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00:00Inequality is not injustice. Inequality is the very taut aim of life. Aren't you taught
00:07to get ahead? Isn't everybody being taught to get ahead? That's inequality.
00:13Jeff Bezos' lavish wedding that happened a few weeks ago in Venice, probably one of
00:19the most extravagant events recently. And the inequality, it was visible. There were
00:25many people from Venice, the locals who were protesting for many, many issues they face.
00:31The problem is not the wedding. The problem is that it is not their own wedding. Not that
00:37why does inequality exist, but that why am I at the wrong end of the inequality? So my
00:44money does not make me rich. You make me rich. So the beggars make the rich man rich. And
00:50then the rich man has to be both afraid of and violent towards the beggars. This barbaric
00:56need to get ahead, doesn't it lie at the core of the climate crisis? The deeper the lovelessness,
01:03the more lavish the wedding is.
01:05Namaste Acharya ji. My name is Shubhangi and I am an IT consultant and I live in Munich for
01:21past eight years and part of Gita community for more than a year now. And my question today
01:30is on Jeff Bezos's lavish wedding that happened a few weeks ago in Venice, probably one of the
01:40most extravagant events recently. And the inequality, where it was visible,
01:49people caught to extremes. On the one hand, there was this extravagant cancer. On the other,
02:00there were many people from Venice, the locals who were protesting for many, many issues they face.
02:09For example, there's explosion of tourism, the costs are rising, people are struggling to make their
02:17ends meet and so on. So my questions are, with all this inequality, rather rising inequality,
02:28are we heading towards another French Revolution? And how bad does it get before it gets any better?
02:39And the last one is, are there any immediate corrective measures that can be taken to address this?
02:48You see, inequality is not injustice. Inequality is the very taught aim of life.
03:13Aren't you taught to get ahead?
03:18Isn't everybody being taught to get ahead? Please tell me.
03:24That's inequality.
03:28Even those who are left behind and protesting,
03:35they belong to the same class of students, the same class of the taught ones,
03:43having the same principle, believing in the same concept, that life is about getting ahead. And that is inequality.
03:57It's just that since it is about getting ahead of others, so not everybody can get ahead.
04:01Because of all kinds of factors, most of them random.
04:13Some of us get ahead, but the fact is, everybody is running the same race.
04:20So, how can we complain against those, who are ahead of us? Because we too wanted much the same thing.
04:34Had they not been ahead of us, we would have been ahead of them.
04:38And that's a big part of the grudge, isn't it? Not that, why does inequality exist? But that, why am I at the wrong end of the inequality?
04:57Everybody loves inequality. You too want inequality. But you want the favourable kind of inequality.
05:12When people protest, it is because it is not their wedding that's being celebrated there.
05:20The problem is not with the wedding. The problem is that it is not their own wedding. That's the problem.
05:33We all belong to the same class, the same crop.
05:38And that's the fundamental problem. The question that we don't want to address.
05:43We want to believe in the same kind of system, but being losers in that system, in that system, not existentially.
05:58We crib against the system.
06:04Are you getting it?
06:07And that is not of much avail. You see,
06:10you see, now you can have an Italian revolution, fine.
06:19That's fine.
06:21You can upend the system, you can dethrone the masters.
06:28And one of the so called losers will become the new master.
06:33And again, there will be inequality.
06:34Because that's what the animalistic system within us demands.
06:45Unless there is inequality, how will there be the hunter and the hunted?
06:49Tell me.
06:50If there is equality between the lion and the deer, the lion will starve.
06:56And you want to be lion. You are trained to be lion. That's the social, familial, national,
07:04personal dream.
07:06I want to be a lion.
07:08I want to be the exploiter.
07:12I want to be the experiencer, the consumer of all goodies.
07:16Which in itself means inequality.
07:34Somebody once said,
07:35that when I take off from Mumbai,
07:44one of the pleasures is looking down at the slums.
07:50It's not sufficient that I am flying.
07:54What makes flying a little more special,
07:56is the misfortune of those lying sprawled below me like insects.
08:06Inequality is such a great motivator and a pleasure giver.
08:15You'd find it funny and odd.
08:20You'd expect a fellow would take pleasure in looking at something pretty and picturesque.
08:26Out of his window.
08:29No, he said no.
08:30Whenever I fly to Mumbai or take off from there,
08:36I look out and
08:41Dharavi.
08:44It's right next to the airport.
08:50And that is also the pleasure,
08:53the ones organizing the wedding wanted to have.
08:58The man is not sufficient.
09:00The woman is not sufficient.
