A Westerner's take on Indian chaos Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)
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Video Information: 4.02.22, Interview, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Western Perspective of Indian chaos
Music Credits: Milind Date
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Video Information: 4.02.22, Interview, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Western Perspective of Indian chaos
Music Credits: Milind Date
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Back to you Julius, I know you had mentioned that you were surprised when you came to India
00:09just seeing the quality of the infrastructure because when you read some of the Sears books
00:15you really were fascinated and respected how deep and how knowledgeable and just how thorough
00:21they were.
00:22Yeah.
00:23It sounds like maybe the country gave you a different impression.
00:26Yeah, but I mean, well that was mentioned earlier maybe, I mean I might have been just
00:34biased without even noticing it.
00:37It's just that, I mean, sometimes when I look at the scriptures that have come from this
00:44country they are just like so, you know, they are on the top, you know, something really
00:52like sometimes you can't even believe that something like this has come out of man, you
01:00know.
01:01And then, but yeah, I mean, that might have been a bias and I'm well aware that in India,
01:09I mean, the population thing is a thing, it's a poorer country.
01:17But still, yeah, when I came here, I still think that I was actually quite surprised
01:27by a few things, just like, I wonder if I should narrate the whole arriving on the airport.
01:36I'm not sure if these stories are that interesting, but maybe I can.
01:41Yeah, what were some of those experiences?
01:42I know you had mentioned that it was a little chaotic and some things took you by surprise.
01:47Yeah, I guess I was warned in advance that things might not work that fast or that well
01:54in general.
01:55I don't remember thinking much about it.
01:57I was just like, well, it's going to be that bad, you know, but yeah, right at the immigration
02:04counter I think I, I think I stood there for like 20 minutes at least because the machine
02:12the guy was using had some error and he was like pressing the keys like this and I'm standing
02:18there, okay, and then we had to change the machine and yeah, then I got out and I was
02:26really tired after the flight and I wanted to buy a coffee.
02:30And this was, I was actually a little embarrassed because there was some young girl on the counter
02:35and I'm like, yes, one coffee, do you take visa?
02:39Then she was like, oh, of course we take visa and I was like, oh my God, we just lost this
02:44really embarrassing and she starts making the coffee and obviously she starts putting
02:53milk in it.
02:54I didn't realize to say that it's just coffee, no milk.
02:59And then she was like, you should have said, said this to me.
03:02And again, I was like, okay, well, okay.
03:07And then, then I got out of the airport.
03:11I heard you had to drive the taxi to the hotel.
03:13Is that what happened?
03:14Well, yes.
03:15And then the traffic came.
03:18The traffic is really, that was exotic, very exotic.
03:25And the funny thing is that whenever I talk about that with people here, they are like,
03:31no, no, this is nothing.
03:33This is nothing that I think that this Greater Noida Delhi area, at least the times I've
03:40been there, I've been told that they're not even that traffic-y, you know, but for me
03:47it was like, it was very intense, very intense.
03:53And then, yeah, the guy who drove me to the hotel, he didn't speak a word of English.
04:02And when we got there, even though he had the GPS, I had to actually like, he drove
04:08past the hotel, like at least two times, third time's the charm.
04:12Then he actually got there, but I had to like, really like guide him to the place.
04:19And yeah, I guess the last strike was the fact that when I was leaving, he was like,
04:32ma'am, ma'am, what about my tip, my tip, my tip?
04:36So he did know some English after all, but all these things, you know, I guess it's funny
04:42that in the very first hours of me being here.
04:47There's many of these kind of strange little things, that things are not just like, very
04:53smooth, things are not very smooth, maybe I'm not just, I might be biased, maybe I am,
04:59but it was still, as I said, I was coming to the land of the Upanishads.
05:06Yeah, but the common man, you thought you're coming to the land of the Upanishads, but
05:12the common man, most Indians have not even heard the word Upanishad, among the few who
05:21have heard the word Upanishad, there would be very few, fewer still, who can name even
05:34three Upanishads.
05:37So to think that the ordinary cab driver would have a spiritual attitude towards life
05:45is just too much, you won't get it here.
05:49The disorder that you encounter, that's an interesting thing, you see, the West relies
05:59a lot upon itself, upon itself, I have to do it, the ego reigns supreme, I have to do it.
