Full Video: What kept Indian culture alive despite so many invasions? || Acharya Prashant, with SPA Delhi (2023)
Link: https://youtu.be/A7SGUuP3BrE?feature=shared
Video Information: 22.02.23, SPA College (Online), Greater Noida
Context:
~ What's special about Indian culture?
~ How old is Indian culture?
~ How much of our culture is brought by invaders?
~ Do we really have a rich culture?
~ What deserves to be worshipped?
~ How sacred is Indian tradition?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Link: https://youtu.be/A7SGUuP3BrE?feature=shared
Video Information: 22.02.23, SPA College (Online), Greater Noida
Context:
~ What's special about Indian culture?
~ How old is Indian culture?
~ How much of our culture is brought by invaders?
~ Do we really have a rich culture?
~ What deserves to be worshipped?
~ How sacred is Indian tradition?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 If your purpose is coming from your beliefs and not the truth, what good is the purpose?
00:16 Just because you are following certain practices since long, do those practices become equivalent
00:26 to the truth or a substitute for the truth?
00:32 Also what you call as your culture varies from city to city.
00:36 I am not even talking of north and south.
00:39 I am saying it varies city to city.
00:43 Also what you call as your current culture is simply the culture you have been following
00:48 since last 50-100 years.
00:54 Before that the culture was very different and if you go 5 centuries back, the culture
01:02 was entirely different.
01:04 So what do you mean by your culture?
01:06 You mean the culture of the 19th and 20th century, right?
01:12 Believe me you don't follow the culture of the 17th, 18th century.
01:18 Why don't you follow that culture?
01:21 If value lies in everything that is in the past, why don't you go further back in the
01:25 past?
01:26 Why go back only 1 century?
01:29 Why not 10 centuries?
01:34 Clothing for example is a part of culture.
01:38 Look at the stuff you are wearing.
01:40 Where did it come from?
01:41 It is not in your culture.
01:42 Why are you wearing this?
01:45 The language we are talking in is not a part of your culture.
01:50 Why are you communicating to me in this alien language?
01:56 In fact even the pose you are sitting in is not coming from your culture.
02:00 It is very western.
02:01 Why are you sitting in that pose?
02:04 Chips, where have they come from?
02:12 Pizza?
02:13 Ok, chips and pizza we anyway scoff at because of their western origins.
02:21 How about the dress that you wear in your festivals?
02:25 Where is kurta pajama coming from?
02:28 Where is kurta pajama coming from?
02:34 It was not there 10 centuries back.
02:36 It is coming from the same invaders.
02:39 Oh, so bad.
02:44 Aloo, potato and tomato.
02:50 They were not there in the Vedic times.
02:54 Invaders brought them very recently, both tomato and potato.
02:59 But do you enjoy aloo like anything?
03:01 So bad.
03:02 Aloo was not a part of our culture.
03:05 No sir, no aloo.
03:08 For all those who keep talking only of Sanskriti, keep aloo away first thing.
03:11 Aloo is a foreign thing.
03:13 The invaders brought it actually.
03:24 What do you mean exactly by rich culture?
03:27 What is this richness in culture?
03:29 To me only satya is rich, only truth is rich.
03:32 All else is nothing.
03:35 The fireworks that you celebrate so much in Diwali, do you think you are having fireworks
03:38 three centuries back?
03:44 Again that is something that has a foreign imprint on that.
03:47 But today you say it is an inalienable part of my culture.
03:50 What do you mean by your culture?
03:52 What you call as your culture is largely the culture of those who invaded you.
03:58 But today you worship that as your own culture.
04:00 And the thing that deserves to be worshipped, satya, truth, you have totally forgotten that.
04:08 When a woman wears saree and covers her head, you say look, lajja, this shyness, this modesty
04:23 is Indian culture.
04:25 Were Indian women covering their heads in pre-Islamic times?
04:34 Figure that out.
04:35 How is it your culture now?
04:37 It is the culture of the invaders.
04:38 The same invaders that you hate so much.
04:42 And you use your culture to hate them.
04:44 The fact is even your culture is coming from the invaders.
04:47 Pulav.
04:49 Where is pulav coming from?
04:58 Most of the food items on your plate today, you will not like it when you hear where they
05:04 are coming from.
05:08 And many food items that you do not like today, they were originally a part of your culture.
05:13 For example, somras.
05:17 Today you say, all the sanskriti vadis will say alcohol is so bad, alcohol is so bad.
05:24 The thing is if you go to the Vedas, continuously when the rishis are praising som, Indra is
05:33 especially fond of som.
05:38 It was Islamic morality in which alcohol was banned.
05:46 It is Islam that detests alcohol a lot.
05:50 Alcohol is bad, alcohol is bad.
05:52 So do you know where your aversion to alcohol is coming from?
05:55 It is coming from the invaders.
06:01 In your culture, alcohol was great.
06:04 Not that everybody was a drunkard.
06:06 But nobody was taking the issue of alcohol very seriously.
06:11 It is alright.
06:12 Let there be some soma.
06:15 And it used to be a part even of religious offerings.
06:20 So rishis have gathered and there you have somras.
06:27 What is your culture?
06:33 The real man, the man of truth is devoted to mukti and satya, not to sanskriti.
06:42 In some sense entire Bhagavad Gita is a struggle of mukti against sanskriti.
06:50 Arjun is quoting all the things related to sanskriti.
