AcharyaPrashant interviewed by KipAndersen(#Christspiracy)||Spirituality and flesh consumption(2017)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  Video Information: An interview with Kip Andersen, 29.03.2017, Noida, India   Context: ~ Which food should we take? ~ How to know, which food is eatable? ~ How to understand veganism? ~ Why should one stop consuming eggs and milk? ~ Why do human cause cruelty and extreme harm to animals?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~ .

Transcript

00:00Do you think, do you feel it's possible to be spiritual and animate?

00:09No, it is not at all possible. It is just not possible.

00:17Why?

00:23Because to be spiritual is to simply know.

00:30The spiritual one would know who he is and what is happening through him.

00:44He would not be blind to what is kept on his plate.

00:50To be spiritual is to be not fragmented.

00:56One would then really know what is this thing called hunger,

01:02what is this thing called food and what is this thing called food chain.

01:08One would just not open the can

01:16and take the flesh and munch it.

01:21One would know where the whole thing is coming from,

01:25coming from both in a physical way and in a mental way.

01:32When you know where the entire thing is coming from,

01:36it simply does not happen.

01:41You see, a spiritual man does not relate to the other in terms of body.

01:52It is something of the I.

01:57I often ask those who consume meat,

02:02instead of proceeding with a packaged product like meat,

02:09why don't you slaughter the thing yourself?

02:12And when you slaughter the animal yourself,

02:16why don't you know it fully even as you slaughter it?

02:23After all, even from a perspective of self-interest,

02:27if something is going into your body,

02:31it makes sense to know it fully.

02:36Why don't you look into its eyes as you slaughter it?

02:39And when you look into the eyes of an animal,

02:43and if you are really awake,

02:47you will only see your own deep innocence

02:52which might be hidden from you.

02:56It is impossible to see anything or anybody else

03:00when you really look around.

03:03And that thing that you look at

03:07and that which looks back at you

03:10is most prominently visible in the eyes.

03:15It is visible everywhere.

03:16It is visible even in a leaf.

03:18It is visible in the sand.

03:21It is visible in stone.

03:24But given the limits of our identification and consciousness,

03:29it is the most visible in the eyes.

03:32So look at the animal.

03:34Pause.

03:36Meditate for a while.

03:38And then go ahead and slaughter it if you can.

03:41You will only be slaughtering yourself.

03:43I repeat, those eyes are your own primitive eyes.

03:49And when I say your own primitive eyes,

03:52that brings us to another interesting way of looking at it.

03:59You see, that which you call as man

04:02is divinity at the core,

04:12then animal by evolution,

04:23and intellectual by society.

04:35The animals that you see outside of you are all present within you as well.

04:42To really know an animal

04:49is to know that of yourself

04:55which remains hidden, suppressed

05:00beneath all the social conditioning.

05:03Have you looked at kids playing?

05:09If you look at kids playing and if you look at animals playing,

05:12you won't find much difference.

05:14In fact, human kids go along very well with animal kids.

05:20Later on, when we cover ourselves

05:27with a lot of acquired knowledge,

05:29with a lot of social conditioning,

05:31then the animal within us gets suppressed.

05:37And the more suppressed it gets,

05:39the more we live in frustration and sorrow.

05:42What does that tell us?

05:47That tells us that the more we are violent towards the animal on the outside,

05:51actually the more we are violent towards the animal inside of us.

05:57And if we are violent towards the animal inside of us,

06:00we cannot live in any kind of relaxation.

06:09I just returned from a learning camp.

06:14It was on the Himalayas.

06:17There we saw a lot of these jungles being hacked down.

06:21And I said, when man is hacking down these jungles,

06:27he is actually destroying the greenery within himself.

06:32When man is polluting the rivers,

06:36he is actually polluting that which flows within himself

06:41and keeps him wet from the inside.

06:46So you cannot have this misbehavior towards animals

06:54unless you are adamant that you will misbehave towards yourself as well.

06:59You are the universe.

07:02You look into the animal and you see yourself.

07:05Now how will you misbehave?

07:08You look into the animal's eyes

07:13and you find you are looking at a mirror.

07:15How will you misbehave?

07:19You pollute a river and you find that you are polluting yourself.

07:22Now how will you do that?

07:23And that is not a concept.

07:24If you really look at a river,

07:27you are reminded of something very very ancient within yourself.

07:31That is why you are attracted to the river.

07:34Have you ever wondered why men go to the forests and to the hills?

07:38Why you enjoy a waterfall so much?

07:41It is because the waterfall is you.

07:44It is because that pristinely clear gargle is your own.

07:56That is why you like it so much.

08:00That animal is your innocence.

08:03That animal is what you are if all language is taken away from you.

08:11And you are really craving to be that animal.

08:16That is why given the first convenient opportunity,

08:23we like to do away with our clothes.

08:25Have you seen how kids often resist clothes?

08:30Even if their mothers would deck them up,

08:34the moment they find an opportunity,

08:37they would just unbutton themselves and go around naked.

08:41That is the animal within us seeking expression.

08:44When you kill that duck,

08:48you are killing the kid within you

08:51because the kid identifies with the duck.

08:53The kid is the duck.

