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00:00Sanatan, as many of us might already know, means eternal, broadly timeless.
00:14Meaning, Sanatan is something that does not pertain to any specific age, era or period.
00:22It is something that must hold true irrespective of the point of time.
00:30So what is it that does not change with time?
00:34The human being's fundamental condition is something that has been found to remain the same,
00:45irrespective of the era or period.
00:50So the human being is born with ignorance and in bondage.
01:01And the mind does not like that, the mind does not like ignorance and bondage.
01:07So the mind longs for understanding and liberation, liberation from bondage.
01:16And the responsibility is on the human being herself to gain that understanding and that freedom from bondages.
01:29This responsibility is called Sanatan Dharma.
01:34Sanatan Dharma.
01:35So irrespective of whether you were born 5000 years back or you are born just 500 years back or you are born today or you would be born 500 years into the future.
01:50The fact remains that the inner human condition is of strife and ignorance and suffering.
02:01And it is not just about the time.
02:05It is also invariable across space.
02:08So it does not matter whether you are born in India or China or Africa or Europe.
02:14The inner condition remains the same.
02:17And whether you are old or young or rich or poor or man or woman, the inner ignorance is always there.
02:28So Sanatan Dharma is an overarching and a beautiful term to one's own obligation towards oneself, responsibility, dharma, law and order.
02:47Though the words law and order or religion do not exactly translate any of these into dharma, but loosely.
03:00So the mind is not at peace.
03:05The mind does not understand what's going on within itself.
03:10And the mind finds itself in various kinds of bondages.
03:15For example, it is tempted towards unworthy stuff.
03:19It is afraid of things it need not be afraid of.
03:25It gets into entanglements and all kinds of needless engagement relationships.
03:33So that's the state of the mind.
03:36And it keeps losing away time, which is the essence of life.
03:43So the mind suffers and the mind wants to know how to get rid of its state of suffering.
03:51And this responsibility to know that and the entire process of gaining liberation from suffering, that is Sanatan Dharma.
04:03Dharma that applies to all times, all peoples and all places.
04:12That is Sanatan Dharma.
04:14Yes, I have seen the remark made by him.
04:26And it's a classic case of straw man fallacy.
04:31He is taking Sanatan Dharma as something which it is not.
04:38And then this distorted idea or image of Sanatan Dharma that he has, he is lambasting it, criticizing it.
04:48To some extent I understand where he is coming from.
04:53But the whole subject merits greater responsibility.
04:58You see, what is it that he is saying?
05:00He is accusing Sanatan Dharma of a few things.
05:04One is that it divides and promotes inequality.
05:09He says it's a divisive principle.
05:11The fact is just the opposite.
05:15The thing is that Sanatan Dharma is founded on the principle that all human beings ultimately have one core and common true identity.
05:34And that identity is called as Atma.
05:39If you go through the fundamental scriptures, which is the Upanishads and the Brahmasut and the Bhagavad Gita, Vedanta that is.
05:52They will clearly tell you that all the differences among all human beings are just superficial.
05:59Caste, color, creed, language, gender, economic status, age, persuasion, ideology, does not matter.
06:13Wherever you find differences, those differences are unreal.
06:19In fact, Sanatan Dharma goes to the extent of saying that because the world is just differences manifested, all you see is diversity.
06:31Therefore, the world itself is not strictly real.
06:38What is real is that which is not different from entity to entity.
06:46That invariable, constant and common entity is called Atma.
06:53So, Sanatan Dharma is actually a great unifier.
06:58Rather than saying that it divides, etc.
07:01We must understand what the fundamentals are.
07:05Now, how they are practiced today is a different matter altogether and we can take that up separately.
07:11But if you are talking of Sanatan Dharma, then you are talking of the thing as it is meant to be.
07:18You cannot take the distorted practice of something and then use the distorted practice to allege that the thing itself is despicable or worthy of criticism.
07:37For example, there is medicine, the entire scientific field of medicine.
07:42Now, there can be a quack who does not understand medicine, who fraudulently practices some kind of forgery and because of that his patients suffer and there might even be cases of death and all those things.
07:57Now, you cannot pick that example up to prove that the field of medicine itself is worth condemnation and should be dropped and you want to eradicate medicine itself from the face of earth.
08:16As our friend has said that Sanatan Dharma should be wiped out.
08:20So, it is barking up the wrong tree.
08:23It is trauma and fallacy.
08:25One has to first understand what Sanatan Dharma is about.
08:28So, all differences are superficial.
08:30All differences are superficial and the reality in you is exactly the same as the reality in me.
08:39There are no two truths.
08:40There are no two truths.
