- 6/19/2025
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, we come from a society which is patriarchal in nature. Everything revolves around a man.
00:09There is a general subjugation of a woman, in the sense that there are laws, there are rules and regulations
00:16around what a woman can do, not do, things like that.
00:20My question is that, is there a general fear of a woman, in the man's mind or in the society at large?
00:29Because we control things, we subjugate a thing to rules and regulations only when we feel a threat or maybe inferiority, if I may say.
00:41So, yeah, that is my question, is there a fear of a woman?
00:46So, you see, you are already in hold of something important.
00:58At one side, at one end, you see that it is a patriarchal society that we are coming from.
01:05On the other hand, your question is, is the man afraid of a woman?
01:12Firstly, we are saying that the man is the controller and then we are asking is the man afraid of the woman?
01:18Not just the man, but maybe society at large, man and woman, because even though women are an equal participant in the patriarchal system, right?
01:27It is also the woman who hold the patriarchy, so society also.
01:33But then society by itself hardly means anything.
01:37When we say society, we mean the members of the society.
01:41When we say a system dominated by men, we mean men.
01:48First of all, a few things about the dualistic nature of mind, of existence, probably need to be seen.
02:06First, there is no control ever, in the sense that there can't be a controller and a controlled.
02:22There would always be a controlled one and another controlled one, out of which one would appear to be the controller.
02:37But no one is really the controller.
02:40Similarly, there can never be an exploiter and an exploited.
02:45There would always be the exploited and the exploited.
02:51And out of the two exploited, obviously one would appear like the exploiter.
02:58And the one who appears like the exploiter need not be a definite one.
03:02Among these two, the role of the exploiter would keep changing hands.
03:08So sometimes the man would appear like the exploiter and other times the woman would appear like the exploiter.
03:19Whenever the natural harmony of things, of movement, of existence is upset, then there is disease.
03:30Disease on both sides, the man and the woman.
03:39When things are healthy, then nobody controls anybody.
03:47Neither the man controls anybody nor does the woman control anybody.
03:52When things are diseased, then both parties control each other.
03:57It is not as if because we have named it as a patriarchal society, which does appear on the surface.
04:05Right?
04:06That it is dominated by man.
04:07The man is the head of the family.
04:09The man controls 97% of the wealth.
04:12The man is at the top in most organizations.
04:14So the man does appear to be the controller, which I would like to submit is just an illusion.
04:27Man controls in his own way, but because there can be no controller and no control.
04:33So the woman controls in her own way.
04:38Both are at war with each other.
04:41Both are trying to enslave each other.
04:46Both are trying to get on top.
04:48It is exploited and the exploited.
04:52Just that their ways are different because their respective constitutions are different.
04:55A man is constructed differently from a woman.
05:00So the way the man tries to control has got to be different from the way a woman tries to control.
05:07Man's aggression is gross because what does man have on his side?
05:14Physicality.
05:15Brute power.
05:16So his aggression will be gross.
05:20You would probably, you know, see him dominating a woman purely by the strength of muscle power.
05:33Which is not so much these days, but still it does happen.
05:37We do see that happening.
05:41Or through money power.
05:43But in such a case where the woman is being made the target of control and ownership,
05:59she would have her own devious ways of countering that.
06:07Not only countering that.
06:08You see, when you say countering that, you probably mean that the man's aggression is a cause of the woman's counter attack.
06:16No, not really.
06:18The man is not causing the woman to counter him.
06:22Both are parallelly and simultaneously sick.
06:25That is the thing about duality.
06:27The man is not causing the woman to retaliate.
06:29Because the whole environment, the whole structure is arising out of ignorance.
06:42So the man and the woman are parallelly and equally sick.
06:45Where do you think the sickness is coming from?
06:51Why is the sickness there?
06:53You see, we are talking of psychological sickness.
06:58And psychological sickness is always the absence of knowledge of reality.
07:03What is this whole game, the whole drama about?
07:08What is this world about?
07:13What is knowledge?
07:14What is perception?
07:16And ultimately, you come to the question,
07:21Who is the one asking the question?
07:23Who am I?
07:24So, whether it is a man who is not exposed to this enquiry, or whether it is a woman,
07:36both are going to be equally ignorant and violence is inseparable from ignorance.
07:42You see, man's violence, as we just said, is tremendously ugly, gross, brute, muscular.
08:03Woman's violence is a little hidden, is a little subtle.
08:27She has her own ways.
08:28She has her own ways.
08:32She has her own ways.
08:37Woman's liberation cannot be distinct from man's liberation.
08:43Or the subjugation.
08:45And woman's subjugation cannot be differentiated from man's subjugation.
08:51So, talking of acting only at one pole just betrays a lack of understanding of the game of duality.
