Breaking Stereotypes: Should Women ONLY Focus on Family? || Acharya Prashant, NIT-Jamshedpur (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 04.10.23, NIT-Jamshedpur (Online), Greater Noida  Context: ~ Where should we focus after completing education? ~ What are the things we should think of? ~ For what does women exists? ~ What are the questions students must ask & which questions they should avoid?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Good evening, sir. I am Aswarya pursuing first year in electrical engineering at NIT Jamshedpur.

00:09Sir, my question is after completion of education or being settled in life, should women spend

00:17their life in raising children and family after marriage or what choices do we have

00:26over this? You are a budding engineer. You have to answer this for yourself, Aswarya.

00:40What do you think is the purpose of your life, your education, your consciousness? What do

00:45you exist for? Go to the jungle, everybody is having babies. What do you exist for?

00:55Yes, sir. I wanted to know that what is the real purpose.

01:01You tell me. You must be already 18 or something. As an adult, think and tell me. You exist

01:08to breed? No, sir. Then where is the question coming from?

01:15Leave it. Yes, sir.

01:25See you have to ask, who put this trivia in your mind? Had you not been subjected to the

01:34various social influences, would you have still thought in the same way? You are a

01:42person first, right? You are a woman much later. And now you are educated and you would

01:49be an engineer and you would be working somewhere. Where do babies pop up in all this? I am not

01:56against babies. They are cute. But they must. Have babies if everything else is settled

02:08in life, then you may think of having not babies, one baby. Have one kid when the other

02:16purposes of life are at least half achieved. When the more fundamental things have been

02:23covered, then you can have a kid. But have you covered anything till now? Tell me how

02:32many great authors have you read till now? Tell me how many philosophies do you know

02:36of? Tell me how many places have you visited till now? Tell me what thrills, funs, adventures

02:43have you had? How much world have you seen? How many sports have you mastered? How many

02:49arts do you excel in? These are the things that you must be thinking of. Babies is something

02:59very natural. One has to have sex and the baby will come. There is no great complication

03:05in all that. At any age before let's say 40, you can one day decide to have a baby and

03:12a few months later the baby will pop out. Nothing in that. Or you can decide to adopt

03:17a baby. It's so simple as that. But other things, they are the things that demand real

03:27effort. You are a person, a person with consciousness. You exist for the full expansion of your consciousness

03:38to give full meaning to your life. And mind you, childbirth will not supply you with that

03:44meaning. It cannot. Could childbirth suffice? All the cows and the buffalos and the lady

03:52monkeys and the she-camels, all of them would have been illuminated and fulfilled souls.

04:04A first year student should be asking about the possibilities to explore, what to do in

04:12this direction? Is it necessary that I work as an electrical engineer? And if I have to

04:19work in electrical, then what are the branches that open up? Must I pursue further studies

04:27in the United States, Germany? Some of the universities are very good for that purpose.

04:34These are the questions you must be grappling with. Not the question of wedding and procreating.

04:45I am not against all that. Priority. Sir, I want to say that while I was growing

04:56up, I have seen this type of things and the women around us.

05:05I get what you are saying. I get where you are coming from. But all that is behind you

05:10now, isn't it? Now you are in this campus and the campus is decently equipped to provide

05:19you with exposure. And from here you can take wings and fly away to anywhere. You must

05:28not stand beholden to your past. Leave those things behind, absolutely behind.

05:35Okay, sir. What okay? Have you understood?

05:39Yes, I understood. Just because others are doing this, that or

05:47that has been prevalent in family or in culture or in the town you come from. There is no

05:55compulsion to follow that same trail. Never consider yourself obliged to live the way

06:03others in the past have been living or others are still living around you. No obligation,

06:10no compulsion. Life is about complete freedom. And if that complete freedom is not there,

06:18you will continue to suffer. You are genuinely getting it, right?

06:25Yes, sir. Chalo.

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