08:41There are no two realities.
08:43Not only is the reality within you the same as the reality within me, the reality of the entire universe too is exactly the same as my internal reality.
08:57So, the reality of the universe is called as Brahma and my internal reality is called as Atma.
09:04And then Sanatan Dharma which is best expressed in Vedanta goes on to say that Atma and Brahma are identical.
09:14So, that is the extent of unification.
09:16Where is the question of Sanatan Dharma being divisive or a promoter of inequality?
09:24So, that was the first allegation.
09:27The second thing that he insinuated was related to caste.
09:31You see caste is a social evil.
09:34And if you are talking of Sanatan Dharma, there are hundreds and thousands of books.
09:41And they would naturally exist because the whole thing developed over a period of minimum of 3500 years.
09:53And over a geography spanning from modern day Afghanistan to Bengal in the east or even Kamarup.
10:07And then from Kashmir in the north to deep south Tamil Nadu where our friend comes from.
10:16So, there was an entire long period and a vast mass of land where things were happening.
10:27And therefore, a lot of things were said and that's why so many books exist.
10:33But not all of those books are to be taken as canonical.
10:37Not everything that they say has to be taken as axiomatic.
10:42Only the very core qualifies to be called as the scripture of the Sanatan.
10:51And that core is Upanishad if you want to understand what Sanatan Dharma is really about.
10:58And this goes out to all the ones who are watching this, listening to me right now.
11:04Just read the Ashtavakar Gita.
11:08Ashtavakar Gita is one scripture that very correctly and neatly epitomizes the very spirit of Sanatan.
11:24And having read that one, please tell me where is caste, where is division, where is inequality, where is oppression.
11:34In fact, one complete Upanishad, the Vajra Suchika Upanishad is devoted to denouncing caste.
11:42So, the student comes to the teacher.
11:46That's how that scripture, that Upanishad runs.
11:49And asks, please tell me what is caste.
11:53And the teacher, the Rishi smiles and says, okay, you tell me where is caste.
12:00Is the caste of the body?
12:05So, the student thinks and says, no, the caste cannot be of the body because all bodies arise from the five basic elements, Panchabhut, and they are just the same.
12:17So, they cannot be differentiated on the basis of caste.
12:20Then the Rishi says, fine, does caste belong then to the true self, Atma?
12:25The student says, no, even Atma cannot have caste because it's the same.
12:30It's the one thing, one final unified reality.
12:34So, it cannot be differentiated on the basis of caste.
12:37So, the sage then says that the conclusion is obvious.
12:40Caste then belongs neither to the body nor to the truth, which is Atma.
12:46It belongs to the domain of the mind.
12:48It is an imagination of the mind.
12:51It is an imagination of the mind.
12:53And specifically, if you go into Advaita Vedanta, it is repeatedly said there, in so many words, very literally, that caste is unreal and false.
13:05Caste is unreal and false.
13:07So, it is not Sanatana dharm that promotes caste or brings in even the concept of caste.
13:14Caste is a social evil.
13:17There is the ego inside man, which Sanatana dharm attempts to teach, to heal, to liberate.
13:27But then, the ego has its own ways.
13:31It's called Maya.
13:33The ego finds her way and the social evils remain in spite of the attempts made by the thinkers, the philosophers, the seers.
13:44So, caste is one of those evils.
13:47It's almost like saying, you know, there is a teacher and the teacher tries his best to teach the students.
13:59But the students are as students are.
14:04They don't take to the teaching.
14:06They have their own miscellaneous interests.
14:09And then, there is the examination and the students fail it.
14:13And having failed the examination, the students turn upon the teacher and the books.
14:19They say the teacher was not a proper teacher.
14:22That's why we failed.
14:23And these books, they all need to be burnt.
14:26It is because of these books that we have failed the examination.
14:29My question is, sir, when did you read the books, first of all?
14:33And if you have been reading random miscellaneous books, how is that the fault of the teacher?
14:39Are you reading the textbooks correctly?
14:42No, there are, as I said, hundreds of books.
14:45Why are you reading those hundreds of miscellaneous random books?
14:48They do not even qualify to be called as Shastra or scripture.
14:52The definition of Shastra is very clear.
14:55Something that talks about society or this and that does not qualify to be a Shastra.
15:01Shastra is only that which talks strictly about the ego and its liberation.
15:08Who am I?
15:09I am the ego.
15:10What do I need?
15:11What do I want?
15:12I want to be liberated.
15:13A book that deals with this topic alone deserves to be called a scripture.
15:20Now, if you pick up random story books and start calling them scriptures and you quote from them and say, well, you know, you look at this book here.
