Marriage under parental pressure || Acharya Prashant (2024)

Acharya Prashant

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00:00Namaste Achareji. I am so grateful that I am in front of you today. You have absolutely

00:09changed the way I survive, changed the life of my sister, my friends. Very, very thankful

00:15for that. Today, I heard you saying that there is indignity in being dependent. And for girls

00:22born in India, my roots are from Uttar Pradesh, Banaras. I am very much born in that sort of

00:28set, wherein dependencies is how things work. Today, I am doing a PhD in Scotland. I am

00:35trying to research in simulation and modeling. But it's not enough. It's not the real thing.

00:41I often get calls from my parents saying that do something real, which basically is an underline

00:46for getting married or you know, do that. So when you say that there is indignity in being

00:52dependent, but we are being prepared for that. So can you please explain what is this

00:58indignity in being dependent? When we are perpetually being prepared for that, please sir. Thank

01:03you.

01:04It is to see first of all that choice reigns supreme. That we are not pots being prepared

01:14by some potter. Who can prepare us? Who can mould us? Who can forge us? Who has the authority?

01:27Life is our own sovereign choice. If someone is appearing to carry a certain authority over

01:37us, surely we are vesting him with that authority. Surely that is our own choice to empower that

01:50person with that kind of authority. And remember, if you are giving such an authority to that person,

02:01that person is surely giving something to you in return. The ego is a trader. So nobody can prepare

02:12you for anything. That is against the law of freedom. Especially when you are an adult, irrespective

02:25of where the childhood was, irrespective of how the conditions back then where one lives in this

02:35particular moment and there is no obligation to carry the load of the past. Certain things

02:49belong to certain areas belong to certain areas and certain epochs. That area has been flown away

03:01from. That epoch has been left behind. There is no need to… There is absolutely no need. There

03:17might be practice. There might be exchange. There might be some kind of a semi-considered barter.

03:33But there is no real need. When I say need, what I mean is something that you cannot dispense away with.

03:42If this thing is happening to you, there surely is choice involved in it. And if it is your choice,

03:52it can be reversed.

03:58So, I believe it's more emotional, the emotional bonds that are created over the years when we were

04:05children. But Sir, then why did you say that there is indignity in being dependent? Why is there?

04:15Vedanta is very, very precise and very scientifically clear on this. You are free. That is your nature.

04:22That is who you are. Anything short of freedom is an affront to your very existence and therefore

04:33indignified. You cannot be unfree. And if you decide to be unfree, that decision will come with sorrow.

04:53Your very existence militates against lack of freedom.

04:59You can choose to have lack of freedom. You can barter away your freedom. But that decision will be accompanied by sorrow.

05:08And that which you are calling as emotional bond or emotional training. Please understand that.

05:19Observe yourself. A lot of that is just a residue of the body. A lot of that is just that happens

05:31because it has not been examined. A lot of that is just fantastic storytelling.

05:44We tell ourselves stories like Hindi movies do. And then we believe in those stories.

05:53We never bother to experiment, verify, examine those stories. We believe in stories as if the stories

06:07have an absolute existence of their own. So, a story, for example, says parents love their kids.

06:15Love is a sacred word. Just because one physically gives birth, one does not become capable of loving.

06:34Not even one in a million parents love their kids. Love is not something that you can

06:48just so easily get by virtue of having a body.

06:52A lot of nonsense just passes in the name of very beautiful words. Respect, love, sacredness, understanding.

07:12And just because somebody is saying something with great conviction does not mean that the fellow knows

07:24what he is talking of. That includes this speaker.

07:32We have characters in the movies uttering absolutely stupid dialogues with great conviction.

07:39And you get impressed by the sheer baritone and the gravitas.

07:52Amitabh Bachchan spewing continuous nonsense in some family blockbuster.

08:00That's the dream figure every North Indian patriarch wants to be.

08:10Somebody whose authority is unquestionable.

08:13He just gets up from the inherited family chair, five centuries old and declares

08:22the heavenly truth.

08:25And the wife and the kids and the daughter-in-laws especially, they roll at his feet.

08:29So the saddest part is that these people including my father who is very educated.

08:46He is also an IIT alumnus. But I don't know where did that degree go. They have gone around the world.

08:54They have seen everything. But like when we were children, the western world was beautiful.

09:00They wanted to make us strong and have enrolled us into sports and everything.

09:05But now if we try to explain him that this is not what it is, then it's like you have learned this

09:10from the western world and that you are becoming too individualistic.

09:14Yeah. And without even knowing what the individual means.

09:19Without even knowing what is the meaning of the word individual.

09:24This is what is meant by living without examining.

09:29Think of words like life, love, beauty, east, west.

09:42We utter these words as if they are our playthings, as if we are the originator of these words.

09:52So their definition is absolutely clear to us. The thing is, nobody knows what these words mean.

09:59But entire sentences, the whole foundation of life,

10:06are these words.

10:20Thank you, sir. I just want to say thank you. That's it.

10:29Thank you, sir.

10:40Thank you, sir.

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