06:11So when you have to do it, you can establish an order, this is what I want, this is the
06:16way things should happen, and things are then made to happen that way.
06:26India has had a religious heritage, and religion is some kind of poor cousin of spirituality,
06:39so this much Indians know, vaguely, by way of their heritage, that man's will, intentions,
06:51desires are not all that important, their doership is not really the highest thing,
07:01and all order, mind you, in the West, stems from doership, you made it happen, the order
07:09on the roads in the Europe is not biological, neither is it divine order, it's a man-made order.
07:19The East knows that there is something above man-made stuff, so any man-made order, therefore,
07:31cannot be given respect beyond a point, and that's the reason why the East is fundamentally
07:38disrespectful towards order, even if they have to follow order, it is with reluctance,
07:44under the threat of penalty, I'll be penalized or prosecuted, so, you know, I'll follow order.
07:54Deep within, they do not want to be orderly, because the vibes here, the very air tells
08:03them, that above the order made by man, is the order made by God, therefore, the order
08:13made by man is a secondary kind of thing, now what is the order made by God, that the
08:22East has no idea of, it's just that they know that there is something above us, now what
08:29is really above man, that is not the subject of traditional religion, it is the subject
08:37matter of rigorous spiritual inquiry, and that is something most people in here have
08:44not gone into, so it's a hodgepodge, you know that your own will is insufficient and secondary,
08:56but you do not know what is beyond your will, so you are left nowhere, you are just stranded
09:02in the middle of existence, man made order, you follow not, and any order above the man
09:14made one, you know not, so what are you left with, just terrible disorder, and that's what
09:20you witness on Indian streets, and if you do get a semblance of order at some places
09:26in India, I repeat, that is not because of respect towards either man's effort or the
09:35truth, that is out of just fear of penalty, there are these two kinds of orders you would
09:44have gathered by now, one is the order that you witness in the West, everything follows
09:53systems or in Japan for example, even in China, all you have is systems, and systems are to
10:02be respected, systems are made for a reason, you can't just gladly, happily, randomly deviate
10:10from systems, so there is that order, and there is another order that is higher than
10:16that order, which is the order of the truth, which is the order of love, you don't need
10:25to discipline people if they really don't love, equally you don't need to discipline
10:32people if they really are wise, so both wisdom and love lead to a higher kind of order, between
10:43these two orders is terrible disorder and that's where most Indians lie, neither here
10:56nor there, nor are they as deeply material as those in the West, had that been the case
11:06you would have seen order on the streets here, or at other places as well, nor are Indians
11:17deeply spiritual, we talked of the Upanishads, how few people know of them, we talked of
11:23the songs of the saints, how few people remember or sing those songs.
11:36So this order they do not cultivate, the material one, that order they cannot come close to,
11:45what are we Indians then left with, just disorder, just disorder, now there are then two ways
11:53to get orderly, one is become more material and the more material you become, the more
11:59orderly you are, even in India there are very very material places where you would find
12:05order comparable to the West, for example, if you go to an institution of higher professional
12:13learning or you go to an IT campus, an IT park that is, a huge park where you have lots
12:25of huge offices of information technology companies with a lot of young people and you
12:33will find those places working very smoothly, very orderly, you have cabs coming in and
12:39out at that point of time and there are systems and everything and you will also find a few
12:45westerners sprinkled there because that's where the clientele is from, so that's one
12:54way to get orderly, become more westernized, the more westernized you are, the more orderly
13:00you will be, but that order according to me is of very little worth, the real order comes
13:08from elsewhere, where you don't have to impose conditions on people, where you don't have
13:15to threaten them with penalties and fines and yet people are orderly, that's a very
13:25difficult kind of order to achieve, but I think both the West and the East need to work
13:33towards that order, order born through discipline is order based on fear and this kind of order
13:41is not sustainable, in fact the longer it sustains, the more dangerous it becomes because
13:47it breeds neurosis, you are disciplined from the outside, afraid from within and the whole
13:54thing gets boiling within and this simmering thing is bound to blow up one day and once
14:04the lid blows off, anything is possible, you see, I mean don't you see the West is the
14:14most orderly place and the West is also the place where the most brutal battles have been
14:20fought, the West is the place that has accumulated the worst kind of weapons and weapons don't
14:32tell me breed order or do they, weapons are there to destroy whatever is orderly, your
14:38orderliness might have raised buildings and cities, what are those weapons for then?