09:04The two are absolutely insufficient for each other.
09:07What forms the bulk of the pleasure,
09:19is the unequal money.
09:23Otherwise, the man and the woman should be sufficient.
09:26The two of us got together.
09:28It's a very private, very personal, very intimate thing.
09:30Why should an entire town be colonized?
09:39Because that is 90% of the total pleasure sir.
09:44It is not about flying.
09:45It's also about gloating at the misfortune of those down there.
09:55It is not just about me and that woman.
09:59It is also about all those
10:03who will just keep
10:06peeping from behind the barricades.
10:09What's going on?
10:10We had one such wedding in India also,
10:13a few months back.
10:14Many such weddings actually.
10:20They keep happening.
10:29Do you get this?
10:30The entire philosophy of life
10:33is badly flawed.
10:34It is about getting ahead of others.
10:40It is about looking at oneself
10:45in context of others,
10:48rather through the eyes of others.
10:52You see, when do you call a fellow rich?
10:55When do you call a fellow rich? Please tell me.
10:57When he is better off compared to the others around.
11:07Compared to the others, right.
11:09You go to a place like Vietnam for example,
11:12and a similar thing used to be in Japan.
11:16You hand over Indian currency to them
11:19and you get a large number of units of their currency.
11:24Does that make you rich?
11:26No. Why?
11:27Because others
11:29will be having even greater number of units of their currency.
11:34Richness is not about what you have.
11:36Richness is about what you have
11:39with respect to the others.
11:43That's the whole philosophy.
11:45Your entire definition of the self
11:48comes from the world,
11:49from society and other miscellaneous places.
11:52Religion, family, tradition,
11:55they give you your definition.
11:58And hence, you have to
11:59proceed with respect to them.
12:05All your life.
12:07Had your
12:09had your identity been independent of the world,
12:12then you wouldn't have needed to get ahead of the world,
12:14or to prove a thing or two to the world.
12:18All the time.
12:18No.
12:20But anything that you are,
12:22anything that you are,
12:24it has been implanted into you,
12:27that you are with respect to the world, the other.
12:33The world determines who you are.
12:34So now, if you always have one eye or sometimes both the eyes on the world,
12:43how is that a surprise?
12:49How is that a surprise?
12:50Okay, you are a rich man because you have loads of money here.
12:54Let's say the entire stockpile is accumulated here, right?
12:58This does not make me rich.
13:00Please understand.
13:01What makes me rich is the fact that you honor this currency.
13:05So you make me rich, not my money.
13:08Suppose I have all my cash
13:13deposited here.
13:14But all of you here,
13:16refuse to acknowledge this currency.
13:19Am I rich anymore?
13:20So my money does not make me rich.
13:23You make me rich.
13:26You make me rich.
13:28I am nobody on my own.
13:29Hence, I will have to prove things to the world all the time.
13:37And be afraid all the time of the world.
13:40And be aggressive.
13:42And cunning.
13:54It's such a lovely thing.
13:55The beggar makes the rich man rich.
13:59I am the rich man.
14:03And I've cornered away most of the wealth as is happening in the world today.
14:07We very well know how much wealth lies
14:10holded with the top one percentile of the world.
14:13The wealthiest persons.
14:14We know that, right?
14:16So I am the rich man.
14:17And let's say all of you here are beggars.
14:19The beggars have made me rich.
14:20Not just in the sense that I have taken away your money.
14:24But in the sense that I am rich only as long as you honor this money.
14:28Suppose you get together and say that this currency will no longer be honored.
14:34You remember the demonetization in India?
14:36Something like that.
14:38All of you get together and say we are no longer acknowledging this currency.
14:42Am I rich anymore?
14:43So the beggars make the rich man rich.
14:48And then the rich man has to be both afraid of and violent towards the beggars.
14:56Because even if they are beggars, they can still strip away his richness.
15:02What an irony.
15:06The beggars decide whether the rich man will remain rich.
15:22There is no internal richness.
15:26There is nothing here.
15:27There is nothing here.
15:30Maybe get ahead, be a go geter, be a high achiever.
15:40And whatever these phrases mean, they always mean something in context of the word.
15:48These popular idioms, these toxic ones, what they carry within them is a lot of slavery
16:02and dependence.
16:11You can never be beyond the framework.
16:19So you are always afraid.
16:22Even if you are rich, you are rich within the framework.
16:26So you are always afraid because the framework is not yours.
16:36Real richness, real love is never a thing within the framework.
16:56The framework is a very whimsical thing.
16:59The rich man can be turned a pauper overnight.
17:11And the man on the footpath can become a billionaire overnight.