15:29The caste principle is mentioned and if you look at those stories, you can clearly see a lot of patriarchy and misogyny and a lot of those things, social divisions.
15:40Well, you are right.
15:41Well, you are right.
15:42But, as I said, you are barking up the wrong tree.
15:45The book that you are reading is a story book.
15:49It is not a fundamental scripture of the Sanatana dharma.
15:53So, the problem is definitional.
15:56We do not know the right definition of Sanatana dharma.
16:00So, we pick up something random and we take that as Sanatana dharma and then we start lambasting it.
16:08No, that is not fair.
16:10That is not fair to Sanatana dharma.
16:13Sanatana dharma arises from a very, very rigorous philosophy.
16:18It is a philosophy.
16:19It is not just something that somebody dream and propagated.
16:25It is not somebody's idea.
16:28It is a rigorous philosophy.
16:30And it is a philosophy that even the greatest philosophers take in high esteem.
16:38So, we first of all need to acquaint ourselves with that philosophy before we attempt to criticize it.
16:43If we do not know the philosophy itself, what exactly are we criticizing?
16:48Then comes the thing regarding social evils.
16:52He says Sanatana dharma is responsible for a lot of social evils.
16:56Sir, Sanatana dharma aims to heal the social evils.
17:01In fact, I would venture to say that all the social evils that you see around can all be taken care of if we could live true to the spirit of Sanatana dharma.
17:14Those social evils exist not because of Sanatana dharma, but because we do not know what Sanatana dharma is.
17:21So, in the name of Sanatana dharma, a lot of mischief is circulated, propagated, practiced.
17:28So, all that is happening.
17:30Now, having said all this, you see, I understand where the speaker is coming from.
17:42You see, it is indeed true that caste and discrimination and misogyny has been the practiced fact of Hinduism.
17:57So, he is looking at all those things and then he is jumping to the conclusion that all the social evils that he has been witnessing or has read about are because of Sanatana dharma.
18:12No, that is not true.
18:13No, that is not true.
18:14They exist because of an imperfect understanding of Sanatana dharma.
18:20In fact, I am being just too lenient, just too generous when I say imperfect understanding.
18:28The fact is that 99.99% of those who call themselves Hindus or Sanatanis have never ever read their core scriptures.
18:41What they dabble with is story books and that does not take them anywhere.
18:46So, they do not know what their dharma is about.
18:52The tendency of the ego is to divide and exploit.
18:56So, be it India or be it any other place, the ego attempts to exploit.
19:01That is why world wars are fought, that is why there is caste, there is class, there is exploitation of all kinds, there is colonialism and there is arms race and all kinds of mischief.
19:16That is why there is the climate change catastrophe looking at us now.
19:22So, it is the ego, it is the basic animal nature of man that makes man exploit man.
19:32And the animal within when it gains the support of man's intellect can act in very devious and cunning ways.
19:44The animal provides the intention and the brain provides the intellect.
19:51And when the animal intention gets coupled with a sharp intellect, the result can be devastating.
20:02One of the results can be that you can start masquerading your evil intentions behind the name of religion.
20:17The intention is to exploit but you can start calling it religiosity.
20:22And that is what we have done.
20:23That is what has been happening in the Hindu fold.
20:27All that you want to do is exploit your fellow human beings or exploit women or exploit this or that.
20:34But you cannot morally say that you just want to exploit.
20:37So, what do you do?
20:38You justify your evil deeds in the name of religion.
20:43You say, you know, I am saying this because this has been mentioned in such and such book.
20:47And that book is a core book.
20:50Therefore, I am just being religious when I am oppressing you or exploiting you.
20:55That is what has been happening.
20:56And that was witnessed in Tamil Nadu to a great extent.
21:00And we know how EVR Periyar fought against it.
21:07And Stalin has named Periyar in his comment.
21:13So, we kind of know where he is coming from.
21:17And to that extent, one has to be sympathetic to his position.
21:22Because he has been receiving a lot of criticism.
21:26And even I feel that he has been irresponsible in making his comments.
21:31But what also needs to be seen is that indeed there has been a lot of discrimination, exploitation and all kinds of mischief and very deadly deeds in the name of religion.
21:47But that does not mean that we throw the baby out along with the bathwater.
21:53If you have to remove, remove social evils.
21:58Remove social evils.
21:59Do not remove dharma itself.
22:02You do not probably understand the consequences if a society loses its dharmic bedrock.
22:10You do not understand what man would be without dharma.
22:14We think religion is just a nuisance.
22:17We think we could be totally hunky-dory even without religion.
22:23No, that's not the case, sir.
22:25Man is not animal.
22:26Animals do not need religion.