14:46To destroy all man-made order, to bring you back to the Stone Age.
14:54In many ways, what I've observed in the US and read is that, my experience is that it's
15:00also the most violent country, so despite a lot of material wealth, it breeds a lot
15:07of paranoia, people feel that they have to have guns to protect themselves, there's a
15:11lot of fear about crime and most armed conflicts in the last hundred years have had American
15:18fingerprints on them, so maybe it's good in a way that India is not that orderly because
15:27we just be inviting violence.
15:32See look at it from the saint's perspectives, they too want things to be orderly, they talk
15:44of a higher divine order, equally what they say is that if you live too much and too strictly
15:55in conditions made by your mind, then the ego gets a lot of security, so too much order
16:08is not even desirable, maybe it's alright to leave things a bit disorderly and suffer
16:19a few losses, not be that efficient in terms of output or time and yet have a more lively
16:34and fulfilling life, no it's not that the saints advocated disorder, however they did
16:43bring out the problems with man-made order, with a very meticulously planned life, when
16:55life is planned to that extent, where is the scope for spontaneity, no I am not saying
17:04that Indians by dint of their disorderliness are living spontaneous lives, I am not saying that.
17:13I am just picking holes in the order at all cost approach of the west, so the saints did
17:26say a thing or two against too much discipline and order and even punctuality and all the
17:39things that are practiced in rigorous religion as well as rigorous materialism and their
17:49idea was to leave yourself a bit to the flow of circumstances.
17:59I will quote a couplet to you, Tulsi bharose Ram ke nirbhaye hoke soye, Saint Tulsidas is the poet here, and he is saying,
18:18By the grace of Ram, I sleep without fear, not that I have accumulated great wealth or
18:34great protection, not that I keep a couple of guns by my side when I sleep, I just leave
18:41myself to the security, to the grace of Ram, Ram implies the truth here, and I just sleep,
18:52peacefully, fearlessly, anhoni honi nahi, honi hoye so hoye, that which cannot happen
19:01will not happen, and that which is bound to happen, let it happen, this has been the approach
19:09of India.
19:10So, the saints have kind of made fun of living a secured and disciplined life, at times they
19:22have even scoffed at it, gone to that extent, but that is when you can leave yourself to
19:34Ram, when you can be a Tulsi, that's when you do not need to have material order and
19:45security and you can live an apparently insecure life joyfully.
19:53Now what most Indians have done is, that they have picked up the contempt towards orderliness
20:05from saints, but have rejected the Ram that saints used to love, lip service we all pay
20:18to Ram, but the real Ram of Tulsi, the heart itself, the truth itself, the Atma itself,
20:29that Ram, most Indians have not much to do with.
20:38So see what has happened, it's a curious thing, we'll quote Tulsidas and say, what is the
20:45need for so much preparation and planning, just live in a carefree way, just live in
20:53a carefree way, but Tulsi's freedom from care came along with or rather due to his proximity
21:06to Ram, now that proximity to Ram, we have forgotten, but the carefree thing, we have
21:16picked up and when you try to be carefree, without being ego free, then this is carelessness,
21:30there is a difference between being carefree and being careless, when you are with Ram,
21:37without care, then you are carefree, but when you are without Ram and still without care,
21:47then you are just careless.
21:50So most people become careless, thinking that they are just being carefree.
21:59I'm actually reminded, there was this incident when I had to cross this huge roundabout,
22:11the traffic was very heavy there and I didn't realize that I can actually just walk through
22:18the street, I thought that I would have to find a pedestrian road or something like this
22:24and I actually, there was some policeman parked there and I went to like, he didn't speak any English,
22:31but he kind of understood my whole, how do I get across, how do I get across, and he's like,
22:38just go, just go, and then I went and it was very exhilarating, at least, but seriously,
22:47and you see it everywhere here, that if there's not a car there, you can actually walk there,
22:54and it still amazes me that it somehow seems to work, this kind of carelessness that you talked about.
