The final proof that we are horribly cruel people || Acharya Prashant, with Ahimsa Fellows (2023)

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:  04.04.23, with Ahimsa Fellows (Online-talk), Greater Noida  Context: ~ What are the most common reasons for veganism? ~ What do vegans struggle with the most? ~ What are the three pillars of veganism? ~ Why do relatives not understand veganism? ~ Is it impossible to be spiritual and not vegan?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Many of us were already acquainted with the amazing phenomenal work that you do with your

00:07videos and other things.

00:10But in preparation for this talk, many of us got familiar.

00:13So based on that, we've got some queries.

00:16So the first question is that in many of your interviews, you mentioned that one cannot

00:24be spiritual if one eats animals at the same time.

00:29So when cruelties behind milk and meat consumption are highlighted, people who are not vegan,

00:36they tend to get very defensive.

00:39So this question has two parts.

00:42The first part is what does such defensiveness indicate from the prism of spirituality?

00:49And secondly, that given that the meat and milk consumption and demand has increased

00:54dramatically in India.

00:56So does this point towards a large scale spiritual crisis?

01:01And if so, what kind of an approach can be taken by talking to people about animal cruelty

01:07and also veganism?

01:09This was Sunaina's question.

01:12It's a bit of a tricky affair to introduce the fact of animal cruelty to someone without

01:26alleging or insinuating that the person is some kind of a criminal.

01:34So one has to be sensitive to the response of the listener.

01:44And to be fair, education or awareness towards such things is pretty low.

01:58So if the person has not yet known of these things, he or she can be extended some benefit

02:10of doubt.

02:12It is possible that the person never had the opportunity to be educated in that regard.

02:22Vegans sometimes exhibit a holier-than-thou kind of attitude, an aggression that is counterproductive.

02:30Even I am guilty of that.

02:31I have seen that.

02:33But when you look at someone who comes from a meat-eating family or the traditional kind

02:47of Indian Vaishnav family where milk and kheer and dahi are a staple, then it comes as a

02:58shock to that person that milk involves cruelty.

03:06It's a totally alien and a disturbing concept.

03:10So it has to be brought out with due expertise.

03:17That does not mean that you have to be especially trained in communicating these matters.

03:21Just that one has to be sensitive that the other person might not really know or even

03:28if he knows, it is his environment that has been too much on him and so far it has been

03:35next to impossible for that person to quit all these food items or habits.

03:43So these things have to be gently brought out.

03:46Understand, you see, when you are familiar with the pain and the suffering that animals

03:50go through, that disturbs you and that makes you rush to help them.

04:01It becomes difficult to be gentle and patient and a little slow and measured, right?

04:08Because you have just seen the hell that the goat or the cow or the buffalo have to go

04:16through.

04:17You are acquainted with that.

04:21So you are agitated and when you see someone consuming meat, you almost want to slap them.

04:28I appreciate that feeling.

04:30But also look at that person, he might come from a family of generations of meat eaters.

04:38And when that fellow was two years of age, that was when he was served his first morsel

04:45of biryani or chicken piece or something, right?

04:51So it's almost flowing in his veins now.

04:55He has to be a bit gently weaned away from all that, right?

05:04So one has to be relentlessly at it.

05:09The bombardment on social media has to be incessant.

05:19But when it comes to personal confrontation, one has to remember that the objective is

05:28not to shame the other.

05:30The objective is to help the animal.

05:33Just shaming the other won't help.

05:36In fact, it is possible that the other becomes aggressive in his defense.

05:44And that aggression might mean that he says that not only do I continue to eat, but I'll

05:49actually consume flesh in double the quantity.

05:55As some kind of signal of childish defiance, people do that.

06:03So it's a tricky thing.

06:05We want to rush, but we'll have to rush gently.

06:12That's something I'm not only telling you, that's something that I remind myself often

06:15because I too want to rush.

06:17I want this whole cruelty to come to an absolute end right now.

06:26But that's not how it can happen.

06:30So one has to gently rush.

06:37And the second thing you said that, is it symptomatic of a wider spiritual crisis?

06:45Of course it is.

06:46Of course it is.

06:48Of course it is.

06:49The very philosophy of life has gone all wrong.

06:56We have been told that individual happiness is the purpose of life.

07:02One lives to consume, you live to be happy for yourself.

