इदमद्य मया लब्धमिमं प्राप्स्ये मनोरथम् ।
इदमस्तीदमपि मे भविष्यति पुनर्धनम् ।। 16.13 ।।
idam adya mayā labdham imaṁ prāpsye manoratham
idam astīdam api me bhaviṣhyati punar dhanam
This has been gained by me today; this desire I shall obtain; this is mine, and this wealth also shall be mine in the future.
~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16, Verse 13
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असौ मया हतः शत्रुर्हनिष्ये चापरानपि ।
ईश्वरोऽहमहं भोगी सिद्धोऽहं बलवान्सुखी ।। 16.14 ।।
asau mayā hataḥ śhatrur haniṣhye chāparān api
īśhvaro ’ham ahaṁ bhogī siddho ’haṁ balavān sukhī
That enemy has been slain by me, and others also shall I slay. I am the Lord, I enjoy, I am successful, powerful, and happy.
~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16, Verse 14
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आढ्योऽभिजनवानस्मि कोऽन्योऽस्ति सदृशो मया ।
यक्ष्ये दास्यामि मोदिष्य इत्यज्ञानविमोहिताः ।। 16.15 ।।
āḍhyo ’bhijanavān asmi ko ’nyo ’sti sadṛiśho mayā
yakṣhye dāsyāmi modiṣhya ity ajñāna-vimohitāḥ
I am rich and well-born. Who else is equal to me? I will sacrifice, I will give, I will rejoice. Thus deluded by ignorance;
~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16, Verse 15
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अनेकचित्तविभ्रान्ता मोहजालसमावृताः ।
प्रसक्ताः कामभोगेषु पतन्ति नरकेऽशुचौ ।। 16.16 ।।
aneka-chitta-vibhrāntā moha-jāla-samāvṛitāḥ
prasaktāḥ kāma-bhogeṣhu patanti narake ’śhuchau
Bewildered by many a fancy, covered by the meshes of delusion, addicted to the gratification of lust, they fall down into a foul hell.
~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16, Verse 16
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Acharya Prashant (AP): So, that’s the description of those with Asurī Prakriti, the demonic disposition.
Questioner (Q): I see that most of us have a mixture of both asurīka and the divine, devīya state.
Why does this mixture exist? Why do we switch back and forth?
Also, the deeper I get into the scriptures, the more I see that it is the same with my family. I’m torn between limiting my contact with them, to improving my ability to purify myself and between my duty to care for them. How to come out of this situation.
AP: Alright. So, why do we switch back and forth between the two states? There is no answer to this, because the only causing agent is your choice. If you do something and you ask the other, “Why do I do it?” what can he say? He will say, "It's your choice; that’s what you do." Maybe it's an unconscious choice. Then the answer is that just as right now you appear to be quite conscious while asking this question—what’s the question? ”Why do we switch back and forth between the asurī and devīya state, between the demonic and the divine state?”—similarly you should remain equally conscious when you are making those switches.
When those switches happen in your mind, those times are you conscious? Right now, as you are asking me this question, see how alert you are: you're wide-eyed, you are eager, you want to know, you want to receive. You are alert! You are looking at things. You are so receptive—right now, when you are asking me this question. And what’s your question? ”Why do I slip back? From a deity, why do I turn into a demon?” But that’s only right now. When you indeed did slip into the demonic state, did you have any consciousness? You had no consciousness. And even letting your consciousness recede is a choice.
Consider an example.
You slap someone in your drunken state, or abuse him, or do something else that is equally silly. And then later on, when you are confronted, you want to save your face saying, “Oh, but I didn’t do that consciously! It happened in spite of me! I just didn’t know I slipped!”
Alright, seems like a valid argument. At that moment, when you abused and slapped the other, you indeed were probably unconscious, right? But was the decision to turn unconscious too taken in an unconscious state? Getting the question?
At 2 am, you slapped the other. And then when you are questioned, you say, “I didn’t do it by choice! It just happened! I was drunk!" Alright, you were unconscious. But you were quite conscious at midnight when you chose to start drinking. That’s when the champagne was opened, was it not? And were you drunk when you started drinking? No! So, even the choice to turn unconscious is a conscious choice. Drinking is a great example, is it not?
Now, you could say, "Well, you see sir, your argument is not fully valid, because had I been fully conscious even at midnight, why would I take a decision to turn unconscious?" Alright, fine.
So, why did you take a decision to turn unconscious? What was then the overriding influence on you? And you will say, “Well, you see, all these friends, they just hopped in and because they were here, so we decided to have some drinks.” Alright.
Who allowed those friends to enter your life? Who was the one who termed them as 'friends' in the first place? And if those friends indeed turned up uninvited, did you not have the choice to send them back?
So, even if you keep on presenting a series of excuses, you will find that it is always a choice to remain conscious or unconscious, or to turn progressively unconscious. It is always a choice. And it is your choice.
Therefore, you cannot ask, “Why does it happen?” If you'll ask me, “Why does it happen?,” I'll turn the question back to you. I’ll ask, “Why did you do it? Why do you do it?" And if you’ll go deeper into the question, if you’ll keep probing the chain bit-by-bit, you will find that ultimately you'll come to your flawed concepts about your life. It will probably stop at that, if it has to stop anywhere at all. You'll find that your basic philosophy of life is flawed. And your basic philosophy of life is what defines you as a human being.