23:04I kind of like, it's not the same, but maybe I could see a small connection there, but it's still,
23:14I just sometimes feel that it's not like, an accident is like, half a second away,
23:21if someone just watches to the wrong direction.
23:25The frequency of road accidents, or rather the deaths per capita on the road in India
23:35are among the highest in the world, and you have put your finger on the reason.
23:44See, that's what, Ram does not want you to be careless, Ram wants you to leave care to Ram,
23:54that's not being careless, that's being careful to the Ram level. What is Ram, the highest?
24:06When you have the highest level of care, then you are carefree, carefree in the sense,
24:15now the ego can be left carefree, because care has been assigned to the highest,
24:22the highest will take care and the ego can relax, but who is the highest?
24:27The highest is not a figment of your imagination, the highest is not somewhere outside of you,
24:33the highest is within you, the highest is within you, the highest is the highest within you,
24:43the highest is the highest within you, so to be carefree means,
24:48to assign care to the highest within you. Think from the highest point of your mind,
24:56act from the highest point of your mind, that's called being carefree,
25:04carefree does not mean that you have thrown care out of the window,
25:13being free of order does not mean that you are disorderly, to be free of order,
25:19you have to leave order to Ram and Ram is the highest within you, so when from your own highest point,
25:27you let an order emerge, you let care emerge, you let discipline emerge, you let direction emerge,
25:39that's the thing that the saints aspired for and taught, now half their teaching has been kept,
25:47that's why I called religion as a distant cousin of spirituality, something they share in common,
25:53these two, so this much has been kept, that you need not be too careful by yourself for yourself,
26:04Ram will take care of you, but the more important half, who exactly is Ram or who exactly is Krishna
26:14or who exactly is Param, the highest, that people have not gone into, because that in some sense
26:25is barred by religion itself, religion says the highest, we have already supplied to you,
26:32we are telling you who is the highest, this God is the highest, Ishwar is highest, Bhagwan is highest,
26:38that deity is the highest, that place is the highest and we are also telling you what you can
26:43do to reach the highest, you perform these austerities, you observe these ceremonies,
26:49you fast on these particular days, you donate clothes to the poor, you do such and such things,
26:56you go to that place of pilgrimage and you will reach the highest, so religion has given ready-made
27:03answers, religion has given ready-made answers and those answers are all fictitious, all false,
27:10so then there is no need left to really explore the highest
27:19and therefore people never reach the highest. Spirituality says the lowest point in yourself
27:28has to be discarded or rather all the lowly points have to be discarded and the higher ones
27:34have to be aspired for, the highest one is liberation, that's what spirituality is all about,
27:44religion says 50% of the same thing, this much religion does say,
27:50reject yourself, there is something higher than you sitting upstairs,
27:55right, that's why God is often seen as ruling the skies, he is sitting upstairs,
28:01so this much religion does say, that cousin of spirituality, that do not be too serious about
28:09yourself and your doing amounts to not much, but the remaining half, what is the real deal,
28:21who is the real one, that religion does not go into,
28:25that religion does not go into because religion pretends that it already knows the real one,
28:32it keeps telling you such and such God is the highest one,
28:39right, in the west one particular name is the highest one, in the east another name is the
28:43highest one, in the middle east some other name is the highest one, so these ready-made names,
28:57these assured supplies of beliefs leave us nowhere, we do not ever come to know of the real thing,
29:09the real thing cannot be handed over to us on a platter,
29:12it's a matter of individual investigation, it's a matter of self-inquiry,
29:19the west has been lucky in a sense,
29:25that any concept of the higher thing has not been allowed to survive,
29:31the west has been left all on its own, there is nothing higher than you,
29:39if you want your welfare, work for yourself, nothing higher than what you see,
29:45nothing higher than what you can touch, nothing higher than your body,
29:50and nobody anywhere to take care of you, nothing higher than your own desire,
29:55your own intellect, your own will, there is nothing higher than that, that's what the west feeds on,
30:03and that has been good to an extent, at least the west is responsible,
30:10there is nobody else going to come and take care of me, so I have to create my own systems,
30:16do my own things, the east, this much we remember in east, there is somebody higher than us,
30:27but who is that one, we are all very muddled about, and there is a reason why,
30:36because that knowledge does not come cheap, the real one is not merely an idea to be known,
30:44the real one is a dissolution to be attained at a high price, so we do not reach there,
30:53this much we come to know, there is somebody higher than me,
30:57and that leads to fatalism, we become fatalistic here in the east,
31:03you see, you know, God will take care of me, this and that, this concept of God has hurt
31:10the east a lot, Vedant does not talk of God, Vedant talks of Atma, and Atma is the real you,
31:19Vedant says you have to take your destiny in your own hands, not only are you all powerful,
31:28actually there is no one beside you, you are the only reality, therefore there is no other power
31:35to obstruct you and there is no other power to support you, you are your only friend and your
31:44only enemy, therefore, wake up, rise, rise to your highest potentiality, that's the message of Vedant,
31:56unfortunately most Indians follow organized religion that has very little space for the
32:03real thing, Vedant, even though the Hindus call the Vedas as their central scriptures,
32:11yet the very center of Vedas, the very nectar of Vedas, Vedant has not found a place in the
32:23common Indian psyche, the man on the road has hardly anything to do with Vedant.