22:27Because animals are alright as they are.
22:30Man is a special being.
22:32We need religion because we have a perpetual longing for light and liberation.
22:39And if there is no religion, where is light and where is liberation and where is love?
22:45And when I say we need religion, I do not really mean a set of beliefs or dogma.
22:51Religion typically is characterized by a founder, by a set of beliefs and by certain compulsory rituals, etc.
23:01No, that's not what I mean by religion.
23:03When I am saying religion, I loosely mean dharma.
23:06Though religion, as we said, does not translate into dharma, but loosely.
23:10So man needs dharma.
23:12Let's not try to create a society that has no dharmic moorings.
23:18The results will be very devastating.
23:20The mind will go insane if it cannot move towards liberation.
23:25Man is not born to live in bondages.
23:28Dharma is the movement from bondages towards liberation.
23:32Though I fully appreciate that that is not how dharma is practiced in the society.
23:39That is probably also not how dharma has been practiced ever in the society.
23:44But we cannot denigrate a concept just because it has not been understood.
23:49That's being very, very unfair to the concept.
23:53So let's please understand and respect the concept.
23:58So that's it.
24:00On the point of whether he should apologize, I suppose as mature people, as adults, we have to leave it to his good discretion.
24:10Whether he apologizes or not, that is something that he has to say.
24:14We are nobody to enforce it on him.
24:17However, if I were in his place, I would definitely express regrets for not being responsible enough to first understand and then articulate.
24:32If I want to speak on a topic, it is my responsibility to first of all do my homework and the right kind of academic research.
24:43Otherwise, it can lead to further the misunderstandings in the society and the kind of times we are living in.
24:53Already the fault lines are very deep.
24:56As responsible public functionaries, we should be aiming to create bridges, not deepen the fault lines.
25:06When you say something stands between two things, you are assuming that all three are in the same plane, right?
25:28Otherwise, one thing cannot stand between two things.
25:31One thing is, these three do not belong to the same plane.
25:36They are dimensionally apart.
25:39Very, very different things.
25:41They are incomparable.
25:43They are not in the same dimension.
25:45Their very units are different.
25:47So, Sanatana Dharma, as we said, is a philosophy of the mind that gives a purpose to life.
26:05It looks at the human being.
26:07It looks at the mind of the human being.
26:10It tries to see why we suffer so much.
26:13And then it tries to find an end to the suffering, a way out, a solution.
26:20That is Sanatana Dharma.
26:21Sanatana Dharma is philosophical.
26:23Then comes Hinduism.
26:26What is Hinduism?
26:27What is Hinduism?
26:28The Supreme Court has very aptly put it.
26:32It's just various streams of beliefs coming together.
26:39So beliefs, you can believe the way you want to believe.
26:44Somebody else can believe the way he wants to believe.
26:47And somebody else can say, I do not believe in any kind of God or something.
26:51And yet everybody qualifies to be a Hindu.
26:55So Hinduism is about beliefs.
26:59Sanatana Dharma is a relentless and ruthless discovery of the truth.
27:05So these two are poles apart.
27:08Being a Hindu in that sense, very interestingly, is not the same as being a Sanatani.
27:15Now you are a Hindu if you live in a belief system.
27:20Whereas you can be a Sanatani only if you discard all beliefs.
27:26Because truth and beliefs do not go together.
27:29A Sanatani is someone who has to be free of all beliefs.
27:34Beliefs are bondages.
27:35And the Sanatan Marg is that which leads to liberation.
27:42So you cannot carry your bondages to your point of liberation, right?
27:49So unfortunately much of Hinduism that we see around us is just about this story or that story,
27:59this ritual or that ritual.
28:01And beliefs very quickly slip into becoming superstitions.
28:08So there are these beliefs, superstitions, assumptions and a lot of pseudoscience as well.
28:19So sadly that is what most of Hinduism is about.
28:23But Sanatana Dharma, that's something dimensionally different.
28:29That's something of the skies.
28:32You look at yourself, you figure out what is it that ensnares you.
28:38You look at yourself, you ask where are your beliefs coming from?
28:41Where are your ideas coming from?
28:42Where are your desires, hopes, ambitions, relationships?
28:45Where are all these things coming from?
28:47And then you ask yourself, where am I in all this?
28:52If all my desires are coming from external influences,
28:56if my targets, goals, ideologies, all are borrowed stuff,
29:02where am I in all this?
29:04It's all just a collection of imprints that I have somehow started calling as I.
29:15So that's Sanatana Dharma.
29:17Sanatana Dharma is beautiful, neat, very rigorous and very unaccommodating in that sense.
