The biggest act of cruelty today || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

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  ➖➖➖  #AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita #vedanta   ➖➖➖  Video Information: 30.08.22, Conversation, Greater Noida  Context: ~ What is the solution to climate change? ~ How can spirituality halt global warming? ~ Is there no scientific way to address climate change? ~ How does compassion connect to veganism? ~ Why is veganism relevant to the modern world? ~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change? ~ How could veganism change the world?   Music Credits: Milind Date

Transcript

00:00Being born with some impurities that need to be corrected.

00:07Lots of.

00:08Only impurities are born.

00:10Could another way of looking at this be that a baby when they're born, they're still not

00:16corrupted by the impurities of the present world, they may have some from their past reincarnations.

00:22Who brought impurities in the present world?

00:24Did they rain from the skies?

00:28You'd say the elders, but the elders were babies one day.

00:32Where did they get the impurities from?

00:34First of all, spirituality is about realizing that all nonsense emanates from the DNA.

00:41You are born with nonsense.

00:42That body identification is the fundamental problem and the root cause of all violence.

00:48It's the body that is violent because it is the body that is coming from the jungle.

00:52We share this body with the chimpanzees, with the dinosaurs, with the lions, tigers.

00:57Every single animal in the jungle is this body and therefore all the problems of the

01:04jungle are contained in this body.

01:06It's just that jungle does not have the weaponry, the ammunition to execute all the nonsense

01:15that arises as some kind of impulse from this body.

01:20So they only have impulses, but they cannot execute those impulses.

01:24When we have impulses, we have missiles to execute them because we have intellect.

01:31Animals only have animalistic prakriti, but they don't have missiles and guns and computers.

01:37We are animals with missiles and guns and computers.

01:40So we are far more dangerous.

01:42Isn't that a guilt-ridden way to think of life?

01:47That's a factful way.

01:48If that gives us guilt, fine.

01:50To me that gives us responsibility.

01:52And to me that gives us a glimmer of hope.

01:56I might be born an animal, but the potential to die free of the animal is possible.

02:02In some sense, then veganism is about gaining freedom from the animal.

02:06It's not about protecting the animal.

02:09When you say you are dependent on animal products, what are you doing?

02:13You are dependent on somebody.

02:14So veganism is about gaining freedom from the animal, the outer animal and the inner animal.

02:21Presently, because we are dependent on the inner animal, so we are dependent on the outer

02:27animal as well.

02:29When you are truly spiritual, then you are not dependent on the outer or the inner animal.

02:38You are free of both and you can't be free of just one of them.

02:42When there will be freedom, freedom will have both the sides.

02:49So how do you, I personally believe in the antinatalist philosophy and I do not intend

02:57to procreate myself, although I would consider perhaps adopting children at some point.

03:03But how do you, what kind of a world do you see with majority of people being antinatals

03:11and then do you see the human civilization coming to an end at some point in the future?

03:17Listen, what I'll say, if not considered rightly, will appear either vile or hilarious.

03:31There is no great virtue in the human civilization continuing, first thing.

03:37If the child is born suffering, why do you want to bring more child to the world to make them suffer?

03:45What is the point in ensuring that the cycle continues?

03:51What is the great need or the great virtue?

03:55And what is the great catastrophe if it all, you know?

03:58Second thing, not everybody is born to be self-realized, right?

04:09The average kind of people will always outnumber the ones who understand.

04:14So the human race will continue, don't worry.

04:18There will be always enough people who will never understand what I am saying and therefore

04:23they will keep on bearing 2 kids, 4 kids, 20 kids.

04:27So don't worry, human race is not at the risk of annihilation.

04:29I will never be totally understood and the race will continue.

04:34So then eventually do you think the average minds will overpopulate as compared to the

04:42reasonable or the self-realized ones?

04:43Isn't that the thing that has not been happening till this date?

04:45It has.

04:46The ones who understand lose interest in procreation.

04:51Therefore who is left to procreate?

04:53All the ones who do not understand and that has been happening since the beginning of

04:57time.

04:58So it's not a new thing that will happen.

05:01See if I might ask a question here, you know James Lovelock said, if the earth improves

05:08as a result of human presence, we will flourish.

05:12If it does not, we will perish.

05:15So he is imagining a system in which the earth improves as a result of human presence.

05:23In that case, aren't human beings then an asset to the planet?

05:26No, that's the improvement that we can bring to the earth.

05:30The improvement is that human beings have taken the status of earth down from 0 to minus

05:37200.

05:39So what do you do when you want to improve from a point of minus 200?

05:43You bring yourself up to 0.

05:45So let us reduce to 0.

05:49The improvement that we can bring to earth cannot be positive or affirmative.

05:55It can only be reductive.

06:02There were these twin towers in Noida, right?

06:06And they were wrongly made or something.

06:07I do not know the nuances of the case.

06:10How did you improve the situation in that locality?

06:15By bringing them down.

06:16That's the improvement we can bring about.

06:18Dismiss, demolish, finish it off.

06:23Sounds so very nihilistic.

06:25No?

06:26It does.

06:27It does.

06:28It does.

06:29So, then, please remember, it is only when you clear away the nonsense that there is

06:38some room, some space created for something beautiful or clean.

06:44You know what the situation of this studio was just yesterday night?

06:50You won't want to look at that picture.

06:53It was all cluttered and chaotic and in the worst shape possible.

06:59And it was brought into this form because you were arriving.

07:04What did we do in the first place?

07:07We cleared away the nonsense.

07:11That's what this earth today needs.

07:13It has too much nonsense.

07:15First of all, that needs to be annihilated.

07:18We need Shiva for pralaya.

07:20That's the fundamental requirement.

07:21And after that, we can have a great beginning.

07:24So do not think that zero means zero.

07:28Zero means beauty.

07:29The entire philosophy of Buddha is shunyavad.

07:33Let it all be reduced to zero and then you will see something magnificently beautiful.

07:38What that thing would be, we do not know and we cannot even predict.

07:42But what we know is that what we have currently is extremely nonsensical.

07:48So let's do what we must and clear this away.

07:52What is your advice for a self-realized individual to reconcile with this clutter and still be

07:58able to live a relatively happy and content life?

08:03To begin with, create a little clean space from where you can operate.

08:09That little clean space then becomes your war room.

08:13And then you operate from there and you want to somehow expand that space of cleanliness.

08:23So that is the purpose.

08:24No.

08:25Just do what you can.

08:26Right?

08:27What else?

08:28What else?

08:29What else?

08:31This is Arjuna.

08:32It is being called to battle.

08:38We do not know whether anything would come out of it.

08:41But this is the minimum and the maximum we can do.

08:44So we do that.

08:48If you start thinking of the results, it hardly energizes you.

08:55If you want to lose, then start thinking of the results.

08:59Because common sense and normal extrapolation tells you that the battle is just too impossible

09:09to win.

09:11But the battle is just too essential to be ignored.

09:20So you fight it.

09:22Impossible to win and impossible to ignore.

09:27What do you do?

09:28You fight it without caring for the results.

09:30What else can you do?

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