32:29Could you make a differentiation, because as you said that Vedanta is about
32:40taking full responsibility, in some sense it sounds a bit similar to what we are doing in
32:46the west, what's the difference there? In the west you take responsibility remaining who you are,
32:52Vedanta says your primary responsibility is to not to remain who you are,
33:00in west when you say I do not want to remain who I am, that means you want to get a bigger car,
33:07in the east rather when Vedanta says you must not remain who you are,
33:12it means freedom from the ego, because the ego is who you currently are in your imagination,
33:17so there is a great difference, in the west being responsible for yourself means
33:25being lonely in a vast world, in the east in Vedanta being responsible for yourself means
33:33realizing that the world is but your own projection and therefore you are not lonely,
33:39in the west when you are responsible for yourself, you become alienated from the rest of the world,
33:46in the east when you are responsible for yourself, you become one with the world,
33:51one with community, one with humanity and you raise everybody alongside you, that's the difference.
33:59The responsibility that Vedanta talks of is a very holistic responsibility,
34:05it's not a divided responsibility, it does not foster the ego, it does not tell you that you
34:13are one little thing in a vast universe, as they say a speck of dust in an infinite place, no,
34:21not that, Vedanta tells you, you are everything, you are the only reality and the world is but
34:29your own game, your own football ground, your own theatre, whatever, however you like to put it
34:37and therefore don't be afraid, not only that, you are not this body that's going to crumble and die,
34:49therefore do not be fearful even of death, that's the extent Vedanta wants you to be fearless
34:58and when you are fearless to that extent you become non-violent.
35:01Violence can come only in the backdrop of fear, when you are so fearless you actually become
35:11compassionate, so Vedanta is fearlessness and compassion, not individualization, the individuality
35:23that Vedanta refers to is very different to the individualization that we find in the west,
35:30the individualization that you find in the west is fragmentation, is isolation,
35:39here it is a dissolution, I am indivisible now because I have dissolved, just as you cannot
35:47divide a drop of water from the ocean, similarly I am an individual now, that's the sense in which
35:57the word individual is used in Vedanta, whereas in the west when you say you are an individual,
36:03that's always the individual versus the society in that kind of a concept,
36:07you're getting it? So it's diametrically opposite.
36:20Still it's a strange thing that,
36:22well, as you said, that even in India real spirituality hasn't really, what's a good word,
36:32taken roots. It's distant cousin rules.
36:38And at the same time even in the west as we said earlier, I don't really find much people
36:47leaning towards what you are saying here. It's a very difficult thing.
36:55Yeah, and I mean, the kind of taking responsibility for yourself as the ego, I mean, it's
37:05very very like fear-based that I have to do it, it might seem.
37:11It's fear-based, it makes you lonely, it makes you violent.
37:14Nobody to care for me, nobody to care for me, and it makes you very hard, very hard,
37:23hard not in the sense of sturdy and strong, hard in the sense of empathy-less.
37:32An internal stiffness.
37:33An internal stiffness that does not care for anything except its own interests.
