Transcriber: Eva Alba Martín Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
I'm so happy to see you all.
I’m sure you are happy to see me, too.
We want to be happy all the time. Isn’t it?
Is it there anybody here who doesn’t want to be happy?
I don’t think so.
So, whatever we do, at the end of it, we want to be happy.
Does that mean everything we do works out for us? No, not necessarily.
Sometimes some things give us grief, some make us really, really miserable.
So that’s why people say, often say:
“Beta, don’t go too close to this or don’t go get too involved.
Be detached. Detachment will bring you happiness.”
So is this true?
If detachment can bring us happiness, it is an idea worth exploring.
So let's see how we can do that.
First and foremost, before we go and become detached ourselves,
we have to ask, what we’re attached to?
It’s quite logical.
So what are we generally attached to?
Generally, we are attach to our families our friends, our professions,
hobbies, and the list can be hundreds of other things.
So we develop these things in order to become happy, directly or indirectly.
Is there anybody here who struck up a friendship to become unhappy?
No, not at all.
So if we develop these things,
if we want to be happy because of this,
do you think it would be possible for us to detach ourselves from this?
So before we dive into this question, all the techniques of detachment,
we should ask ourselves, is it possible to detach ourselves at all?
Scientifically speaking, everything in the world is made of the same things,
that is atoms, subatomic particles and all that.
It is just that the way they are arranged makes us think that things look different.
We learned it in school, right? Everybody, all of us, have learned.
So, for example, I am made of the same material as the chair,
and the chair is made of the same things as the screen you are looking at.
You look around you. What we breathe out, the trees breath in
and what we breathe in, the trees have already breathed out.
We eat plant life and what we excrete becomes food for the plants.
The herbivorous animals eat this plants and become food
for the carnivorous animals.
What falls down is rain that we drink.
And what we drink,
and what we perspire goes back as the rain clouds.
So there is nothing independent, there is nothing redundant.
It is all one closely knit ecosystem. We are all connected.
I’m sure some of you are thinking,
then aren’t we individuals with unique identities?
Yes, sure. You are as unique as a wave in the ocean.
A wave looks nothing like the ocean. It behaves nothing like the ocean.
Every wave is different in size, shape and in the way it behaves.
But, in that way, a wave is an individual.
But it is made of the exact same material as the ocean, which is water.
There is no ocean without the wave, there is no wave without the ocean.
If that is how it works,
so what are we going to detach ourselves from?
Or is it possible to detach ourselves from this?
Or even for an instance, we assume that we can detach ourselves.
So what about our own body,
such a part and parcel of this ecosystem,
can we de tach ourselves from it?
Let me ask you, since we are exploring,
let me ask you another question,
what are some of the great things that we have achieved as humanity, as human beings
by being detached?
Seriously nothing.
All the great scientists who made those path-breaking discoveries
or the world leaders who showed humanity that shining light,
or the Good Samaritan who took the accident victim to the hospital,
do you think they were acting in detachment to be involved?
So when we achieve something, it makes us happy.
So often we get this feeling that if we get involved
with something, that it is tying us down, it is becoming too stifling,
it is weighing us down, we become unhappy, we feel helpless sometimes.
Friends, let me tell you, this has nothing to do with your involvement.
It is something more than that.
So before this... for example, before this type of relationship,
you need to be formally introduced, like, for example,
exchange of visiting cards.
So what is this visiting card?
It is a label put on you, to identify you.
And this identity can put you in a slot
and it is very difficult to get out of this slot.
And if you’re famous and you feel popular,
and you have this been identified with something,
it is all the more difficult to come out of it.
But if you, just let’s say you are a doctor,
so tomorrow you read your name in the paper or in the TV.
Dr. So-and-so discovered this wonder drug for COVID.
Do you feel tied down or comforted?
When you are in your comfort zone, do you want to get away from this?
In fact, you want to be as close to it as possible.
So good thing is, when you are involved, when you have identified with something,
you feel close to it and your involvement becomes enhanced.
And without involvement, there is nothing you can succeed at.
So on the flip side, this identity, this intimacy
can tie you down, it’s binding you.
For example, let’s see, have you flown a kite?
