- 5/19/2025
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00:00Because we are talking about women as property and from the time of Bhagavad Gita and how in a way demolished by what the arguments that Lord Krishna gave.
00:07The animal that sits within us that wants to fight, that wants to capture territory is also the animal that wants to possess women.
00:13Arjuna chose to follow Krishna through the remaining 17 chapters what came ahead.
00:19Krishna kept on demolishing Arjuna and Arjuna stood through that.
00:23Shri Krishna was not speaking to everybody on the battlefield, Shri Krishna was speaking to one particular person who was revealing his insecurities, his doubts, his fears and attachments and all those things.
00:33If you are not Arjuna, the Gita is not for you.
00:38Hello and welcome to another special episode here on NDTV.
00:41I am with writer, philosopher and somebody who calls himself a lifelong student of Gita.
00:50He is known for his interpretation of Gita, the Upanishad.
00:55Acharya Prashant ji, thank you so much for giving us the time and speaking to us again.
01:00I was just going through one of your book and this is, ladies and gentlemen, the new edition of the Bhagavad Gita and written by Acharya Prashant.
01:10And there are some very interesting thoughts that you have put in this book.
01:14And they are quite, though you quote Gita and then of course your interpretation, but they are quite, you know, apparent in the current context as well.
01:26I want to start with one and then I will bring you to a question.
01:30I am quoting from page 60 of this book which says,
01:34What else does Arjuna believe in?
01:38Women as property?
01:40It's a very patriarchal mindset when he says that, you know, women should not be allowed to mingle with people from the so-called lower castes.
01:51As if women cannot decide on their own.
01:54As if Arjuna, that's what you, this is what you are saying.
01:56As if Arjuna is the great and the final patriarch on whom rests the responsibility to protect women's chastity and minds.
02:07I want to probe you on this because you have written this.
02:12Isn't it very contextualized in today's terms as well?
02:17Men find it very hard to give up some sort of ownership of women even after they move on.
02:26Even after a relationship does not work out, even after a woman does not want to give you any sense of that ownership.
02:32Why do you think that happens that you find it so difficult and you want to treat them as a property?
02:37You see, that's the reason why the Bhagavad Gita has an eternal relevance.
02:45Chapter 1 is what sets the tone for the remaining 17 chapters.
02:52But chapter 1 is also the least quoted chapter and least understood chapter and given the least importance.
03:03What Arjuna is saying is, I do not want to fight.
03:07And that is well known.
03:08Arjuna didn't want to fight.
03:10But not many people pay attention to the reasons he was quoting in support of his decision to not to fight.
03:19He is saying, if we fight here, Dakshatriyas, and we get killed, most of us,
03:25then the women, they will go and they will mingle and mate with those of the lower Varnas and then their offsprings,
03:37they will be Varnsankars.
03:40There is something called Pratilom Viva, not in Vedanta, not in real religion, but in popular culture.
03:49Pratilom Viva is when somebody from the higher Varnas, a woman especially from the higher Varnas,
04:02marries somebody, a man particularly, from the lower Varnas.
04:07And then the offspring is a Varnsankar and Varnsankars are looked down upon.
04:13And Swarjun says, if a Varnasankar is born, then he will not be able to offer the right kind of prescribed sacrifices.
04:25He will not be able to participate in the holy rituals, especially when it comes to occasions like Shradd,
04:32when the souls of our diseased ancestors have to be pleased with offerings.
04:40They will not accept the offerings from a Varnasankar.
04:42So, they will go hungry and thirsty. As a result, a great curse will befall the kingdom.
04:48And that's the reason he is quoting to Krishna. That's chapter 1 of the Bhagavad Gita.
04:52And from there, Krishna proceeds to annihilate these notions. That's the Bhagavad Gita.
04:59Which means, just as the message of the Gita is eternal, these tendencies inside us, the tendencies you asked of,
05:07why do we treat women as property? Why do men find it so difficult to really move on?
05:14Inwardly, they retain an idea of ownership even after the relationship is no more.
05:19Yes. Why does that happen? Because that's a basic animal instinct. That's got nothing to do with the current culture or civilization or something that has recently happened or something that is dependent on a period of time.
05:32That was there so many thousand years back. That is there today. And as long as we remain genetically who we are, that will remain.
05:40That's our animal tendency. That's our animal tendency to be territorial, to be opportunistic, to be possessive and to really want to own, control the sexuality of the other person, the other gender, so that we can maximize our own pleasure.