29:28Hinduism, we have talked of, we see all around us what Hinduism is.
29:34One good thing however about Hinduism is that it is quite liberal.
29:40You can worship the deity of your choice.
29:45You can go your own way and there is no central authority that would declare you a non-Hindu.
29:55Then comes Hindutva.
29:57Hindutva again is something totally different.
30:01It is not related in a deep sense even to Hinduism.
30:09If you will go to the academic side and look at the definition of Hindutva,
30:16it's a political ideology.
30:18It's a political ideology that wants to uphold cultural nationalism.
30:26So, these three are very different and there is hardly anything that unifies these three.
30:37However, in common belief and in common parlance, these three somehow have come to mean broadly
30:47the same thing or at least these three terms point in the same direction, in the common imagination.
30:53That is not right.
30:55There is not much in common between Hinduism and Hindutva.
31:00And there is not much in common between Sanatana Dharma and Hinduism.
31:04Sanatana Dharma is a pursuit of truth.
31:07Hinduism, belief system and Hindutva, it's a political ideology.
31:16Political ideology dealing in culture.
31:18A particular kind of culture must rule.
31:22And culture and nation must be synonymous.
31:29So, culture, nation and political power.
31:34Put these three together and what you get is Hindutva.
31:38Right?
31:39And what kind of culture?
31:40Popular culture.
31:41Not culture that is really flowing from, let's say, the Upanishads or Vedanta.
31:48But popular culture of the last 100-200 years.
31:51You assume that is the authentic Hindu culture, whatever that means.
31:56So, you take that culture and along with that you take nationalism.
32:02And you take these two as synonymous.
32:07And then you say, these two deserve to rule politically.
32:12That is Hindutva.
32:13So, Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism, Hindutva, all three very different animals.
32:19We are being far too generous than we need to be.
32:34Even to misunderstand something, you must first of all attempt to understand it.
32:42Here in India, who wants to attempt to understand religion.
32:49Religion is not something that comes to a child by way of understanding.
32:56Religion is something that is handed over to us.
33:01As a doctrine, as a dogma.
33:03You just take it.
33:05This is something that you must believe in.
33:08Otherwise, you will be ostracized and ridiculed.
33:10Are you getting it?
33:13So, there is no understanding.
33:15Understanding does not mean that you have to go by a story.
33:18Understanding means that you have to apply your mind, your intellect, your attention.
33:24You have to ask questions.
33:26There has to be genuine enquiry for understanding to occur.
33:30But somehow, enquiry is hardly encouraged in the field of dharma.
33:38Whereas, dharma is all about enquiry.
33:41You see, Sanatana Dharma is founded on self-enquiry.
33:45Atma Jigyasa, that's what results in Atma Gyan.
33:49Self-enquiry resulting in self-knowledge and self-knowledge resulting in liberation from the self.
33:56That's what Sanatana Dharma is supposed to be.
33:58Instead, all that we have is dogma.
34:01Dogma, beliefs, stories, and stuff that is handed over to us, legends, folklore.
34:09And that's what we somehow have come to brand as religion.
34:13Now, that is not religion at all.
34:15In fact, dharma is exactly the opposite of belief.
34:21Now, I'm saying that the third time in these 30 minutes.
34:24But that's something that cannot be reiterated too much.
34:31We need to constantly remember that.
34:36Dharma is not belief.
34:38Dharma is enquiry.
34:39I want to understand.
34:40I want to know.
34:41Dharma is an upliftment of consciousness.
34:46Not the subduing of consciousness under the weight of age-old garbage.
34:55Right?
34:56So, it's high time that we go to our scriptures.
35:02It's high time we apply ourselves to life.
35:05Because dharma is not just about reading a book.
35:09It's about learning from life itself as well.
35:13These are the two wings of the dharmic bird.
35:19You have to look at the highest words that your elders, your predecessors have left for you.
35:28And you have to apply your own mind to your own life.
35:32You have to go deep into your experiences.
35:35And I'm not talking about mystical experiences.
35:38You have to go deep into your everyday experiences.
35:41And from there, learn about life.
35:44And when these two things happen together,
35:46learning from a book and learning from life itself,
35:49then there is flight.
35:51The bird then soars into the sky.
35:54And that is liberation.
36:11From Andca smells bringing out the clouds from life.
36:19And I go deep into your bush and for challenging care.
36:20I'm so sorry.
36:21Tasha does not know that human rightsigs are evil.
36:22I'm sorry.
36:23I'm so sorry.
36:24Because of this, all the architecture and the shadows of the earth.
36:26And there is a widening of its power.
36:28You can see there are no different themes.
36:30You can see there are real vampires.
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