So every time you pull the string, the kite goes higher and higher.
And the kite must be thinking, if only I didn’t have this string,
how much higher I could fly?
But this string is what makes the kite a kite.
Without this its identity --
without this identity a kite is just a piece of paper.
Just try cutting off the string. What happens?
The kite does not fly any higher.
In fact, it just goes limp. It drifts down to the ground lifeless.
So though identity is a bondage.
Without identity, we don’t stand the chance to achieve anything.
But this identity, which is a bondage, is also against our true nature.
Human nature is to ever expand, to get the most out of life.
I’m not talking of some big achievements. Just take the smallest of the things.
If you have a job, you want a better job.
If you have a house, you want a bigger house.
If you look good, you want to look better.
So the list can go on and on and on.
So the question is, is it bad then to grow like this?
The question is not whether it is good or bad,
but the fact remains that it is against our nature.
Our nature is to grow to our maximum capacity.
And any obstruction in this power can make us unhappy.
We don’t want to be tighter.
This identity can be really, really restrictive.
I’m not even talking of big things.
Just like, for example, I want to get a new kind of haircut
or shave off my beard.
I will think twice.
I look in the mirror ten times and ask my friends, because I am so grown,
so attached to this identity, this looks, this kind of thing.
What I have been behaving in the way I am,
I don't want to let it off so easily. It is very painful.
I even though there is a promise of a new identity at the end of it.
I don't want to let it go.
So just think how difficult it must be to let go
of the bigger identities we have down.
Like, for example, our relationships, our professions,
our nationality, gender.
So how can we get rid of this identity?
No, we don’t have to get rid of this kind of identity.
In fact, we have to be true to our nature and grow our identity
to the maximum, till there are no more boundaries left.
For example, when Gandhi was assaulted in South Africa,
he could have taken it as an insult to himself.
Instead, he said: “This is an injustice done to the whole country.”
He did not identify with himself or his family,
but he identified with the entire nation.
And, in turn, the entire nation identified with him,
who was a mere individual.
So when your identity has grown that way,
all your day to day troubles start looking very trivial.
You think they don’t matter anymore.
When you grow your identity that way
you have not detached yourself from anything.
On the contrary, you have included everything around you
within your identity.
And when everything around you is a part of you
and you are a part of everything around you, is there a conflict?
It’s just like your arm or a leg is a part of you,
everything around you belongs to you and you belong to everything.
When that is the case, would you think of hurting anything around you?
Or anybody around you?
No, it is all one.
When everything around you becomes a part of you, there are no more disagreements.
In fact, what would you disagree with?
And for that matter, what will you agree?
Everything is you.
So when you have identified everything around you as a part of you,
there are no more conflicts, no more pain, no more sorrow.
How big is your identity?
Is it your view, your family, your world around you?
Or is it the Earth, the solar system? I don’t know, it is entirely up to you.
It is going to be your decision, how big you want your identity to be.
You can go grow it as big as you want.
So let’s come back to this original subject, detachment.
What does detachment do?
Detachment separates us, separates us from the whole.
It is fragmenting in nature.
For a tiny, tiny, tiny moment,
you might feel free, but immediately the loneliness sets in.
And once that happens, how long can you carry on?
So how can we grow this identity that big?
Let me explain. It is not a physical journey.
You don’t have to go anywhere and grow anything.
We were always, we were and we are one with the universe.
We had just forgotten it.
Our mind has played a trick on us
in making us believe otherwise, only for survival purposes.
We don’t have to go anywhere or we don’t have to grow anything.
We just have to become aware of it is always there.
And to become aware, the first thing we need to do is
brush out the cobwebs of ignorance and prejudice.
And this, remember, this awareness is not the same as information.
You can get plenty of information from books,
so much information you can get externally from the Internet, for example.
But awareness comes from within.
When every cell in your body,
every thought in your mind starts reverberating to this idea that
everything is one, everything belongs to me, I am one with the universe,
that is the blissful moment when you say “Aham Brahmasmi”,
I am the Creator and I am the Creation.
I am one with the universe. There are no more complex, no arguments.
Only bliss. Thank you.