Heartbreak, Grades, or Expectations? Institute Suicides Unveiled! || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita #iitmadras #suicide  #students  #parenting  ➖➖➖  Video Information: 29.09.23, IIT-Madras (Online), Greater Noida  Context: ~ Why students are doing suicide ? ~ What harm are causing of unrealistic goal's to students ? ~ Who are culprit for this suicides ? ~ What is real success ? ~ Why parents need to be qualify to raise the kinds ? ~ Why inner education is important for kids ? ~ What are the most fundamental need of mind ?  Music Credits: Milind Date

Transcript

00:00The outcome of the conversation would decide actively the fate of many million residents

00:21of the kingdom.

00:22Not just figuratively, literally, life and death depend on this discourse.

00:26Therefore, this discourse has so much potency.

00:29Arjun is the real life student, not the ideal disciple.

00:35Therefore, Krishna's persuasion has the cutting edge mastery.

00:40That's what happened with Arjun as well.

00:44So the Bhagavad Gita is such a real and captivating story.

00:48Hello Acharya ji.

00:50I wanted to ask about the recent suicides, multiple suicides which happened in top institutes

00:58of the country which included our institute as well.

01:01So I wanted to know what is the reason behind these suicides which are occurring in the

01:05country and is it due to societal pressure or academic pressure?

01:11You see, a kid is a very dependent being, very dependent so the kid is heavily exploited.

01:26You tell the kid that your life is worthless if you do not attain such and such goals and

01:38then you keep the goals so unrealistic and make the competition so severe by telling

01:49the same thing to every kid.

01:54That practically only 1% can attain the goals they have been conditioned to attain.

02:02What will happen to the remaining 99%?

02:10One of the most fundamental needs of the mind is to know itself.

02:16Who am I and why do I exist?

02:20Parents and educators never bother to address this question let alone answer it satisfactorily.

02:31Instead they indirectly, unconsciously supply you with a ready-made and junk answer.

02:39They say you exist to achieve.

02:41Achieve what?

02:42Stuff that we tell you to achieve.

02:46Who told you that working for some MNC and earning fat dollars is the purpose of life?

02:55Left to yourself, would you have ever come to this conclusion?

02:58Please tell me, any of you.

03:01In fact, left to yourself, most of you would have never bothered to appear for the JEE.

03:10But you have been told that such and such things are non-negotiable.

03:13You need to have these and everybody is telling you the same thing.

03:21And even that would have been alright, had you been helped to awaken your own capacity

03:31to inquire and know.

03:36If that capacity is awakened, then it does not matter what the entire world is telling

03:42you.

03:45Then you can keep everybody's opinion aside and say, I know on my own.

03:50I do not need to believe because I know.

03:57But the constant bombardment of propaganda is accompanied by an equivalent dehumanization

04:09of consciousness.

04:13Your consciousness is turned mechanical and animal, dehumanized.

04:19So these two things happen in tandem.

04:21One, you are told what things are all about.

04:25Secondly, you are actively discouraged from knowing on your own.

04:33If you know on your own, then you become some kind of a renegade, unacceptable, an uncontrollable

04:42rebel or something who needs to be straightened.

04:50So now the fellow comes and he has been given impossible targets to achieve and he has been

05:01told if he doesn't achieve those targets, then life is meaningless.

05:10Some of them buckle very sadly.

05:15All links in any chain do not carry the same strength.

05:19There are weak links, right?

05:22If you put undue pressure on the ends of the chain, some link will break.

05:29The fault does not belong to the link.

05:32You must question those who put the pressure.

05:45Great talent, great talent and what is that talent being told to do?

05:50That talent is being told, you know, you go somewhere and write code, random code.

05:59And if that random code is for one of the top companies, then you are successful.

06:05What success is there in this?

06:09Somebody is being told you go and work in a bank and you just do data all your day.

06:15What success is there in this?

06:17Had you not been being paid those big dollars, would you ever choose this kind of work?

06:24Please tell me.

06:29What success is there in all this?

06:32Somebody is selling shoes after doing computer science B.Tech from IIT Madras.

06:37What success is there in this?

06:40It's just that the company is a footwear giant, MNC footwear giant.

06:53And then you take pride.

06:55You don't take pride.

06:56Your parents take pride.

06:58Your parents take pride and the entire society takes pride.

07:03And then a few girls can come to you or their parents rather.

07:12The fellow is earning so, you know, how about a match?

07:19From all the directions, the message that is coming to you is there is this particular

07:25definition of success.

07:28If you cannot measure up to it, then life is not worth living.

07:37Some of our friends, unfortunately, take it very literally.

07:42They say if life is not worth living, why should we anyway continue living at all?

07:47You could say they are more logical than the rest of us.

07:54Culpability has to be fixed.

08:00Everybody who has been continuously teaching you that life exists just for the sake of

08:05material gratification is the culprit.

08:10Catch him.

08:12Justice needs to be done.

08:14Otherwise, this kind of trend will continue.

08:17It's not just about your campus.

08:18It's happening everywhere.

08:25Pressure by itself might not be necessarily a bad thing.

08:28But pressure for such nonsense?

08:33One fellow gave up his life because his elder brother was a super achiever.

08:39The elder brother was actually from an IIT.

08:41This fellow did not manage into an IIT.

08:43He was at some other place and there too he was not getting the desired kind of job offers.

08:52He quit.

08:54On one hand, I commiserate with the parents.

08:57On the other hand, one needs to have a straight word with them.

09:06What exactly are you feeding your kids on?

09:11Do most parents even deserve to be called parents?

09:16For any small project, you require at least some qualification.

09:23But for the project of raising a kid, you require zero qualification.

09:28All you need is, you know, one night of physical encounter.

09:35And then you say, I am a father and she is a mother and the two of us are qualified to

09:39raise the kid.

09:40How exactly are you qualified to raise the kid?

09:49This is nothing but symptomatic of a society where inner education is considered dispensable.

09:58Where we say that if you teach the student in history, geography, maths, science and

10:06the languages, that is sufficient.

10:09The student does not need to be given education in life, education of the self.

10:15That is not necessary.

10:17If that is not necessary, this will be the outcome and sadly this outcome might keep

10:24getting repeated.

10:28And that inner education, mind you, cannot come just naturally from the family or somewhere.

10:37Just as you require expert professors to teach you maths and physics, similarly you

10:43require experts to deliver life education.

10:49If that is not there, then the mind will remain very cluttered, very confused and ultimately

10:57sometimes suicidal.

11:02What a wastage.

11:08And what makes the wastage worse is that the lives of those, even those who survive are

11:16rendered waste.

11:18We talked about the fellow who is working in a footwear MNC, post is electrical engineering.

11:27Why should that not be considered an equal wastage of life?

11:34Or the fellow who decides to sell fizzy drinks.

11:39If you look at the IMs, for example, they attract a lot of crowd from the IITs.

11:46And what do these ITNs do passing out from the IMs?

11:51Somebody is selling fizzy drinks, somebody is selling home loans, that's an equal wastage.

12:04But we don't want to talk of that.

12:06We talk of that as gainful employment.

12:08In fact, we gloat over that.

12:11We say, you know, this is heroic.

12:15My journey has attained a three crore package and that sometimes comes to the newspapers

12:23as well.

12:30That should indeed come to the newspapers as a thing of tragedy, not as a matter of

12:37celebration.

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