With youth: Be really selfish

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): Is it alright to be selfish?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Clearly understand this. What do you call as ‘I’? What do you call as the ‘self’?

‘Selfish’. The word ‘self’ is important. What you call as the ‘self’ and what you call as the ‘I’ are two very distinct entities, very distinct.

One is what the brain thinks itself to be. The second is what you really are. So there are actually two self’s. One is the false self, centered in the brain. The other is the real self, which is intelligence. This false self borrows its identity from the outside. So what does this false self say? It says, ‘I am a Hindu, I am an Indian, I am a student, I am an IITian’. All identities are borrowed from outside. In short, it says, ‘I am A’, and this A is something borrowed from outside. ‘I am A’ and A is F(time and space), A is F(t,x) where t is time and x is space. A is the function of time and space.

‘I must earn, I am a daughter, I am handsome, I am intelligent’. Something coming from outside is the false self. ‘I am Rajan, I am Naren, I am Mohit’. Something coming from the outside, an identity borrowed from the outside, that is the false self and it is centered in the brain.