Leadership and Spiritual Insights from the Bhagavad Gita || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2024)

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?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl... ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 02.04.2024, IM, Greater Noida   Context:  ~ Why do we have to take wisdom literature to the masses? ~ Why the Gita? ~ Why are we suffering? ~ What is the objective of the mission? ~ What is the importance of scriptures?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00So, I mean when you talk about teaching through scriptures, Upanishads and from the holy book

00:12of Bhagavad Gita, I mean what was it that you saw that you understood which was different,

00:20which was more, I mean inclined toward the spiritual side and again towards the leadership

00:26side also?

00:36Inwardly I am quite stubborn.

00:41Externally I might yield, you know, for a while or something or retreat.

00:46But inwardly I find it very difficult to lie to myself.

00:52If there is something that I see as unjust, I cannot lie to myself and say well you know

01:05just forget it, unsee it, let it be, carry on with your own business, I cannot do that.

01:15I had seen very conclusively that things are not fair, that people are suffering.

01:28This was quite clear to me.

01:32I could also see that we are very wicked people, stupid people who continue to inflict nonsense

01:43on themselves.

01:47So on one hand, I commiserated with the lot of mankind.

01:56On the other hand, I was quite angry at what we do to ourselves.

02:06The misery is self-inflicted.

02:21So I just couldn't tell myself that all is hunky-dory and you just carry on with life

02:29as everybody does.

02:31I had to fight it out.

02:34It was a matter of inner dignity.

02:37You can lie to the world.

02:38How do you lie to yourself?

02:39How do you lie to yourself?

02:42So I was continuously seeing that there is something that, there is a lot that needs

02:52to be done and what was the question, please come again.

02:59I was asking you about what were your learnings which you drew from the Upanishads.

03:05You said why Upanishads to the audience.

03:09So because the misery is self-inflicted, externally we are in all kinds of mess because internally

03:25there is a lot of darkness.

03:28Externally what can be done, I had already learnt.

03:32I knew of the power of science and technology.

03:35Four years at IIT was sufficient for that and I was a well-read boy.

03:41I knew of the wonders of science and I knew of the future possibilities of science.

03:46So externally what can be done, I already knew of that.

03:52I also knew economics, I knew the systems of finance and banking and the entire history

04:00of capitalism, I knew and I knew what they could do and to what extent they could help

04:08mankind and having known them, I knew their limitations.

04:16I could very clearly see what technology cannot achieve.

04:21I could very clearly see what management or economics cannot achieve and I could also

04:30see where technology and economics have bloomed to the fullest.

04:38Deception and falseness and misery still exist there as well.

04:49To the human condition, purely technical solutions or purely economic solutions cannot work.

04:57That was my learning.

05:01So if we really want to be free of the inner cage, then there has to be something that

05:09takes us within, hence the Upanishads.

05:16You see, someone who doesn't know of the powers that we have over the world would continue

05:27to harbour hope, would say, you know, one day we will be technically so strong that

05:34we will achieve that, we'll go to Mars, let's say, or one day we will have a per capita

05:43GDP at this number and then we'll be happy.

05:48That's from someone who does not know of the limitations of GDP, the whole process of GDP,

05:56the whole concept of GDP.

06:00I was lucky enough to learn of that to a reasonable degree quite early on.

06:06So I knew what all these things cannot achieve and hence I knew that the gap can be filled

06:15only by wisdom literature.

06:19Hence I turned to it.

06:20It was a very logical thing.

06:22It wasn't a thing of devotion or mysticism.

06:27It was more from logic.

06:28If we are suffering, it is not because we lack in technology or money.

06:34We are suffering because we lack in something here in the heart and hence the obvious conclusion

06:43is to take wisdom literature to the masses.

06:47If we want to really free mankind of the needless situation, it finds itself in, inner situation.

06:59So from there the whole thing comes.

07:01It's not as if I'm a religious preacher out to convert people.

07:09That's not the objective.

07:10We are not converting people to this or that or just preaching something as the gospel

07:17of God.

07:22My concern is the way we are.

07:26My concern is the face of the human being.

07:33My concern is the little sparrow.

07:39I'm not here to tell people what God has said.

07:46I'm here to take care of the sparrow.

07:49That's my concern.

07:52Even the sparrow cannot be taken care of unless we go to the Gita.

07:56Hence the Gita.

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