08:55The more you sit in a man-made place

09:01and have all this stuff on your plate

09:04which is actually just meat,

09:07the more you are acquiescing with the society,

09:11the more you are identifying with the intellect

09:15and the further you are going away

09:18from the rabbit and the squirrel within you.

09:22Even the lion, I don't want to be some kind of a species.

09:29Even carnivorous animals are alright.

09:34These jungles are very important to us

09:45not because they provide us stuff,

09:47because they are what we are.

09:50When you bring down a tree,

09:53you have brought down a part of yourself.

09:55And having brought down a part of yourself,

09:59you have unnecessarily made yourself incomplete.

10:03From completion you have moved to incompletion.

10:06How can a spiritual man do that?

10:09Spirituality is about moving from incompletion to completion.

10:13And killing this, destroying that

10:16is about moving from completion to incompletion.

10:21So it is not possible, not at all possible

10:24to be spiritual.

10:27And yet a consumer of this, that,

10:33and I am not referring only to meat,

10:35I mean when you raise crops,

10:39from a perspective of destroying them

10:43after their season and after their utility,

10:49it is much the same.

10:52In fact if you are that kind of a vegetarian,

10:55it will not really take much of a push

11:00to turn you into a meat eater.

11:04And that is why you see,

11:07it is not uncommon,

11:09in fact it is fairly common for vegetarians

11:11to flip into meat eating.

11:13That which was not there cannot suddenly appear.

11:17The seeds of violence were there

11:21even when one was a vegetarian.

11:23And that is why upon persuasion and upon opportunity,

11:26one moves to meat.

11:30Vegetarianism or veganism

11:34cannot be a taught quality.

11:37It has to be something of the heart.

11:40You cannot give arguments in favour of it.

11:45It has to be a destroyer of all arguments.

11:49You are really a vegan

11:52if in spite of all arguments you are still a vegan.

11:56Tomorrow a body of evidence may arise

11:59which says that if you are a vegan,

12:01then such and such minerals and vitamins

12:04get deficient within your body.

12:06Now in spite of all that evidence,

12:08and that evidence might be scientifically accurate,

12:11but if in spite of that evidence you say

12:15I am what I am and I refuse to do

12:18that which is against my nature,

12:21then you are really a vegan.

12:24Because veganism is about having the right relationship

12:27with the world around you.

12:30Veganism in its essence is religion.

12:33You cannot just say I am a vegan.

12:37You are actually stating your religion when you say that.

12:43One does not look at it that way,

12:45but that's what it really is.

12:49To be a vegan does not feel pleasurable.

12:57I know this might disappoint you, but please.

13:00It does not feel like anything.

13:02In fact to live rightly

13:05and to have a right relationship with the world

13:08is to gain freedom from various kinds of feelings.

13:13As long as one eats to get a certain feeling,

13:18the eating would always involve violence.

13:21So if you are promoting veganism,

13:26kindly do not promote a culture of feeling.

13:30Because all feeling is excitement.

13:33All feeling is experiential.

13:36All feeling is sensory and all feeling is fleeting.

13:40One does not live by his feelings.

13:44One cannot live by his feelings.

13:46One has to live by the truth.

13:49One feels a lot in his everyday life.

13:53And that feeling itself is man's hell and torture.

13:59Why do you enjoy sleep?

14:01You enjoy sleep because sleep is a cessation of all feeling.

14:07Sleep is a non-feeling and that's why it's the best feeling.

14:13Being a vegan, I do not feel a lot of things that others feel.

14:19I do not feel tension.

14:21I do not feel excitement.

14:23And because I do not feel pleasure,

14:25I also do not feel pain.

14:28It's a beautiful silence.

14:30It's a lovely thing.

14:32And this love that I am referring to is not a feeling.

14:36It's something far more deeper than feeling.

14:40I am tempted to use the word mystical.

14:44But that has its own images and connotations.

14:47So I would rather avoid.

14:51Don't live by feelings.

14:53Don't live by images.

14:55Don't live by experiences.

14:58You go to any of the restaurants and they will say,

15:03Come, experience this new kind of food.

15:07Is this new cuisine not really exciting?

15:13Now excitement, experience, feeling, emotion, titillation, pleasure,

15:19they are all words belonging to the same family.

15:22And as long as these words carry value in our mind,

15:30as long as these words carry value in our mind,

15:34man will not be able to be kind to himself or to the world.

15:42If excitement is a value,

15:44then there is a lot of value in hunting.

15:49If experience is a value,

15:54then it is always a new experience to kill a new species.

16:03Really understanding, that is the highest value,

16:07that is the highest freedom.

16:11And if one does need to have a feeling,

16:14the feeling can be, must be, to be situated in that understanding.

16:23This feeling is love.

16:26That is the only thing that one wants, really wants,

16:29then it really is love.

16:30I want to understand.

16:32I want to live by my nature.

16:34I want to live simply, innocently.

16:36This want is love.

16:39Love obviously denotes wanting.

16:43But what is it that one wants?

16:46One needs to look very carefully into that.

16:49What is it that I am wanting?

16:52That which you want will decide your life.

16:57So want only the highest, nothing less than that.

17:01Do not want feelings, they are not the highest.

17:04Rather, a freedom from feelings.

17:08That does not mean killing the feelings.

17:10That only means that one is not a slave of feelings.

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