17:14So the billionaire is always afraid of the beggar.
17:22Had the richness been a thing of the inside, then the rich man wouldn't have been afraid.
17:31Since richness, real richness lies within, hence it cannot be taken away then there is no fear.
17:38But the rich man very well knows that the beggar is still a competitor, no?
17:48Till the last breath, the competition remains.
17:52One second it will take to turn the scales.
17:58Hence, the competition has to be mercilessly subdued every day.
18:09Every day.
18:11Because the game is never over.
18:16Yes, you got ahead.
18:17But the others are still in hot pursuit.
18:24So you have to keep killing them all the time.
18:31As you kill in a game, right?
18:34Let's say in football or hockey.
18:35Even if you are leading by a few goals, you still keep the pressure on, right?
18:44You don't say now I have won because you have never really won till the last whistle.
18:52In some sense, you are always afraid.
18:54The game can still be lost.
18:59So the opposition has to be continuously dominated.
19:02Even if you are the richest man in the world, the opposition consisting of the rest of the
19:09world has to be continuously dominated.
19:14What kind of richness is this?
19:18So fearful.
19:27And you would see the relationship between this and the climate catastrophe.
19:33Not just because you had several dozen private jets flowing in for the wedding.
19:43No.
19:44Not that alone.
19:48This barbaric need to get ahead, doesn't it lie at the core of the climate crisis?
19:58Please tell me.
20:05You can almost visualize everybody trying to get ahead on his car.
20:13Burning away energy and emitting carbon.
20:21That's what the climate crisis is.
20:28I need to be ahead of you.
20:34That that's carbon emission.
20:40You look at the carbon footprint of those who are deemed successful.
20:45And those who are deemed unsuccessful.
20:48And you will find a ratio of 10 is to 100 is to 1, 10,000 is to 1.
20:59That's what success is about beating the other down.
21:03Even if the way we live, this violence is not always visible.
21:10But please see that it is always there.
21:13Even if it is not visible or apparent.
21:15It is always there.
21:38Can there be an inner richness?
21:43And can you be inwardly rich without being inwardly free of the world?
21:53I'm asking you.
22:00And what can all your external riches give you if you are inwardly still dominated by frameworks
22:08that somebody put into your head?
22:13You are rich but within the framework.
22:16And the framework came from somebody else.
22:18So, you are still a slave, maybe a rich slave and rich only within the framework.
22:30I'm not saying the poor ones are any better.
22:39They are poor slaves.
22:43You have rich slaves, you have poor slaves.
22:48But where is freedom?
23:00The more the internal hollowness, the internal insecurity, the more the need to ostentate.
23:18The more the urge to demonstrate that you have actually raised a head.
23:29The deeper the lovelessness, the more lavish the wedding is.
23:36Think of the various ways in which everybody uses money to compensate for the real thing.
23:37Think of the various ways in which everybody uses money to compensate for the real thing.
23:41The father won't give daughter the right kind of education.
23:48He withheld funds.
23:49So, he sends her out to the right kind of education.
23:50He withheld funds.
23:51So, he sends her out to the right kind of education.
23:55So, he sends her off with a load of dowry.
24:02Love was missing, so dowry is present.
24:09Had you really loved her, you would have spent that money in her education.
24:16But when it came to education, you said, no, no, no, you go to some random college in the village
24:23or in the town.
24:24Just somehow get a degree and get married off.
24:25And when it came to the wedding.
24:26And when it came to the wedding.
24:28An entire truckload of things were dispatched with her.
24:32And when it came to her, you were dispatched with her.
24:35And when it came to her, you were dispatched.
24:36Had you really loved her, you would have spent that money in her education.
24:37But when it came to education, you said, no, no, no, you go to some random college
24:40in the village or in the town.
24:43Just somehow get a degree.
24:46And get married off.
24:48And when it came to the wedding.
24:51An entire truckload of things were dispatched with her.
24:57with her.
25:00See, how money is being used to compensate for lovelessness.
25:25I said somewhere that one of the signs, it was a very general kind of article, how do you
25:33know your partner is cheating on you?
25:38The kind of random spicy pieces that mediocre news websites publish.
25:52So, one of the tell-tale signs they said, and the article was targeted at women, if your
26:00husband suddenly starts bringing you expensive gifts, that's a sign he might be now involved
26:10somewhere else.
26:13All of a sudden he has started bringing you jewelry for no reason or something or whatever,
26:20or lingerie, whatever.
26:22For no reason, inexpensive stuff.
26:25This is a sign that he is now cheating.
26:48It's funny.