05:59And not just maximize it, secure it. When you own something, then there is a sense of security. This thing is with me not only today, it's also not going to go away tomorrow.
06:09So I own it and I own it with security. And that's the reason why men have wanted to control women's sexuality since time eternal. That's there in the Bhagavad Gita.
06:19That's what we find happening today. You see, you look at the current conflict, what we have just witnessed, the unfortunate deaths and the Pahlgaam massacre, you see the clear gender angle there, right?
06:37The terrorists come. And then they are sparing the women and shooting all the men and they are telling the women, now you will be left alive to bear this agony all your life. Go and relay this back.
06:51And then the operation 2 was codenamed Sindur. You see the gender angle. And then you also see how the daughter of the diplomat, who would appear on screens, the foreign secretary, how she was targeted.
07:07Probably the said diplomat also has sons. He is himself a man, even if he does not have sons. But the one chosen to be targeted was a woman, his daughter.
07:20So there is always a gender angle to all our animalistic primordial instincts. Because that's how the animal in the jungle is. He wants to fight for territory. He wants to fight for women.
07:36And inwardly we are still animals. No, but then what you picked up on, you know, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri's daughter being trolled online and all that vicious, you know, messaging around her.
07:49Rape threats. No, but does that come from the insecurity of weak men? Because you treat women as somebody's property.
07:57Yes. And the only way you can hit back at that man, in your head you think, is to take away or to damage the property that that man and hence the woman.
08:07Yes. See, you said insecurity of weak men. That's rightly put. But there can be a more precise and refined way of putting it. That comes from the animal within us.
08:18If we say weak men, we say strong men, that does not really take care of the narrative. Yeah. Yeah.
08:25What we call as our weaknesses are actually our inheritances. What we have inherited from our jungle past. We are recently, very recently emerging from the jungle. And whatever we are carrying forward from there, today can be called as our weakness. And that includes our attitude towards the other gender.
08:46Yes. We want to be called as our weakness. We want to be called as our weakness. We want to own it. We want to suppress it. You look at war and you look at women. There has always been a relation.
08:53There has always been a withdrawal. We want to have a balance. So, yes, it is a relationship. In India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India, in India.
09:03But the rest of Asia, almost all of it, plus parts of Europe. He totally ravished them. He was not only a conqueror. He was also the biggest rapist the world has seen.
09:14world has seen. So much so, that a big proportion of the Indian, of the Asian population still
09:21bears the stamp of his genes. Because there were just so many women he personally raped.
09:28War and women, they go together. We know of the genocide in East Pakistan, Bangladesh. We know
09:34how rape was a big part of it. We know how rape was a big part of the pre-partition riots in India.
09:41We know of that. We also know how rape was a big part of the motivation of the Japanese
09:47forces. In China, the rape of Nankin and the pleasure girls, the comfort girls and all those
09:52things. We know of all these things. The animal that sits within us, that wants to fight, that
09:58wants to capture territory is also the animal that wants to possess women. There is a clear
10:04relationship. And that has been since the day we got really conscious.
10:11It was there in the jungle and it has continued with us. And the Bhagavad Gita presents a solution
10:17to that. So, the Bhagavad Gita is actually offering a solution to an eternal problem which is obviously
10:23relevant even today and will be relevant even in the future. That's the reason why I chose
10:28to teach this and why it is benefiting so many people.
10:32I want to quote something from your book but before I do that, very quickly I want to ask you something
10:36because it's a very common phrase because we are talking about women as property and
10:42from the time of Bhagavad Gita and how, you know, it was what Arjun said and how it was
10:49in a way demolished by what the arguments that Lord Krishna gave. But
10:53Ghar ki izzat, why is the onus on the women and hence we see that women become the biggest casualty
11:03of a war, right? I mean, the whole notion of ravaging a woman becomes putting a nation down
11:09or putting a family down. How is it, how does one break those shackles of thinking that women
11:16hold all the… By simply asking, how does one define the term honour? If honour refers to my ability
11:25to keep my women subdued in the name of safety, then who's to such honour? Who wants this kind of honour?
11:34And that's what has happened. A person is honourable, a father is honourable, a family is honourable,
11:39a village or a tribe is honourable, if it can keep its women disciplined in order, marry them off as
11:49per the prescribed notions and then everything can be said to be honourable. And if anything goes astray,
11:57if a woman decides on her own, rightly, wrongly, whatever, but she has decided on her own to deviate,
12:03then it is dishonour. And since it is dishonour, the answer can be honour killing. That's what we witness.
