00:00 So once these are identified, once I have identified say pain or fear or something like
00:16 this where I know that it is creating an unpleasant situation or suffering for me, what are the
00:23 next ways for me to deal with this?
00:27 What is next?
00:28 A lot of suffering is just unnecessary.
00:33 If it is unnecessary, give it up.
00:34 A part of it is necessary.
00:35 If it is necessary, go through it.
00:42 We can see the next question coming.
00:43 What is the next question?
00:50 How do we know which part of suffering is unnecessary and which part is necessary?
00:56 You see, you move out like a drunkard on the road and get hit or keep hitting and abuse
01:07 or get abused and blow up your money and all of that has a suffering component attached
01:15 with it.
01:16 It is unnecessary.
01:17 Even if you suffer for a thousand years, you won't be spiritually elevated.
01:26 If you get cursed by a thousand men for a thousand years, it won't elevate your spiritual
01:34 status even a little.
01:38 So that kind of suffering is totally foolish.
01:40 Just give it up.
01:41 No need to do that.
01:48 Ego finds a perverse pleasure even in suffering.
01:54 People meet me and there are so many of them who say, you see, you look at all the great
01:58 yogis and rishis, they suffered so much and that is why they arrived at greatness.
02:08 Not everybody who suffers arrives at greatness.
02:13 There has to be a particular quality even in suffering.
02:18 Not all suffering is necessary.
02:20 Most of human suffering is totally unnecessary.
02:23 Give it up.
02:32 A monk had once met me.
02:37 I was in dharmashala.
02:38 Had a long conversation with him.
02:39 He had come to visit.
02:40 It's a cold place, dharmashala.
02:51 And the fellow would be always in just one piece of cloth.
02:56 Why are you doing this to yourself?
03:02 He said suffering is necessary.
03:08 Are you sure this kind of suffering will lead you somewhere?
03:11 But he was very determined and he was a senior monk and he had done that all his life.
03:20 It was very difficult for him to accept that all the suffering that he has accumulated
03:26 rather earned over his lifetime is needless.
03:31 Technology is good.
03:40 Science has provided man with medicine.
03:47 All that is not just hot air.
03:52 All that is meaningful.
03:57 If you are having a great headache, don't tell me that your peace won't be disturbed.
04:07 If modern medicine can help you get rid of your physical disorders at least, that helps.
04:16 No point quoting again and again that you are the atma and nothing but the atma.
04:26 So no migraine or no headache affects you.
04:29 Those who have headaches and migraines know that these do affect.
04:36 Keeping a migraine upon you and saying that suffering helps and suffering cleanses and
04:42 purifies is nonsensical.
04:45 Give it up.
04:48 And then there is legitimate and genuine suffering that comes to you in the process of self-realization.
05:00 You will have to go through it.
05:03 I'll give an example.
05:06 You think of yourself as a very worthy man.
05:12 You think of yourself as an honest man.
05:15 You think of yourself as a loving father or a loving son or a loving husband.
05:21 Or you think of yourself as a devoted wife, a caring mother, a loving daughter, something.
05:31 The more you open your eyes in the spiritual sense, the more you realize that you have
05:38 been exploiting others just every bit as much as others have been exploiting everybody else.
05:51 And then it is not pleasant to come upon this realization.
05:55 One suffers.
05:59 What I'm saying is that awareness brings suffering in its wake.
06:06 You cannot wake up and not suffer.
06:09 This is what I'm calling as genuine suffering.
06:12 And many people prefer not to wake up just because they want to avoid genuine suffering
06:17 as well.
06:24 And I assure you, what you call as self-realization is never going to be pleasant.
06:35 It is not going to be blissful or something.
06:39 It is always a bit of a heartbreak.
06:43 One sees the futility of one's life.
06:47 One sees how tremendously misled one has been.
06:53 And all that hits the ego.
06:56 One gets hurt.
06:57 It is never pleasant to get hurt.
07:01 But one has to pass through that.
07:06 One has to let that suffering come and one has to stand very vulnerable to it.
07:17 One has to bow her head down.
07:21 One has to say, I see I have been not only blind, but I have been needlessly blind.
07:37 All my life I have just deceived myself.
07:42 One's self-esteem falls into pieces.
07:50 One has to be prepared for all that.
07:52 And all that I said entails suffering.
08:02 You will not reach truth with your ego intact.
08:10 Love yourself more.
08:35 Love yourself more.
08:36 We have been taught to hate ourselves.
08:40 We have been taught to hate ourselves and therefore love the world.
08:51 When you look at a nice shirt, what do you say?
08:55 Let me wear this shirt.
08:57 This shirt will add value to me.
09:02 So what do you hate and what do you love?
09:05 You despise yourself.
09:06 You say I am of inferior value.
09:11 Even a shirt you think of as something that can add value to you, don't you?
09:16 And therefore when you find people wearing expensive shirts, you look up to them.
09:23 We have been taught to look down upon ourselves.
09:27 Love yourself.
09:30 Respect yourself.
09:31 And then you will not accept hurt.
09:34 And you will not be prone to inviting hurt.
09:42 We do not have basic, simple, innocent self-love.
09:46 We keep inviting hurt.
09:53 And equally we are greatly afraid of hurt.
10:10 Loving yourself is very different from improving yourself or adding value to yourself.
10:15 In fact, they are opposites in a sense.
10:18 Understand this.
10:19 I hope you don't misinterpret me.
10:20 By loving yourself, I do not mean that you should wear the best saree.
10:25 Because I love myself so much, so I am gifting myself the best saree.
10:29 No, no, no.
10:31 Loving yourself means that you look up to yourself and respect yourself already as you
10:37 are.
10:38 You tell yourself that it is not the world that will add value to me.
10:45 The value resides within.
10:48 The value does not reside even in this structure of flesh and bones.
10:56 It is somewhere else that the value resides.
10:58 The value resides neither in this nor in this and surely not in all that.
11:08 It is somewhere else that the value resides.
11:11 And that somewhere else is not a distant point.
11:14 That somewhere else is in here.
11:17 And if it is in here, I love myself.
11:19 Why do I love myself?
11:21 Because that valuable one is right in here.
11:29 I love myself because this structure is itself the abode of the valuable one.
11:36 I do not love the structure.
11:37 The structure will fall to pieces.
11:40 The structure might get killed tomorrow.
11:44 That is self-love.
11:50 Love yourself a lot.
11:51 It seems too far.
11:52 It is not too far.
11:53 It is your natural state.
11:56 It seems far only because you have come too far from yourself.
12:00 So return.
12:01 And returning is easier than coming so far.
12:09 Do not remain too dependent upon this and that.
