Video Information: 22.02.23, SPA College (Online), Greater Noida
Context:
How should real division of labour happen?
How to decide what the best suited work for me?
Who should the resources gravitate towards?
What was the story of Tilopa?
How did Socrates die?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
How should real division of labour happen?
How to decide what the best suited work for me?
Who should the resources gravitate towards?
What was the story of Tilopa?
How did Socrates die?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30good evening sir so uh in the caste system we had basically uh the defense that comes up is that the
00:51division of labor was on the basis of birth and this was the intention
00:54so i just got me thinking that obviously division of labor on the basis of birth is reprehensible
01:02because that could also imply that the fruits of that labor and some of the labor is considered to
01:07be higher value and some labor is considered to be lower value so the fruit of that labor will go to
01:12that particular person who is from a particular family then comes the capitalist system where
01:19they say that who gets to decide or divide labor it is the person who owns the factors of production
01:25which is the capitalist so that person decides who does what and the decision is obviously on the
01:33basis of profit or maximum productivity to be able to make the resource as much as possible
01:37without any consideration to the resource including the labor then there's marx who says that to each
01:45from each according to his ability to each according to his need uh which which which was like um a
01:51protest against the capitalist system which said that uh you know the fruits only go to the person who
01:57is maximum capable of producing that thing so mark said that uh while everybody works uh the
02:04fruits are divided on the basis of need so from a spiritual perspective what do you think should be
02:11the basis of division of labor in the world you have to work at a point where you really are situated
02:23internally for example
02:30let's take the example of a buddhist sangha there is a buddha there are his top monks the senior fellows
02:39and it's a huge sangha it had already become quite expansive in his lifetime
02:47and so all kinds of things are happening
02:52and a variety of great diversity of functions have to be performed also at some point he had admitted
03:00women so that angle too has to be managed there too a train of leadership has to be developed
03:08and also sometimes separate set of policies so all that he has to manage now the thing is
03:18how do you divide labor really do you want to have the buddha do menial tasks
03:25and i'm saying menial from the point of view of consciousness
03:29how will he be able to really do something that would help and uplift entire north india in his lifetime
03:41and later on so much of asia if he is made to for example
03:49i mean think of so many places i mean
03:50and that would not be beneficial to him if you make him broom the floor
04:02right or sweep the kitchen
04:08if you say the buddha must go and cook
04:11it's a wastage and it's a wastage to the entire world
04:22the buddha in his humility might even just agree
04:25he might say fine
04:28i was anyway never too eager
04:30to even discourse for the first time
04:39you all came and persuaded me
04:43so if i am to be silent
04:47and confine myself to the kitchen i am okay with it
04:50the buddha would go and start cooking and i hope you would be a great cook
04:53but what about the world it's the it's the world's loss
05:03it's a cumulative loss
05:06and the and the buddha too in a personal sense if at all anything remains of his personhood
05:12does not gain anything
05:16just as he was not gaining anything by continuing to be a prince
05:19so he left the palace similarly he is not gaining anything by being a cook
05:30so so he ought to leave the kitchen
05:35he must be stationed at a kind of job that befits the level of his consciousness
05:45equally you have stories where have you heard of tilopa
05:49so legend has it nobody knows for good it's not a historical fact but there must be some truth to it
06:02so it said that he went to his and this is in the lineage of the buddha right
06:08several centuries after the buddha and this is coming from tibetan buddhism
06:14so
06:19this fellow goes to the
06:24the teacher the top monk
06:28and says please you give me some work to do
06:33and not that he was a total newbie
06:35he was a learned brahmin he was already a scholar who had come to a buddhist guru now
06:46so he goes to him and says i have come to you now and i want to learn
06:50please tell me what to do
06:53the guru was already quite old
06:56so the guru tells him you go and you occupy yourself in the kitchen
07:03and in the kitchen
07:06you busy yourself with working on the til
07:09what do you call til as in english
07:11sesame
07:13sesame so you work on that
07:16maybe he was working on extracting some oil from the seeds or something whatever the work was
07:22he started working on that
07:25and the guru being quite old and also
07:28probably you know old people do get demented
07:32guru forgot
07:34totally forgot
07:35and this fellow
07:39just kept himself to the kitchen for 11 long years
07:42it is said it might happen 11 months
07:45exaggeration
07:47is a is almost a literary form
07:50that that that you often see in the scriptures
07:53so never take anything on
07:55face value if you read 11 years that might mean