37:43And that we also call in the west, quite interestingly, as liberty.
37:54I will do as I please.
37:57Don't you see that has a lot of fear in it?
37:59Don't you see that has a lot of loneliness in it?
38:06And the statistics do bear that out, that in the west people are very fearful of growing old
38:11because they worry that no one will look after them, they'll be lonely, they'll be abandoned.
38:16When depression, anxiety are all sky high in the west, I know in the US they estimate at
38:23least one in four people are on antidepressants or anti-anxiety pills, and that's the
38:30hidden or not so glamorous cost of the individuality and the freedom and the order.
38:36Right.
38:40And it's also a strange thing because even though sometimes when I look at the disorder or the chaos
38:48or just people hanging out on the street, I have to admit that sometimes I wish I could be as carefree,
38:59even a little, you know, not in that way, but you get what I mean.
39:04You're leaving on Tuesday, we can make you hang out on the street,
39:07cook some food and sell it to people.
39:09No, that's a very common feeling amongst people from the west who are about to leave India or who
39:18freshly land in the west after being in India for months.
39:21I've heard that before.
39:23I've heard that before.
39:25One French woman in particular, she wrote to me that I have returned to the dry order of France,
39:35of Paris, from the lively chaos of India.
39:41That was only part of satire.
39:45She was actually missing the chaos here.
39:50I get that completely.
39:53I'm already having the same kind of feeling.
39:58There's something heartfelt about the liveliness and the chaos.
40:04Not exactly.
40:06There's a warmth in it perhaps.
40:08There's a warmth in it, yes, that's true, but it's just too much warm.
40:14If you would want it rather a bit colder, but you see where it comes from.
40:24It still carries that ancient echo of the saints and that's the reason you feel mildly attracted towards it,
40:33because it carries only that distant ego.
40:36It's not the real thing.
40:37However, it has a touch of the real thing.
40:40However, it has a touch of the real thing.
40:43No Indian can avoid that.
40:44You see, the voice of the saints is still there.
40:51It's reverberating.
40:52So, even if you are not overly religious, in India, it is impossible to pick up a religious
41:01tint at least.
41:03It's there in the air.
41:06Is it in danger of disappearing though?
41:08I know we were in Delhi and Connaught Place and we were walking around and it seems like
41:13all the Western brands are there.
41:15All the young Indian men and women are trying to be westernized.
41:19All the Western brands are selling consumer products with an Indian slash Western tint to it.
41:27Are we in danger of being, is consumerism likely to just wipe out whatever vestiges of the saints we have?
41:36It's doing that, but the work of the saints is quite deep rooted.
41:41So, all this consumerism, this shallow philosophy of life will take a while to uproot the whole thing.
41:58But you are very right, very dark forces are at work and they are in great hurry.
42:04So, Indians are losing whatever little trace of spiritual wisdom was left with them and
42:16that's happening pretty fast.
42:20It's happening, you talked of Connaught Place, you would have struggled to see a single word
42:26in the Devanagari script.
42:28You remove the people from there and if you are left with just the banners and the boards
42:36and the brands, it will be very difficult for you to tell whether it is Delhi or some
42:43western city, maybe the filth would drop a hint, but if you clear that also, Connaught
42:53Place is so much like, let's say a place in Paris, yes, obviously, comparable, just remove
43:05the people so that you don't see brown skin and then there is no difference.
43:10So, yes, India is trying very hard to become a cheap copy of the West.
43:18And had that been of some use, I would have gladly accepted, rather participated, but
43:33that's of no use, that's of no use.
43:36The West does not remain, rather does not want to remain the way it is.
43:42Why do we want to ape the West?
43:44The West is hardly happy being itself and we want to become that, makes no sense at all.
43:52And I am not talking of western technology, I am not talking of the work culture in West,
43:57we should admire that and we should emulate that even, but when it comes to copying values
44:10and philosophy of life, West is not the place to look towards.
44:18India has the stuff fortunately, that even the West should be looking towards.
44:24So it's pretty stupid, if Indians are all the time trying to ape West and migrate to
44:31West and all those things, see even migration to West I understand, somebody could do that
44:35for purely financial reasons and that's pretty much okay.
