Ashok Gupta argues that human worth is not determined by achievements, wealth, or social status, but is intrinsic and grounded in the presence of love. Using classroom and desert-island analogies and a caterpillar-to-cocoon metaphor, he reframes illness or inactivity as valuable internal transformation and invites listeners to adopt self-acceptance and embrace healing.
And this is sometimes how society, our families, our friends, media especially, have drummed it into us that we are only good enough based upon what we do. You go to a party, you go to a function. First question. Oh, hi, nice to meet you. What do you do? As if that's a representation of who you are in life or your worth. I always encourage people to not ask that question. Make it the very last question you ask when you meet someone socially versus the very first question you ask. And therefore, we are not what we do. We are not how much money we have or how big our house is or how valuable our profession is. No, we are none of those things. That is what society has taught us to believe. And when we go deeper and realize that we are unconditionally loved by the presence of love itself, however you describe that in your own philosophy, in your own spirituality, in your own atheism, we still can believe in the power of love and the fact that every human being on this planet is worthy of love. Do you ever go into a classroom? Does a teacher ever go into a classroom and think, okay, there's a, a room of 35 year olds here now that child is more worthy of love than that child over there. Would we ever do that? No, because we see that every child is worthy of love. And in the same way, I believe that whatever is your representation of love believes in a similar vein that you are worthy of love no matter what you've done, whatever what you haven't done. And therefore, a lot of the work that we'll do later in the course is all about getting into that place of deep love and acceptance for yourself. Even if you do nothing in life, even if you achieve nothing in life or officially achieve, you are still worthy. And one way to completely reframe this as you've gone through these years of being unwell is the spice of life may well be nothing to do with what you've achieved or how much you've earned or what you've done in life, but actually, how much have you grown? And as the caterpillar goes into the cocoon, its biggest state of transformation is not being a caterpillar and running around all the different branches, eating all the leaves. Its biggest transformation occurs when it's locked in the cocoon, when it's not doing anything, not achieving anything, but it's in that cocoon and it's transforming internally to become this incredible butterfly. And so in the same way, if you've had this condition for one month or one year or 10 years, all of that time I want you to see as valuable, productive time for the transformation of your soul. That is the spice of life. And therefore, in this time we've been in this cocoon to reflect on ourselves, to come face to face with fear. Because what can be more fearful than having a condition in your body that you don't know how to heal from? You have come face to face with your darkest fears, the darkest fears people can face in life. And you've been that incredibly brave soul that's come through that and now has taken on this program and decided to take that leap of faith and trust in your ability to heal. Now tell me that you're not worth it. You're not worthy, for you are. And when you shift that perspective to this new way of seeing life, then nothing is ever the same again. You value these years of having this condition. It is more valuable than that person around you who's been working hard or been doing this or been doing that. What you perceive society values. No, don't let external assessments and judgments decide your value. If you were about to be lost on a desert island with one person, would you pick the person who's incredibly successful and powerful and done so many things in life, or would you choose the person who's just a very loving, giving, understanding person, maybe not achieved anything life in society's preferences, but just a nice person? Who would you choose? Who's more valuable to you in that moment?