09:07So, it is quite, in the scheme of things, very, very obvious that when you have an order dominated by men,
09:31men are going to be afraid of women.
09:36Had they not been afraid of women, why would they have raised such an order in the first place?
09:42Exactly.
09:48And, at the same time, women are going to be afraid of men.
09:52Man's aggression is gross.
09:55It is very obvious.
09:57And women's fear is gross.
09:59It is very obvious.
10:01And women's fear is gross.
10:03It is very obvious.
10:07What is hidden, and not so obvious, is the woman's aggression and the man's fear.
10:17Both are hidden.
10:18A man would usually not like to admit that he is afraid of a woman.
10:28So, that fear is hidden.
10:31And equally difficult it is to see that a woman is aggressive, even though she might appear helpless or even benign.
10:40But she is aggressive in the way she talks, moves, relates, dresses up, plays her own games.
10:59Is that not aggression, all of that?
11:03Hmm?
11:05So, something is apparent.
11:09Something is a little sublimial.
11:13I think we have to look at the totality of it.
11:16So, you are saying that there is a, obviously, there is a fear in a man.
11:21So, I wanted to, like, know or, you know, discuss, what is this fear that he relates to the woman?
11:30Is it sexuality?
11:32Is it her sexuality?
11:33Because when he, what the most control is about, the way she dresses, people she talks to, where she goes, things like that.
11:40And all that relates to sexuality of a woman or sexuality in large.
11:45So, is there a fear of sexuality of a woman or is there a fear of sexuality?
11:50So, we are talking of the aggression of man and the fear of man.
11:54That man is aggressive towards a woman and man is afraid of the woman.
12:00We are talking of that.
12:02I would like you to expand and complete the scope of the question.
12:05So, we are talking of the man's aggression and the man's fear and let us also talk of the woman's aggression and the woman's fear.
12:16Because only when we take these two together, can we understand the whole game.
12:21Because if you look at only the man, then that is in some way an ignorance of what is happening at the woman's end.
12:29And that she is an equal participant in the whole game of illusion.
12:37So, what is coming to my mind right now?
12:40I read this book by Sudhir Kakar.
12:42He is a psychoanalyst.
12:43It is called Exploring Indian Sexuality.
12:46Therein he is talking, so he is giving an example of a movie or a novel, I am not very sure.
12:53So, there is this woman, Rano.
12:57Her relationship with her husband is somewhat like husband gets drunk, beats her up, asks her to submit to him.
13:07She defies him and he beats her up.
13:10She enjoys the beating up because she knows that it is her resistance.
13:15I guess that is how she is showing her aggression.
13:17Also, I think the fear could also be losing that control.
13:25So, if I am letting you control me, obviously I also have control.
13:31Very well.
13:33You see, now we are moving into troubled waters.
13:38You know, now what we would be saying would be a little amoral.
13:53The conventional way of looking at man-woman relationship won't hold good here.
14:00A few of the feminists may not like what we are saying.
14:09And even men may be displeased.
14:11But let's...
14:19The mind's desire for control is such that it can bear any pain for it.
14:26The mind lives in continuous insecurity.
14:30There is nothing more dominant on the mind than its great fear of elimination, insecurity.
14:41Control is the apparent antidote to insecurity.
14:46I am insecure, so I want to control a lot of things.
14:49To gain that control, I am even prepared to be beaten up.
14:53You see, you beat me up.
14:56But I know after beating me up, you will feel the moral pangs to come back to me.
15:02I was in Rajasthan.
15:08And there, it was a village.
15:12And there, there was this elderly woman advising, a younger one, that if your husband beats you up, it's a sign of his love.
15:30And you should be more alarmed if he doesn't beat you up.
15:33You see, this is the way the female mind is looking at the whole thing.
15:42We are not saying that all women are thinking in this way.
15:46So, please listen to me with a little bit of empathy.
15:52Because it's very easy to misunderstand this thing.
15:56Because the beating in other cases might not be the physical beating.
15:59Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
16:00It could be other sorts of beating.
16:01Yes, yes, yes, yes.
16:02And it's a, it's a thing very prevalent across cultures, cross cultures.
16:15Even kids learn this very quickly that if they demonstrate that they have been harmed, then they will be compensated.
16:28So compensation goes along with harm.
16:32And sometimes the lure of compensation can cause you to deliberately invite harm upon yourself.
16:40If the compensation means control.
16:45So compensation means control.
16:47That applies not only to man-woman relationships.
16:51That applies even to parents and kids.
16:55We have sacrificed so much for you.
17:00So we will now control your lives.
17:03We sacrificed so much for you.
17:05So now we will control your lives.
17:06When man will be non-violent, only then we can expect a non-violent woman.
17:30When women will be fearless, only then we can expect a fearless man.