12:11So all these are very, very flawed, very violent, very ignorant notions of honour and the real purpose
12:19of culture is to keep discarding such notions and cleansing itself from within. But instead,
12:27culture often becomes rigid and chooses to retain all the rubbish of the past. The concept of honour,
12:34also the concept of shame. These are two very related notions. Haya and Izzat, Sharm and Izzat,
12:45Lajja and Samman. These are honour and shame. These are related notions. And therefore, one has to
12:52take it with a pinch of salt when somebody says, you are shameless. What does the word shame mean
12:58in the first place? One has to specify that.
13:02So, yeah, I mean, I'm sure. And also, I mean, why should women bear the burden of the honour of
13:06any family or anybody else? I want to quote from your book since we are talking about this. And I think,
13:13ladies and gentlemen, this is where, like he said, culture defines it. This is where interpretation of
13:18this for the people of today becomes very, very important. You, and I quoted this, you know,
13:26it's on page 78. You say, you say, Arjuna says, you see, if I fight all the Kshatriyas like you were
13:32talking about, the men will be gone and they will be corrupted. Once again, even in this, there is
13:37an orthodox notion. How do you, you know, completely dispel that?
13:45By understanding that you can have no lasting pleasure or completion, fulfillment, contentment
13:57by owning anything, including a person, including a person of the other gender, that is not going to
14:04give you anything. Just that in the course of history, the principal source of energy
14:12was the physical muscle. And men happen to be more muscular in the course of evolution than women.
14:23Therefore, they acquired a more primary affair, a primary role in the state of social affairs.
14:30But that is no more the case today. There is so much energy being expended here. That's not coming
14:38from our muscles. We have alternate sources of energy. Men and women are actually equals when it comes to
14:46their contribution, their ability in the society. So, these things have to be kept aside. But when there is
14:55this idea that whatever is flowing in from the past is necessarily wonderful, then that obfuscates the
15:05bare fact in front of you. Then you can't see the reality because you worship the past so much.
15:11On that, I have a very important question. I am sure you will enjoy answering that. In your book, you say
15:17the Gita does not talk of an ancient war. It talks of the war right now. Do you also see how difficult it
15:25will be for you to remain with the Gita and Krishna if you have particular attitude towards women or towards
15:33caste or something else? Definitely.
15:35I just want to ask you, a lot of people would claim, I am a Hindu and so and so forth and I identify
15:45myself with this and that. Can people claim or hold the Gita in their hand and still have prejudice
15:51against women or anybody or any caste or creed? If a thousand people claim to have read the Gita
15:58or understood the Gita or to be following the Gita, I would be surprised if even one of them
16:08is deserving of going beyond chapter 1. Because chapter 1 is where we are all stuck. See,
16:17Arjun has a particular attitude towards warna, loosely translated as caste, and Arjun has a particular
16:23attitude towards women. And Arjun is superstitious. He is talking of all kinds of souls and superstitions,
16:30you know, diseased ancestors and they will come and the dead ones are going to curse us. So,
16:35there is women, there is caste, there is superstition and there is physical attachment. These are all my
16:42blood relatives. How do I shoot arrows at them? These four things. People talk of following Shri Krishna,
16:51but the fact is, we are all followers of the culture that dominates Arjun. And Arjun is very resistant
17:02to the words of Shri Krishna in the initial chapters of Gita. At one point, he actually tells Shri Krishna,
17:08why are you confusing me? Just let me go. I don't want to fight because I have my other priorities.
17:15I have my ancient notions and I don't want to give them up. So, that's how we all are. Remaining in the
17:24state of Arjun, we claim to be followers of Shri Krishna. So, we are stuck in chapter 1. We are stuck
17:29at chapter 1. Arjun didn't remain stuck at chapter 1. Arjun chose to follow Krishna through the remaining 17
17:38chapters. What came ahead? And Krishna kept on dismembering Arjun. Krishna kept on demolishing
17:46Arjun. And Arjun stood through that. Most people who say they are reading the Gita, when they are
17:53demolished, when their notions are shown to be false, they just run away. That's why staying with the Gita
18:00is so very difficult. Or you can just be a hypocrite and stay with the Gita and say, well, here I am.
18:07I am done even with chapter 18. And now I am a Pandit of the Gita. And you can claim all those things,
18:12but that's sheer hypocrisy. The real thing is, when those four things disappear from your life,
18:20has gender prejudice disappeared? Has caste distinction disappeared? Has superstition disappeared?
