Most powerful reason to turn Vegan || Acharya Prashant, conversation (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Full Video: How to awaken love within? (Discussion with PETA India CEO) || Acharya Prashant, conversation (2022)  Link:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWBNBP3R5gw&t=0s  Video Information: 10.12.22, Interview with Peta India CEO, Mumbai   Context: ~ What is the relation between Vedanta and veganism? ~ Why should one respect all forms of consciousness? ~ How to go beyond ones' physical nature? ~ What is the solution to climate change? ~ How spirituality can stop the climate change? ~ Climate change have no scientific solution ~ How veganism is related to compassion? ~ Why veganism is necessary for today's generation? ~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change? ~ How could veganism change the world?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 The attitude that we have towards animals is just a reflection of our inner ignorance

00:12 towards ourself.

00:16 We do not know who we are, so we take ourselves as this.

00:20 We do not know who we are, we take ourselves as this and therefore we are violent towards

00:24 everybody else because this is limited and anything outside of this is the other.

00:31 Anything outside of this skin sack is the other.

00:36 Now if the other is the other and this is who I am, then to what extent can I be related

00:42 to the other?

00:43 I am fundamentally related, permanently wedded to the stuff inside this skin sack and that

00:51 is where it all comes from.

00:54 What alarms me, it was very interesting, your vegan story, when you said that you are initially

00:59 vegetarian because you came from a Gujarati traditional background and there people are

01:05 generally vegetarian.

01:06 Most people who are vegetarian today, especially in India, are vegetarian not because they

01:14 understand, they are vegetarian because of cultural or traditional reasons and that's

01:22 the reason why when let's say a boy from traditionally vegetarian family, typically a Brahmin or

01:33 a Jain family goes out to the campus, let's say he gets admission in an engineering college

01:40 and he is now staying in a hostel, it takes him not more than two or four months to take

01:47 to meet because that's what peer influence and peer pressure do to him and that kind

01:53 of thing does not long because it is not coming from wisdom.

01:58 Tradition, culture, ethics, if they are not coming from understanding, they cannot last

02:09 and I would like to think that is also the fundamental challenge the vegan movement faces

02:17 today.

02:18 Lack of understanding, why must one turn vegan?

02:23 Because the argument is not spontaneous, not obvious.

02:28 When we counsel someone, please turn vegan, please don't be cruel to animals, they'll

02:37 have something to say about their choices, not everybody will quickly agree or understand

02:43 and then the argument coming from the vegan side is ethically very strong but then ethics

02:56 can be something personal, somebody may not agree with ethics, ethics cannot be absolute,

03:05 ethical codes as we know vary across ages, continents, people, cultures.

03:12 So the pace of the whole thing remains slow because we do not see that it is not so much

03:21 about animals, it is about us.

03:25 I am not right, therefore I am cruel to animals, I am not right within, that is the reason

03:33 I am cruel to animals and if I am cruel to animals, there will be so much, my cruelty

03:39 towards animals is proof that there will be so much that is wrong in my personal life

03:46 as well.

03:47 Now when that relationship becomes obvious, it becomes important, rather unavoidable for

03:57 people to listen, so if we could bring wisdom at the centre of veganism rather than ethics

04:16 or even compassion, then probably we might see greater success because the compassion

04:23 that we talk of is mostly an ethical moral thing, when we say, well you should be compassionate,

04:31 it is more of a moral thing, a moral sound it has, please be compassionate, please don't

04:37 be cruel.

04:40 Now the why and the where and the whom is not absolutely clear in this but surely there

04:50 is a moral authority when we say please be compassionate, that sounds good but does not

04:55 necessarily work because people are selfish and that's not an allegation, that's how we

05:02 all are, we all care for our self-interest.

05:07 Can we display to them that it is not a matter of ethics that you display towards others,

05:16 it is not a matter of your ethical disposition towards others, it is a matter of your inner

05:21 health, it is a matter of your own life, please be better within and then you find that veganism

05:34 becomes simply inevitable, you have to be a vegan.

05:46 I look at the vegan community and I have been in close touch with a lot of vegans and I

05:55 really admire the work they are doing in very adverse circumstances, there is a lot in India

06:02 especially that is harsh on vegan activists and they work against all odds.

06:14 I know of few rescue operations that involved personal risk, I have met those people, I

06:23 have heard of them, so they are all good people, very nice people, if they could somehow also

06:36 develop that core of understanding who we are and therefore what our relationship with

06:47 the entire world including the animal world should be.

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