All animals are alike. I’m talking of all individuals of a particular species. They are all alike, are they not? You won’t find them very different. Alright, each dog has his own unique personality, but the differences in their personalities are minimal, aren't they? Whereas you'll find a great difference between the personalities of dogs and wolves, or jackals and foxes. Great difference. Within a particular species, all members would be largely alike.
But that’s not so in the case of human beings. Human beings differ greatly because human beings are the only species that have the power, the ability, the freedom, the privilege to choose their central life philosophy. What your central life philosophy is, separates you from the other. Otherwise, at the level of the body, we are all largely alike. You have two eyes, so have I. You're born, you live for x years; quite similar is my story at the physical level.
Still, human beings are tremendously different from each other. It would be quite a stretch upon the imagination to say that a Krishna, for example, is very similar to the lousy lout roaming the streets. You can’t say that, can you?
Men differ greatly among themselves. What is the difference? The difference is: what is it that you believe in? Right philosophy, and you have a great person. Wrong philosophy, and you have a totally distorted specimen.
Unfortunately, most of us just don’t have the right center, the right philosophy. That right philosophy is found at some places. Those places are called 'spiritual scriptures'. The rishis were essentially philosophers of life, and they gave a great and exalted philosophy; philosophy of a stature that no other philosopher has been able to match at all. You’ve had several others coming after them, you had philosophers in all corners of the world, but nobody has been able, for example, to match the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. Alright, you may not want to agree to Advaita Vedanta, but at least have some philosophy at your core; some reasonable, coherent philosophy.
Most people live their entire lives by very-very ramshackle, fragmented, and horrible philosophies. They are not even conscious of what their philosophy really is, though if you observe their life, you'll be able to say, "See, when this kind of a thing happens, then he responds in this way; when that kind of thing happens, he reacts in this way, so putting these two together, I can see what his philosophy is like.”
If you can watch somebody's actions, his thoughts, his life, you’ll be clearly seeing what his life philosophy is—and there is a central philosophy.
But most people do not even know what their central philosophy is, because their central philosophy, unfortunately, was ingrained in them, implanted in them when they were just too young. They were conditioned by education and family and society, and so many other things. They took in that philosophy and started believing in it as the ultimate truth. And that philosophy incapacitated them, it made them mentally and intellectually handicapped to an extent that they are not even able to now perceive and detect that philosophy, let alone question it. And it is their philosophy that works for them, decides for them, speaks for them, lives for them—in a very horrible way obviously.
You must ask yourself, “What is my philosophy? What do I live by? What’s my internal compass? What’s my inner equation or formula?” And we all have one. Don’t say, “I can’t detect any because I don’t have any.” You too have something. Find it out, dig it out. And when you'll find it out, you might be amazed. It might be so rotten, so distorted that you'll be left wondering how come you've lived by it for so long. Are you getting it?
And that is the reason I emphasize so much on the scriptures. That which you call as ‘divine revelations’, or ‘the word of God’, that word of God is actually just a top-notch philosophy. Probably the best philosophy that is possible.
We all deserve to read it. We all deserve to learn it. Obviously, it's upon our discretion. But at least go to it. Compare it with your inner existing, embedded philosophy. And the conclusion would be obvious: there is a tremendous difference between the clarity that they offer, and the darkness that we contain. That’s the reason why most people keep switching between all these states, because the central philosophy itself is quite rudimentary and dysfunctional. It doesn’t allow them to operate consciously, energetically, pointedly in the right action.
It's a mixture of influences really. What do you call a philosophy that has one paragraph taken from Kant, the next one from Hegel, third one from Schopenhauer, fourth from Voltaire? And I’m talking of big names here. Even if you take four paragraphs from these four greats, the combination might still mean something meaningful.
But what if your philosophy consists of 40 paragraphs? One taken from your geography teacher of class 7, one taken from your cousin who managed to clear a particular college entrance exam, one taken from a cartoon show that you watched in class 3, one taken from the community bully who bashed you up when you were in class 4 and after bashing you up, he had proclaimed some golden words upon you just to add insult to injury—and you took those words quite literally and seriously and turned them into your totem.
Such is our philosophy. We do not even know where it comes from; it's a very jumbled up mass. A jumbled up mass of mangled visions.
Then, “I see that the same is the case with my family as well, so I'm torn between limiting my contact with my family and improving my ability to purify myself and between my duty to care for them.”
Alright. You don’t really have to see it as an either-or situation. Being what you are, you are experiencing the dilemma or the crisis that you are. Remember that crisis is a function of who you are.
Whatever you experience is a function of who you are. When you will change, your experience of the crisis itself will change. In other words, the crisis may no more remain at all.
You say, "Right now, I’m in a crisis. I’m confused, and the other one is confused. I do not know whose confusion to clear first." That’s your question. "Should I clear up his confusion? Should I focus on my improvement?" That’s what you are asking.
If you are confused, then obviously this question too is confused. If you are confused, then the two options that you are generating for yourself, both of them are obviously confused options.
So, you forget all about the situation. Focus on your own improvement. Get some clarity first of all. If you don’t know what the situation is, how can you improve it? If you do not know what a thing is like, how can you change it? Even if you want to change something, you have to, first of all, be in your senses and understand what the thing is all about. When you know the stuff that is going on within you and around you, then you will be in a far better position to do something about it, if something is needed at all.