07:5811 months or 11 weeks
08:01but even 11 months is long right for a scholar
08:04this fellow is already a scholar from north india
08:07and he's going all the way to
08:10tibet to learn and he's being told to work in the kitchen
08:13but very dutifully he said fine
08:16if if the guru has said work in the kitchen i'll work in the kitchen
08:19so he works in the kitchen
08:21and 11 years later when the guru is about to depart
08:26the guru says
08:27whosoever among my disciples can come and tell me one pithi line
08:32who can capture everything in just a few words
08:36shall be my successor
08:39and so people come up and they all
08:42wax
08:45all eloquent and come up with great scholarly and erudite lines
08:51finally the one who comes up with a great line is something like this i don't exactly remember
08:59but the line says something like
09:01the world is an illusion and there is the world is your own mirror or something you know typical lines
09:15this is buddhist non-duality
09:18just as you have a duayat in vedanth
09:21there is a buddhist non-duality as well so this is all that
09:24and this buddhist non-duality is at the core of buddhism
09:30very similar to the vedantic non-duality actually indifferent from that
09:37so so so everybody there in the monastery thinks that the successor has been found
09:44what great lines this fellow has written see
09:50finally nobody remains who hasn't tried
09:56and tilopa is busy in his kitchen his name itself has become tilopa
10:00because he was busy with the til
10:05finally he comes and he sees what is written and it was it was on the wall probably or something
10:10so he goes there and he wipes it clean and stands there and the guru smiles and says this
10:22and departs
10:25he had totally effaced himself
10:30totally
10:33removed himself finished himself off so he said you know whatever you write consists something of you
10:39my only learning is that nothing remains so even this has to go because if some words remain some part of the ego remains
10:46i have nothing to say that nothingness is the real thing
10:52and the guru said only this one has really learned what was there to be taught
10:57all the others have principles and concepts this one has really understood
11:02really understood and all he did was he went there and he looked at it what nonsense remove it and he stood in nothing
11:13so even something as as routine as mechanical and as lifeless
11:23as grounding seeds in the kitchen can be of great help provided you are the one who who needs help at that station
11:38just as we said the kitchen would be of no use to the buddha
11:43the kitchen proved to be of great use to tilopa
11:46that's how division of labour has to happen you have to figure out what is the kind of work that
11:53would benefit a person depending on his state of consciousness
12:01just as it is it is a shame to appoint a buddha to the kitchen
12:08it's an equal shame to appoint
12:18someone who doesn't deserve it
12:21to a position of great freedom
12:24because internally if you are still enslaved and enslaved we are all born aren't we internally you are still enslaved and
12:31outwardly in your job you are given great freedom and authority
12:35it would prove devastating not only to others but also to yourself
12:41so that's how division of labour must happen division of labour
12:45is simply contingent on the station of consciousness
12:52figure out where does the person stand internally and accordingly let him work
12:58that would be of value to him and to the entire world
13:02he would rise the entire world would rise
13:10so could we say that then the social hierarchy should be
13:15freer you are higher you are on the hierarchy
13:18exactly exactly and that's such a simple thing to see isn't it
13:22and i have said
13:29already that even the distribution of resources not just the
13:35that of labour has to be according to the strength of consciousness
13:41the more my consciousness is free the more i am somebody who can be entrusted with resources
13:58resources should not be allowed to be commanded by people of small minds
14:05if you say but you know he earned it he deserves to have it you do not understand life
14:14even if a small kind of mind
14:18happens to by chance earn great riches
14:22he does not deserve to have those riches stay with him
14:25else he will use those riches to destroy everything and everybody
14:31and it's quite possible to become rich just by chance you have ample instances
14:37you have to be the the right person at the right place
14:42with with the right kind of intention to make good of the movement
14:46and you can become rich in in the right kind of society
14:52even if you somehow manage to make money the money should not be allowed to stay with you
14:58if you do not deserve that money obviously people will raise the question who will assess
15:05the merit of the of the individual not just because the the process has not been thought of does not mean
15:15that the principle can be dismissed
15:19the principle stands its place the process is something you should find out
15:26figure out a process try experiment fail many times
15:30but do come up with a process that distributes
15:33both work and resources according to a person's
15:40internal stature
15:41you know this this reminds of me me of plato's republic
15:47he was he he went deeply into this question who should be
15:53commanding authority in a society and he went into this question because he had seen socrates his