44:40But trying to become a westerner is a totally different thing, no?
44:51In language, in culture, in food, in values, in the extent of disregard of your spiritual heritage,
45:07you want to be as unaware of, let's say Vedanta, as a typical westerner is?
45:17And then you want to say no, that's what makes me a westerner, westerners do not know Vedanta,
45:22I too have refused to know a word of Vedanta and that's what makes me a westerner.
45:28Even Hindi or any other Indian language, I would speak in a western accent and that's
45:32considered so cool, so cool, that's ultra-hip, if you can speak Hindi in let's say in an Irish accent.
45:50Bhaya, Lash Feth Nagar chaloge kya?
46:03How can that be a thing?
46:10And we'd never be able to copy them as well as they are themselves, so why are we playing a losing game again?
46:18No copy can rival the original, no copy ever can rival the original, you can just be pay limitations and how can that be a good thing?
46:29But I mean we are doing the same thing, because if you see the neo-spiritual circles of the West,
46:35I mean yeah, they pose themselves as very carefree, but deep down they are just...
46:40Afraid.
46:43So I guess, yeah, I guess there's not much places to go if the West and the East are both...
46:58That tells you that that which you are looking for is not spatial, is not temporal.
47:07So you will not get it in the future, equally you will not get it at a particular place.
47:14There is that beyond space and time.
47:17It simply means that stop looking for it at particular places.
47:22It is not in Finland, it's also not in the Indian spaces, it's somewhere else.
47:39All the space is also ruled out.
47:43All the space is ruled out, all the space is ruled, see it's not that we are ruling out time and space.
47:49Fundamentally remember, because you have been with me for a while now,
47:52we are ruling out the one to whom time and space exist.
47:56Who is the experiencer of time and space? You and me.
48:00So we have to rule ourselves out.
48:02It's not that we are disdainful of spaces or we are unmindful of time.
48:10Time has to be respected.
48:12Places exist as a fact and places can be useful.
48:18However, the ego, that is itself a creation of time and space, wants to consider time and space as the ultimate.
48:28That's the tendency we have to watch out against.
48:31In that sense, it is said that that is beyond time and space.
48:35So that the ego cannot be too happy.
48:41The ego does not go too far in its quest of self-delusion.
48:51Time and space are not objective things.
48:53It's not stuff we are disregarding.
48:56We are disregarding the one to whom the stuff exists.
49:01This is something very hard to the scientific mind of the West to accept.
49:12Yeah, because science feasts on its proclaimed objectivism.
49:20Things exist objectively.
49:27And there is no reason to doubt whether they exist at all.
49:31Why is there no reason to doubt?
49:33Because I see that they exist and I see no reason to doubt myself.
49:38That's what the ego says.
49:41I cannot doubt myself and if I cannot doubt myself, how do I doubt this pillar that I see?
49:46I don't doubt myself and this pillar, its existence is being ratified by me.
49:53So how can I ever call the world as unreal?
49:57Forget about calling it unreal.
50:00How can I even initiate an inquiry into the perceived reality of the universe?
50:07That's what science lives on.
50:10The universe is real.
50:12Now let me find out more about the universe.
50:15And that's the reason science has to compulsorily disregard the ego.
50:23Science has to be completely objective and totally be oblivious of the ego, the subject, the observer.
50:34Science, all sciences talk just of the observed phenomena, not the one who is observing them.
50:44Now if it turns out that observed phenomena are actually a function of the observer,
50:51then science falls flat and that's science's worst nightmare.
50:58What if all that this is being seen and observed and measured is simply a function of, a reflection of the observer?
51:10Then none of it is objective.
51:13Then all the theories we have come up with are actually not theories of the observed phenomena,
51:20they are theories of the observing mind.
51:25Now there is a big problem for science.
51:27So science will just not talk of the observer, of the ego, of the self.
51:33And that's the attitude the West carries.
51:40Self-observation, self-knowledge is more difficult to a Westerner than to an Easterner.
51:51Because a Westerner is born and raised up on a diet of compulsive objectivity.
52:03So when it is then told that look at yourself, look at yourself, it becomes incredibly difficult, not impossible.
52:13So many Westerners very gloriously succeed, but it's more difficult there than here.