Acharya Prashant interviewed by Kip Andersen (#Seaspiracy) || Spirituality and flesh consumption

Acharya Prashant

🧔🏻‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00026  📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00026  📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00026  ~~~~~  Video Information: An interview with Kip Andersen on Veganism, 29.03.2017, Advait Bodhsthal, Noida, India   Context: ~ What are various view of religions? ~ What is veganism? ~ Why should one stop consuming eggs and milk? ~ Why do human cause cruelty and extreme harm to animals? ~ Why non-vegetarianism is prevalent throughout the world? ~ Why should one head towards a vegan lifestyle?  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.

00:11It is just not possible.

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, what is this thing called food

01:05and what is this thing called food chain.

01:08One would just not open the can and 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, it simply does not happen.

01:40You 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, instead of proceeding with a packaged product like

02:07meat, why don't you slaughter the thing yourself?

02:11And when you slaughter the animal yourself, why don't you know it fully even as you slaughter

02:19it?

02:22After all, even from a perspective of self-interest, if something is going into your body, it makes

02:31sense to know it fully.

02:33Why don't you look into its eyes as you slaughter it?

02:39And when you look into the eyes of an animal, and if you are really awake, you will only

02:48see your own deep innocence which might be hidden from you.

02:55It is impossible to see anything or anybody else when you really look around.

03:03And that thing that you look at and that which looks back at you is most prominently visible

03:13in the eyes.

03:15It is visible everywhere.

03:16It is visible even in a leaf, it is visible in the sand, it is visible in stone.

03:24But given the limits of our identification and consciousness, it is the most visible

03:30in the eyes.

03:32So look at the animal, pause, meditate for a while and then go ahead and slaughter it

03:40if 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, that brings us to another interesting way of looking

03:59at it.

04:00That which you call as man is divinity at the core, then animal by evolution,

04:27and intellectual by society.

04:36The animals that you see outside of you are all present within you as well.

04:47To really know an animal is to know that of yourself which remains hidden, suppressed

05:00beneath all the social conditioning.

05:05Have you looked at kids playing?

05:09If you look at kids playing and if you look at animals playing, you won't find much

05:13difference.

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

05:20Later on, when we cover ourselves with a lot of acquired knowledge, with a lot of social

05:30conditioning, then the animal within us gets suppressed and the more suppressed it gets,

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

05:46What does that tell us?

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

05:53are violent towards the animal inside of us.

05:58And if we are violent towards the animal inside of us, we cannot live in any kind of

06:08relaxation.

06:09I just returned from a learning camp and it was on the Himalayas, where we saw a lot of

06:18these jungles being hacked down.

06:22And I said, when man is hacking down these jungles, he is actually destroying the greenery

06:29within himself.

06:32When man is polluting the rivers, he 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 unless you are adamant that you will

06:55misbehave towards yourself as well.

06:59You are the universe.

07:02You look into the animal and you see yourself, now how will you misbehave?

07:07You look into the animal's eyes and you find you are looking at a mirror, how will you misbehave?

07:18You pollute a river and you find that you are polluting yourself, now how will you do

07:22that?

07:23And that is not a concept.

07:24If you really look at a river, you are reminded of something very very ancient within yourself.

07:32That is why you are attracted to the river.

07:33Have 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.

07:58That is why you like it so much.

08:01That animal is your innocence.

08:04That animal is what you are if all language is taken away from you.

08:12And you are really craving to be that animal.

08:18That is why given the first convenient opportunity, we like to do away with our clothes.

08:28Have you seen how kids often resist clothes?

08:32Even if their mothers would deck them up, the moment they find an opportunity they would

08:38just unbutton themselves and go around naked.

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

08:45When you kill that duck, you are killing the kid within you because the kid identifies

08:52with the duck.

08:53The kid is the duck.

08:56The more you sit in a man-made place and have all this stuff on your plate which is

09:04actually just meat, the more you are acquiescing with the society, the more you are identifying

09:14with the intellect and the further you are going away from the rabbit and the squirrel

09:21within you.

09:23Even the lion, I don't want to be some kind of a species, even carnivorous animals are

09:32alright.

09:40These jungles are very important to us, not because they provide us stuff, because they

09:48are what we are.

09:51When you bring down a tree, you have brought down a part of yourself and having brought

09:58down a part of yourself, you have unnecessarily made yourself incomplete.

10:03From completion you have moved to incompletion.

10:07How can a spiritual man do that?

10:09Spirituality is about moving from incompletion to completion and killing this, destroying

10:15that is about moving from completion to incompletion.

10:21So it is not possible, not at all possible to be spiritual and yet a consumer of this,

10:31that and I am not referring only to meat.

10:34I mean when you raise crops from a perspective of destroying them after their season and

10:44after their utility, it is much the same.

10:52In fact if you are that kind of a vegetarian, it will not really take much of a push to

11:00turn you into a meat eater.

11:05And that is why you see it is not uncommon, in fact it is fairly common for vegetarians

11:11to flip into meat eating.

11:14That which was not there cannot suddenly appear.

11:18The seeds of violence were there even when one was a vegetarian and that is why upon

11:24persuasion and upon opportunity, one moves to meat.

11:31Vegetarianism or veganism cannot be a taught quality.

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

11:40You cannot give arguments in favor 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, tomorrow a body of evidence may arise

11:58which says that if you are a vegan, then such and such minerals and vitamins get deficient

12:04within your body.

12:06Now in spite of all that evidence, and that evidence might be scientifically accurate,

12:12but if in spite of that evidence you say, I am what I am and I refuse to do that which

12:19is against my nature, then you are really a vegan, because veganism is about having

12:25the right relationship with 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, but 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 and to have a right relationship with the world is to gain freedom

13:10from various kinds of feelings.

13:13As long as one eats to get a certain feeling, the eating would always involve violence.

13:22So if you are promoting veganism, kindly do not promote a culture of feeling, because

13:31all feeling is excitement, all feeling is experiential, all feeling is sensory and all

13:38feeling is fleeting.

13:41One 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, and 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.

14:20I do not feel excitement.

14:23And because I do not feel pleasure, I also do not feel pain.

14:28It's a beautiful silence.

14:30It's a lovely thing.

14:31And this love that I'm referring to is not a feeling.

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

14:40I'm tempted to use the word mystical, but 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'll say, come, experience this new kind of food.

15:08Is this not new cuisine?

15:10Not really exciting?

15:13Now excitement, experience, feeling, emotion, titillation, pleasure, they are all words

15:20belonging to the same family.

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

15:32in our mind, man will not be able to be kind to himself or to the world.

15:42If excitement is a value, then there is a lot of value in hunting.

15:49If experience is a value, then it is always a new experience to kill a new species.

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

16:11And if one does need to have a feeling, the feeling can be, must be, to be situated in

16:21that understanding.

16:23This feeling is love.

16:26That is the only thing that one wants, really wants, then it really is love.

16:30I want to understand.

16:32I want to live by my nature.

16:34I want to live simply, innocently.

16:37This want is love.

16:40Love 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.

17:00Do not want feelings, they are not the highest, rather a freedom from feelings.

17:07That does not mean killing the feelings.

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

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