeevan Mukt implies you are still alive and blissful. Alive and blissful. And if you are

09:28no more alive, where is the bliss? Where is the bliss? So that potentiality has been forsaken.

09:39If you die, you probably can claim that you have avoided the misery now. But now you have also

09:49closed the possibility of joy. What joy is there after death? And those who have known have said

10:02that it's not a bad deal if you choose the torment of life for the sake of that joy. That joy is so

10:16immense because it comes from the immense. It comes from that greatness. That joy is so immense

10:23that it makes all the torment worth it. Know that your problem is not life. Had your problem been

10:45life, suicide might have been helpful. Your problem is your notions about life. Don't drop

10:54life. Drop the notions. Animals typically don't choose suicide. There might have been one odd

11:08case and when those cases are there, then they make headlines precisely because they are rare,

11:13exceptional. So the general rule is that animals do not take that option. Why don't they? Because

11:25they don't have notions. They are creatures of Prakriti. They don't have a future. They don't

11:36have expectations. They don't say my life should be my way. To them life is as it comes to them.

11:44Life is as it comes to them. Man lives in his notions and expectations and then a great betrayal

11:58is experienced. You feel you have been let down by life. You wanted something and life has not

12:09been up to that. The problem is that which you want is not so big that it will enable you to

12:18bear all the pain that is caused in the process of attaining it. This is that which we usually

12:35all of us want. What is it? Name it. Liberation. Who wants liberation? Come on. What is it? This is

12:49your next black shirt. This is your next car, next girlfriend, next raise. What else? Whatever.

13:04Promotion, foreign visit, whatever you want. Yes? Desires. So all the desires. This is that. The

13:17thing with the world is nothing is served to you on a platter. Nothing comes for free. So if you

13:25want to have it, what do you need to put in? Effort. If you want pleasure, you will have to go through pain,

13:34to go through pain. So there is pain involved in coming to this. I am here. There is pain involved in

13:43coming to this. So I come to this bearing a lot of pain. That pain is on the debit side in my ledger.

13:51Correct? Debit. Nuksaan. This is the cost that I have incurred in trying to come to this. And I

14:01now come to this. And having come to this, what do I discover? This appeared quite lucrative.

14:10What do I discover? But what is the nature of this one? It didn't deliver what it promised. So

14:25let's say the cost that I incurred in coming up to this is 100 units. And what do I get from this?

14:34Let's say only 10, 20, 50 units whatever. Whereas it had promised 500 units. Now the promise of

14:41500 made me spend the 100. But I come to this and how much do I find? The worth is just 20 units.

14:51So I have lost 1,000 something. But having come here, something else appears here. And this one

14:59says 1,000. So you will recoup all your losses. Now I am already in debt. My debit side is already

15:07high. And it's saying come to me. Plus 1,000. So I expend another 200 in going to this. And how

15:18much I find on reaching here? Let's say 50 or 80. So my losses accumulate. And a point comes when

15:29it becomes clear that if I pursue the next desire, I will only gather more pain. Also I do not see

15:40any option except pursuing my desires. So what do I say? I am giving up. I am giving up. That's

15:47like declaring bankruptcy. Now if you declare bankruptcy, obviously all your accumulated

15:54losses are offset. Nobody is now going to come to you to collect his dues. Equally having

16:04declared bankruptcy, where is the possibility of any future profits? If you have declared

16:12bankruptcy, where is the possibility of future profits? Please tell me. No possibility. Because

16:20the concern itself is now gone. Just as in suicide the body is gone. So this is the corporate body.

16:26Declared bankrupt, it's gone. So fine. One great thing about this is that now you don't have to pay

16:34those you owed some money. But also the great potential of profits is now gone. On the other

16:47hand there is this. This is that which we are actually meant to pursue. The immense that we

16:58are talking of. The immense that we are talking of. The wonderful thing with this is that it

17:08delivers many times more than what it promises. Many many times more. Equally the cost it extracts

17:23is also many times more. So you remember in going to this, it promised 100. It promised 500 and the

17:33cost you incurred was 100 and it turned out to be 20. That was the equation. Here this will promise,

17:43let's say you know this is another goal. It promises let's say as much as this one or a

17:49little more. It promises 1000. It promises 1000. You want to go to this. The cost that you took

17:56here was 100. The cost that you bear here is 500. Therefore people will not take this path.

18:06Because the cost is much higher here. But then if it had promised 1000 or it had remained ambiguous,

18:16just silent about what it will give you, once you reach here you find this delivers you 10,000.

18:21Just that reaching here is difficult. The cost that it asks for is higher. But then

18:30what it gives you is many times more than what you can expect. So this is what makes the cost

18:42bearable. That cost is the daily process of life. All the trials and tribulations in our daily

18:52living. Unless you are pursuing this, the costs will build up to such an extent that you will

19:03have no option but to declare bankruptcy or to keep piling up the costs by going after hopping

19:11from one target to the other. This is where the real deal is. But also this is where the real

19:23costs are. Now you can, there is this one in Hindi. Sasta rohe, baar baar. Mehnga rohe, yeh mehnga

19:38sauda hai. But here what you get is assured. It says that you are needed to surrender everything

19:50that you have. The investment is yourself. Invest it. It requires a heart. You do not

20:08build a company to declare bankruptcy, do you? Somebody is starting up, you go to them and ask

20:19them why you are starting up and they say to get bankrupt. How does that sound? Similarly you do

20:26not live to die by suicide. It's as absurd as that.

20:52No part of this recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media Ltd.'s express consent.

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