15:58teacher being killed in front of him and he had seen that socrates was killed
16:03through a democratic process it was not that the judges were too keen on sentencing him
16:13it was the people who wanted him dead
16:17had it been left to the judges the judges would have probably let him go
16:22there were there was a
16:25divided verdict but the verdict would have been in socrates favor he would have been
16:30allowed to live but the masses wanted him dead so plato had this
16:37had this problem rather this contempt for for everything that that just gave
16:45credence to your body is it just because you have a body that does not mean you are eligible to have
16:53us say it is not your body that must count it is your mental stature that must count
16:59and after socrates died plato left greece
17:06he started wandering here and there and for many years i suppose 10 years 12 years he just
17:10rendered and he wanted to see what is going on
17:14and once he had understood a bit of life he returned and then he said you know
17:18there has to be a rigorous process first of all kids must be taken away from their parents by the
17:27time they are i don't know what was the age that he prescribed so so don't judge me on the facts that i
17:35give on the minor details i only remember the the broader picture so he said by the time they are six
17:43or eight or eight or something let them go to a state school and after that for several years their
17:50parents will not meet them and then for for 10 years let everybody be trained in xyz subjects he determined
18:00the subjects and then there will be a test at the age of 20
18:04and half of them will fail that test that test is designed to keep only the top half of the students
18:18and those who fail they go out and they they they become the workers of the society
18:24and then they are trained for another 10 years and after these 10 years of those who remain three-fourths are
18:39made to exit and then these become the officers etc by this time these people are 30 35 or something
18:48now only a small group remains now only a small group remains they are trained further and tested and every five years
18:56more and more of them are just expelled from this thing and now but they the but now they become the
19:04commanding
19:07factors and forces in the society in the economy
19:10and finally you can you can read the details but that's how that proceeds finally by the time this entire
19:22bunch reaches the age of 50 only one will remain and this fellow who remains will be the philosopher king
19:33he will be the philosopher king and next to him will be a committee of those who just lost out to him
19:43so a strong very empowered committee of 10 or 15 people so that even this philosopher king does not
19:50become autocratic or despotic and plato says that he would have been trained and tested so rigorously
20:00that he would anyway have no no pleasure in possession
20:06no pleasure and that's why he can be given the entire country to command
20:13because he is of a mind that doesn't want to own or possess he doesn't take pleasure in authority or dictation
20:21are you getting it so determine the worth of the person and accordingly give him the status
20:32when you have been tested for 40 50 years that's when you should be given the highest job in the land
20:41and even after that plato suggested checks and measures and they are all there
20:45what i have narrated to you is a very crude outline but it just came to mind so i did
20:52so that's how division of labor should take place not that plato is the final word on that
21:01but i just wanted to give you an idea of how one should think when it comes to determining
21:08the position of people in the society and also this is not exploitative i'll tell you the reason
21:16someone who does not want
21:22a very high level of consciousness because consciousness remember is a choice right
21:28a high level of consciousness does not come randomly to you
21:32it is something that you pay for it is something that you opt for by paying a price by paying a
21:38steep price so there will always be people who do not even want that kind of free mind and high
21:44consciousness now if such people
21:49just to honor the principle of equality are put in positions that require high consciousness
21:58these people will suffer so it will be violent to even those people to forcefully put them in high
22:09positions they do not want high positions because high positions require a high price to be paid
22:18they don't want to pay that price they are happy with their little lives so plato says let them continue
22:24to be happy with their little lives we don't want to interfere it would be an injustice to them to
22:30forcefully pull them up and make them sit on the highest point in the fort and the palace
22:37they don't want to be there so so you have to think on these lines
22:43our current definition of exploitation is more moralistic more moralistic you are saying the fish
22:58must be perched on the treetop otherwise you know it's an inferior position she is living even below the
23:06surface she is not even at level zero she is living at a negative level c below the surface
23:15so perch her on the treetop does she even want to be there we are not talking of genetics we are
23:21talking of choice in the example it's genetics replace genetics with choice do most people even want to
23:29be at positions that will involve great freedom but will demand great sacrifice that's what
23:38important thank you sir this was great thank you thank you