17:38And both will move together.
17:41One end cannot move on its own because it is inseparably joined to the other end.
17:49You know, here in Advait, couples often arrive.
18:03And I have seen and I advise them that if the man is coming, that he must try to bring the woman here as well.
18:18And if the woman is coming, she must try to bring the man here as well.
18:21The man will not be able to take a dimensional leap if the woman in his life is not prepared to leap along with him.
18:44Because he has defined himself with respect to the woman.
18:53His very self-definition is now so deeply linked to the woman.
18:59Who am I? The husband of this lady.
19:01Who am I? The father of these kids.
19:03He simply cannot fly if those in his life decide to act as deadweights.
19:16Same with the case of woman.
19:20If the woman is coming here and the man is...
19:24So that's the best thing to happen.
19:26Both have to go together.
19:32See, I said we are now moving into troubled waters.
19:37And if it sometimes happens, it does happen sometimes,
19:44that the man is prepared to fly.
19:47But the woman is stubborn.
19:49She is not prepared to fly.
19:50Then the man will actually have to give her up.
19:53And vice versa.
19:57If you think that you can remain in the same environment,
20:01and your partner, your spouse, to a great extent determines the environment in which you live.
20:07Especially in India.
20:08If you decide to live in the same environment,
20:15then even inner change will be obstructed.
20:21You will be suffocated.
20:25You are expanding.
20:27You cannot be wearing the same chains that you have been wearing since so long.
20:38So these two must go together.
20:43Man and woman.
20:45Those who are talking of eliminating aggression from men.
20:50For example, those who talk of reduction of the nuclear forces of the world.
20:57Or those who talk of eliminating rape.
21:00Or those who talk of controlling gun culture.
21:07Like in the US.
21:09Will have to look at how this whole thing is related even to women.
21:14Though it may be a problem that looks specific to men.
21:16But it has deep linkages with the women around the men.
21:22And unless that linkages are understood and acted upon, the problem will remain.
21:27Similarly, the problems that are usually taken as specific to women,
21:32cannot be treated unless the men folk in the lives of women change.
21:42So the other end of the duality has to be addressed.
21:46For example, we talk of women often as being underachievers.
22:00Even women come and complain that we know that there is more jealousy and pettiness related to small matters.
22:14In us compared to our male counterparts.
22:18And such things.
22:21Though these are considered as less serious problems compared to the build up of a nuclear arsenal.
22:28Right?
22:29If a woman comes and says that I feel petty and possessive.
22:32That is usually not taken as a problem compared to the production of ironium and plutonium.
22:39But I think it is.
22:41It surely is.
22:42The pettiness in women.
22:46And the 10,000 nuclear weapons that the world has stored today and is building more.
22:53They are inseparably linked.
22:56And they have to be addressed together.
22:59Have to be addressed together.
23:00So when you are talking about how, like, when I am, so for example, if a man wants to, comes and wants to fly off with the dead weight that is holding him back.
23:11Sometimes the wife doesn't want to.
23:13Or sometimes the man doesn't want to.
23:14Why do you think they don't want, like, have they come to enjoy this, this whole business of subjugating and having control over each other in different way?
23:26Is there a perversion of this control that has come about?
23:30You see, we all want the same thing.
23:32Why does one move to drugs?
23:39Why?
23:40Seeking excitement.
23:41And it is so very close to spiritual bliss.
23:50So much so that you find that many of the spiritual seekers are in fact using these methods.
23:56Opium, Ganja, Babas is so very popular with the Babas, Chilam, you know of these things, right?
24:11Because these two are very, very close, very intimate.
24:16And if you are not looking with attention, you will not be able to tell one from the other.
24:22And because you get used to one, which is more easily attainable, the Chilam.
24:32You then say that, why leave to this which I already have in my hands and try for something which is indescribable, unattainable.
24:45This I have with me and this gives me such a high.
24:49I am pretty sure no spiritual joy can be more peaceful, more liberating than this.
25:01You talk of thoughtlessness, I become totally thoughtless.
25:05You talk of sorrowlessness, I forget all my sorrows.
25:09So when I am already getting the highest spiritual pleasure from something as available and as cheap as a weed.
25:25Then why are you trying more difficult, more tortuous, more bloody ways?
25:46You know, the elimination of ego is like giving up one part of your body after the other.
25:56Frankly, it is a bloody battle.
26:01And if one has cheap substitutes available, why fight this battle?
26:12Why fight this battle?
26:13So that is why often it will happen that while the man or the woman would be eager to come here, the partner would become a roadblock.
26:24Yeah.
26:25.
26:26.
26:27.
26:28.
26:29.
26:30.
26:32.
26:33.
26:34.
Recommended
0:48
0:51
0:59
0:51