18:26Has physical attachment disappeared? If these things are disappearing from your life,
18:33only then you can claim to be really devoted to Shri Krishna or being a student of Shri Krishna.
18:40Otherwise, you are just blabbering. So, essentially, there is a difference between reading Gita and
18:46understanding Gita. Gita has to become your life. Exactly. Most of us who claim that we have read Gita,
18:51Gita is not literature. Gita is not literature. Gita is a mirror. You look at the mirror and if there
18:59is a speck or blemish here, you want to change something on your face when you look at the mirror.
19:04If you look at the Gita and that doesn't result in changes in your life, then you are misusing the Gita.
19:11In some sense, that is disrespect to the Gita. Anybody who holds the Gita must be very, very ready
19:18to look within and discard all that which is unnecessary, superficial, borrowed and therefore
19:27antithetical to life. If that is not happening, then that's disrespect to the Gita.
19:33I think that's why they say that Gita is a way of life. It teaches you how to conduct your life. But
19:40you know, just probing you further on this, like you said, a lot of people are just stuck on chapter
19:47one because of these four prejudices that you have, you know, counted for us. Why don't people
19:53then understand? Why is it for them to leave chapter one, go to chapter two, still think that they are
19:58reading Gita but not understand the SAR of the chapter one? Because they do not understand that the Gita
20:04is a medicine and all medicines are for a patient's specific disease.
20:13Right? All medicines are in that sense customized, we may say bespoke. So, we do not want to see that
20:20we are Arjun but we want to benefit from Krishna. The thing is, Sri Krishna was not speaking to
20:28everybody on the battlefield. Sri Krishna was speaking to one particular person who was revealing
20:34his insecurities, his doubts, his fears and attachments and all those things. So, you have
20:40to first of all see that you are very similar to Arjun and only then the Sri Krishna's message can be
20:47relevant to you because Gita is something between a Krishna and an Arjun. Right? If you are not Arjun,
20:54the Gita is not for you. So, chapter one is actually the most important chapter for a seeker,
20:59for a student of the Gita. But chapter one is the one we just, you know, flip through. Chapter two is
21:06when Sri Krishna starts speaking. So, that's the real deal. Chapter one, okay, okay, fine, fine,
21:11fine, fast forward. Because it opens with the Trashtra speaking and there is something from Sanjay
21:17and then even Duryodhana is there and then Arjun speaks. Sri Krishna is hardly found there.
21:22We don't want to see what is there. But the fact is, all improvement is for me. Therefore, it begins
21:30with my condition. First of all, I have to have the mirror to look at myself and only then
21:37improvement will ensue. But we do not look at ourselves. The way I pick up Gita is, okay,
21:42what is Sri Krishna saying? The question is, to whom? To whom are these words being said? If I do not
21:49realize that they are being said to me in my particular condition, then this remains just
21:55holy literature to be worshipped and to be kept away. This will not become life.
22:04So, I think it will start from first identifying your own flaws, identifying your own shortcomings,
22:10and then trying to seek an answer of how Sri Krishna could have helped Arjun in that sense and
22:16possibly identifying with that. Thank you so much for this very interesting, enlightening and
22:22in the current context, I mean, you may seem, it may seem that Gita was written in a different era
22:27altogether, but… Oh, it's very relevant, very relevant. It's as if it's written for us today.
22:32Today. True. So, in the online age also, it gives you a lot of answers of why we behave in a certain
22:38manner as we do. Thank you so much for speaking to us. Thank you. My name is Shubhangi and I
22:47am an IT consultant and I live in Munich for past eight years and I have been listening to Acharya Ji for
22:55more than two years on YouTube and part of Gita sessions for roughly a year or maybe a little more.
23:07And reflecting upon the session, we were learning the 57th verse of the second chapter from
23:15Bhagavad Gita and in the context, Acharya Ji talked about the desire and the one of the
23:25sentences which I really liked was the true can't be discovered by any other means but false.
23:37And the last one which I really liked but I'm yet to mull over is you can't understand a desire
23:46and find it intact. I am yet to understand it better. That's pretty much what I learnt with
23:59respecting words today. And in the end, what I will remember a lot is don't just pass by rather stop.
24:10This will stay with me. And apart from that, I've also grown particularly fond of a sentence
24:17rather a question. How do you know? It makes assuming things very difficult. At the same time,
24:24it has saved me a lot of mental agony in many situations. So be thankful so far for all such teachings.
24:35And thank you.
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