07:06Of course you can add these little goodies like compassion and helping someone and you

07:11know all these are little tidbits that you add to the overwhelming project of self-satiation.

07:20But they are just that, little tidbits.

07:24The overwhelming theme of life is personal pleasure.

07:28That is a philosophy we have been fed since our birth.

07:35And that philosophy is a very violent one.

07:43Not that someone teaches that philosophy to us via a classroom course or a textbook.

07:51It's just in the air.

07:54You look at a hoarding, a billboard.

07:57You look at the way a shop is structured.

08:01You look at the clothes people are wearing.

08:04You look at the voice of somebody, a marketing professional or somebody.

08:15And the philosophy is contained there, it's embedded there.

08:21So we are being subliminally educated, rather indoctrinated, conditioned in that philosophy.

08:31And that's the spiritual crisis.

08:34Spirituality is basically, simply about realizing who you are and the clear fallout of that

08:47is that you no more care for your personal desires.

08:51I am not the person, so how can I be so particular about my personal desires?

08:57That's what all spirituality is about.

08:59I am not the person I appear to be.

09:02That's not my reality.

09:04That's just my appearance.

09:05The person is my appearance.

09:07My reality is beyond the person that I appear.

09:14Therefore all the personal desires that I have, have to be taken lightly, cannot be

09:20given great importance.

09:23So that's what spirituality is, where you cannot give your personal desires great importance.

09:28Giving your personal desires great importance is to subject yourself to suffering.

09:33And freedom from suffering is the goal of entire spirituality.

09:38There is no other goal.

09:40We suffer so much, therefore spirituality exists.

09:43Spirituality is self-knowledge.

09:45Spirituality is not spirit business, basic self-knowledge, to see who I am and what I

09:51want and therefore how I must live.

09:53That's what spirituality or self-knowledge is.

09:56On the other hand, the philosophy we have been fed tells us that personal ingratiation

10:05is the sole purpose of life.

10:08So these two are obviously at odds.

10:11Spirituality and the philosophy the commoners believe in.

10:17Though nobody realizes that because nobody believes that he has a philosophy of life.

10:21We all think we have a certain opinion about life that is our own.

10:26All the opinions that we all have about life are not at all our own.

10:32They either arise from the bodily tendencies or from the social environment.

10:41Those are the desires that we chase.

10:44Bodily compulsions or social conditioning.

10:50Both together telling us be happy, be happy, be happy, be happy at whatever cost.

10:58The only antidote to that is self-knowledge.

11:02Self-knowledge tells you who is there to be happy, whom are you trying to please.

11:07Can we inquire into that?

11:10It's alright to be happy, but who exactly is the one being fed happiness at such great

11:18cost?

11:21It's like you are drunk and you are trying to feed yourself and you do not even know

11:25who you are and therefore where your mouth is.

11:29And some imposter, some fraudster is standing right behind you with his mouth wide open

11:37and you pick up the morsel and you feed and you're thinking you're feeding it to yourself.

11:43Somebody else is being fed when you are trying to fulfill your desires.

11:48Your desires are not fulfilling you, they are fulfilling somebody else, somebody else.

11:53That's the point of self-knowledge when you realize who you are.

11:57When you cannot spend your life pleasing somebody who you are not.

12:09So you know what that means, all of that.

12:13What that means is that if the system is to continue, the system of thought, the system

12:18of economics, the markets, the politics, the society, the family, the education.

12:27If all of this is to continue, self-knowledge has to be obstructed very sternly, very staunchly,

12:35very deliberately, very systematically.

12:39If self-knowledge advances, then everything that we see around us and see within us will

12:53be threatened and there are vested interests.

12:59So people will not allow real spirituality to prosper.

13:05But at the same time, it has become some kind of a moral fad to declare that one is spiritual.

13:14So what would then happen?

13:17Shady alternatives to real spirituality will need to be fabricated.

13:26Real spirituality would threaten the entire system within and without.

13:32Right from the kindergarten school to the parliaments of the world, everything will

13:41be threatened if real spirituality advances.

13:46So some kind of fake spirituality has to be created and patronized so that the systems

13:56and the vested interests can continue to prosper.

14:01That's what we are seeing all around us today.

14:03That would also mean that if you come up with real self-knowledge, you better be careful.

14:13You are in crosshairs.

14:17You are being watched and you are being targeted.

14:21That makes a lot of sense.

14:23Thank you so much.

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