Others taught you to hesitate || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Question: Sir, my question is that why are we often so afraid of putting our thoughts in front of others? Why do we care? Many times we care about others, about the people around us. Why is it so?
Speaker: You have been wanting to ask a question from the very first minute. Right? It is there in your eyes, but you have been unable to ask. Why does that happen? (Laughingly) I don’t look particularly like a monster. Do I? I do.
(Somebody in the audience makes some noise) Heard him? Do I emit those kinds of sounds? This would not have been the case, had this hall not been full of people. It is not ‘your question’ which is blocked. It is about the others. Do not think that there is something in the question, it is the ‘presence of others’. Had you been alone in this room, there would have been no barrier at all. You would have just simply, spontaneously said what you wanted to say. Right now you are worried about what the others might think. It is a simple thing.
The ego finds sustenance in others’ opinions, and it is a horrible thing. Is it not?
(Pointing at one of the listeners who was whispering some sounds) More horrible than the sounds he was making. Even the most simple and intimate matters of our life are governed by the opinions of others. ‘What will he or she think?’ You could not ask because there are others, and he is emitting these sounds because he can hide behind the others. Now had it been only me and him, these sounds couldn’t have come. And had it been only me and you, the question would have simply come. Is that not so?