06:54 Culture, he is saying you know if we fight then all the kshatriyas will die.
07:03 So all the kshatriya women will then marry people from the lower castes, lower varnas.
07:08 In varna sankar, babies will be born.
07:16 This is sanskriti.
07:18 And if those are born then the homage that they will offer to the dead ancestors will
07:26 not be accepted.
07:28 And the souls of the dead ancestors will remain thirsty and restless.
07:34 And Krishna says keep all this trash aside, to hell with your culture.
07:39 I will tell you that the only thing that matters is mukti, liberation.
07:44 And liberation is what I stand for.
07:46 So be devoted to me and do as I say.
07:52 Keep all your misogyny and superstition aside.
07:56 And you see all these things in what Arjun is saying.
08:01 He is saying women you know they should not marry lower castes.
08:04 Men were allowed to marry lower caste women.
08:07 But women they should not marry non-kshatriyas.
08:12 And superstition, a lot of superstition in what Arjun is saying.
08:15 All that is in chapter 1 of Bhagavad Gita.
08:18 So what you call as your culture has a lot of superstition as well.
08:21 Why do you want to venerate that?
08:27 Culture is man-made and it should keep getting refined episodically, timely, continuously
08:37 rather not even episodically.
08:42 Culture is something that pertains to a particular place at a particular moment in time.
08:52 Culture is time bound and must change with time.
08:58 And it is already changing with time.
09:00 100 years back you would have said caste system, untouchability, not even untouchability, unseeability.
09:08 There are certain people you are saying they cannot even be seen.
09:13 These are great parts of our culture.
09:15 Didn't you change that?
09:16 Weren't there social reformers?
09:18 Today we worship those social reformers.
09:20 In their time, those social reformers, you threw mud at them and you abused them and
09:29 even wanted to kill them.
09:32 And you said these people are destroying our culture because they are talking of abolishing
09:36 child marriage and they are talking of widow remarriage.
09:40 And no no no, widow remarriage cannot be done.
09:42 In our culture, no widow remarriage.
09:44 And in our culture, kids should be married at the age of 5.
09:49 And in our culture, the woman should be burnt on the pyre of the husband.
09:54 These things are part of your culture.
09:56 No, we are proud that we reformed and refined our culture.
10:00 Aren't you proud of that?
10:03 We are proud that we have a better culture today.
10:05 Similarly, culture should always keep getting refined with a view towards the truth.
10:13 Do not take culture as sacred or holy.
10:16 Satya is holy, not Sanskriti.
10:19 Are you getting it?
10:22 Satya is Sanatan.
10:23 Sanskriti is not Sanatan.
10:26 Sanatan means timeless.
10:29 Sanskriti is time bound.
10:33 Getting it?
10:36 So I am not discounting the importance of culture.
10:39 What I am saying is, remember the place of culture vis-a-vis the truth.
10:46 Culture should be a shadow of the truth.
10:49 Culture should be a follower of the truth.
10:52 Do not place culture in a position where it becomes the absolute.
10:56 Only the truth is absolute.
10:58 Culture is not absolute.
11:01 The Upanishads do not sing of Sanskriti.
11:03 They sing of Satya.
11:05 The saint poets didn't sing of Sanskriti.
11:07 They talked of Satya.
11:09 Unfortunately in today's India, there is a very unfortunate kind of cultural aggression
11:21 taking shape.
11:25 Everybody is talking of culture and nobody is talking of the real thing.
11:28 Satya, truth.
11:31 They have started equating culture with religion.
11:34 But religion is not culture.
11:35 Religion is something in service of the truth.
11:43 Are you getting it?
11:51 Have great traditions and always be careful that your traditions are pointing towards
11:57 the truth.
11:58 Only then the traditions have life.
12:01 Otherwise the traditions fall dead.
12:03 And there is no point carrying dead load over the centuries.
12:07 I am not discounting traditions.
12:09 There can be beautiful traditions.
12:12 But only when you know the meaning of those traditions, only when those traditions arise
12:17 from your heart, just ritualistically and blindly obeying traditions will take you nowhere.
12:26 If traditions have to exist, let there be lively traditions.
12:29 In fact, with an eye on the truth, with a mind devoted to the truth, you can even begin
12:36 new traditions.
12:39 Because all traditions began at some point in time.
12:42 So why can't new traditions begin today?
12:44 New great sacred traditions can begin today.
12:47 And even the traditions that begin today must end at some other point in time.
12:53 Because today's traditions will be applicable to today's man, today's environment, today's
12:57 society, today's economy.
12:59 200 years later those traditions might not be useful.
13:03 So then those traditions can be reformed or totally disposed away.
13:09 And then new traditions should come up.
13:12 Traditions are not sacred.
13:14 Traditions can be dropped and new traditions can be started.
13:17 And even ancient traditions can be continued if there is meaning in them.
13:24 And that meaning you don't need to superimpose on the tradition because that's also a trend
13:28 these days.
13:29 Take some random tradition and superimpose meaning on it.
13:32 Say no, no, no, this tradition is not random.
13:34 It has this meaning.
13:36 The tradition has no meaning at all.
13:38 You are needlessly imposing meaning on the tradition.
13:41 That kind of pseudo-scientific thing don't attempt please.
13:44 Let the tradition have real meaning and then it can continue for long.
13:49 Otherwise drop it.