26:50It's a cosmic joke.
26:53The extent to which man goes just to defend the inner hollow, just to protect the inner
27:09slavery.
27:14Somebody becomes the world's richest man, somebody becomes the world's most powerful man.
27:20Hitler, you know, he was trying to be an artist.
27:23He went to Vienna.
27:28And then he became the world's most powerful dictator, ahead of Stalin actually.
27:35He was rejected both times from there.
27:41He used to sketch and I suppose paint or something, figure out.
27:47Where the young man, he wanted to enroll in some arts course and the university rejected him.
27:57Not once but twice.
28:05And then he said, I'll make up for it.
28:09This entire world is unjust, not just this university.
28:16And because the world is unjust, I'll dismantle everything.
28:28He could have been some kind of a semi-decent artist, you know, sign boards or something.
28:35Flower pots.
28:39That was his calling.
28:46Or the rear of trucks in India.
28:52That was the only little thing that the fellow wanted.
28:58Let me do this.
29:01And then see the extent to which he went to compensate.
29:13He came, everybody.
29:28Somebody will become the richest, the most powerful, something, something, something.
29:34Somebody ran a confectionery shop, it didn't do well.
29:40So, he said, okay, I'll show you what I can do.
29:46So, he became the biggest bully in the district.
29:53All that he wanted was that, you know, some sweets that he makes.
30:00People buy them and give him some money, some appreciation.
30:05But nobody came to his sweet stalls.
30:11So, he became the Muslim man of the area.
30:28The problem is, you'd still not be contented.
30:35You'd still be as miserable within, as hollow as you always were.
30:43You can burn as much money as you want.
30:49You can splurge and demonstrate to the entire universe.
30:54Won't help.
31:05The eyes would still keep begging.
31:10See, I demonstrated so much.
31:12Can you give me a little?
31:15Yeah.
31:16Nod of acceptance.
31:18Please.
31:19One nod of acceptance.
31:20The rich man is begging to the beggars.
31:23See, I displayed so much wealth.
31:26Please get impressed.
31:28Won't you?
31:29Please.
31:31Little, you know.
31:34Micro, nano, some teeny-weeny approval from anybody.
31:49Go for the real thing.
31:58Inequality, that is not the fundamental problem.
32:04The fundamental problem is the framework itself.
32:11A framework in which you cannot be successful without being ahead of the world.
32:21That's the framework.
32:24The framework says, your success will always be with respect to others.
32:29Which means, if you are ahead of others, then you are successful.
32:32So, your success in that sense is defined by your location with respect to others.
32:37The framework is the problem.
32:40Real success is when you drop the framework, you kick it away, you transcend it.
32:47That's real success.
32:48My success is my alone.
33:02Independent of the world.
33:06Independent of the world.
33:11It doesn't depend on the worldly currency.
33:16It doesn't depend on worldly sanction.
33:20It doesn't depend on worldly approval or remembrance.
33:25My success is a totally independent thing.
33:32Mine alone.
33:37My self-worth, my self-respect do not come from others.
33:52I do not have a reflected consciousness.
34:07I do not look at myself in the eyes of others.
34:13I am a mirror to myself.
34:20I don't require others to describe me.
34:24Yes, you are welcome to give me feedbacks.
34:39But you are not welcome to give me identities.
35:04Thank you very much, Achariji.
35:05Thank you very much, Achari.
35:07I am sure you are right here.
35:08Yes!
35:12Yes.
35:14Hi, hello everyone. My name is Richa Sharma. I'm from Ghazibad, Uttir Pradesh and I have been a part
35:28of this family from past five months, five and six months. And I remember when I was a kid, you know,
35:34that every innocent child, they always ask this question, why this is happening? You know, me
35:38being a girl, there are certain sort of different rules for a girl. There are different rules for
35:43boys, totally, you know, same community, same human body and myself a Watney student in post-graduation.
35:50And we, I always used to ask this question to my family members, but it, I was told, you know,
35:55this is the way it is. That's how you have to follow the things. And I have realized that,
36:00you know, while growing up in my adulthood and even still, all the why's have been extinguished
36:06because of the social conditioning, because of, you know, the always repeated answers and the
36:11logics of my wife, which I have asked in my early childhood, that that's how it is in the social
36:17conditioning. Then again, everybody like Acharya Ji says, always the ask and the, you know, the inner
36:25voice of Mukti comes when you realize some sort of duhk in your life. And that happens with me. And
36:30then I started to question myself, why this is happening. And in the meantime, I got Acharya Ji.
36:35And I could relate myself totally in all the aspects of life.
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