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~~~~~
Video Information: 30.08.22, Interview Session, Greater Noida
Context:
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
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~
Video Information: 30.08.22, Interview Session, Greater Noida
Context:
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
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I am Periyan Sachdeva, I am India Lead with Climate Healers and I have organized the tour
00:08that we are on. When you stated that veganisms are somewhat distanced from spirituality,
00:16I like to think of myself as an intersectional vegan who is not looking at the subject of
00:21animal rights in exclusivity and in fact is trying to understand those from a perspective
00:28of human rights as well and how they are intertwined. When you said that veganisms
00:35are distancing themselves from spirituality, I think that that is happening because a lot
00:41of vegans of course are not getting the necessary direction that they need to accept that the
00:51whole reason we need to do this is because we are distanced from spirituality and what
00:57is happening is when you are faced with the reality of the way we treat animals as well
01:03as humans, people are losing their faith in humanity itself and to some extent in spirituality.
01:12So, how would you say… I didn't get the logic. When you have not even tried spirituality
01:18one, how do you lose your faith in it? How do I lose my faith in something? I have not
01:24even tried this once in my life and then I say I have no faith in it. How have you
01:28lost your faith in it when you never had any faith in the first place? Because of the way
01:34traditions have co-opted religion. So, have you no information or knowledge or access
01:40or insight to see beyond that? Precisely. So, how would you say that… There is enough
01:46material on the net to see how spirituality is something way beyond tradition. How is
01:51it possible then that a well-read person with access to information technology continues
01:57to believe that tradition is spirituality? There is enough material on the internet and
02:05there are books and they are all very easily accessible. They are in the public domain.
02:09Many of them are particularly famous. How is it still possible that a young person,
02:15a well-read person says that, you know, traditions are all very exploitative and I thought that
02:21religion is nothing but traditions. Therefore, I turn my back to religion. How is it possible?
02:25Absolutely not. The issue that we are facing, you have correctly put it, the way traditions
02:32are co-opting religion and spirituality is the problem. Traditions can do whatever they
02:39want to do and remember traditions are not conscious on their own. It's vested interests
02:44of selfish people who use traditions for their own selfish gains in the name of religion.
02:52So, all that is happening and that is being done by dumb and mediocre people. But don't
02:56we know better than that? Don't we have access to resources to see that it's some
03:01kind of a very lame conspiracy? So lame that you can just push it and it will fall. There
03:08is nothing in it. So, how are smart and sharp youngsters not able to see through the problem
03:18of tradition co-opting religion as you said? How is it possible? I'll add another dimension
03:25to what you are saying. You know, it is very very comforting to the ego to keep spirituality
03:39at arm's length. That might be the real problem. Because if you accept that spirituality
03:45is the solution, then you will have to self-correct. Spirituality is about looking into yourself,
03:53figuring out all the nonsense that keeps circulating within and owning the responsibility
04:01to correct, purify and improve yourself. That's what even the well-read population, even the
04:09intellectual population does not want to do. Because irrespective of how much knowledge
04:14you have and how deep your intellect is, the animalistic tendency to consume, to exploit,
04:22to be afraid, to be greedy, to be envious, that remains the same. Even if to promote
04:29veganism, even if to save animals, if you turn to spirituality, you will have to feel
04:37uncomfortable. You will have to live with an inner conflict and that's the reason why
04:43vegans want to keep these two very separated.
04:48Well, Climate Healers is one of the founding organizations for the Interfaith Vegan Coalition.
04:54So, we did that in 2016.
04:57You see, even when we say we are going to have an interfaith vegan conference or something,
05:05what we say is veganism is at the center and now let's use faith to promote the cause
05:12of veganism. That won't work. You will have to keep faith at the center and when faith
05:18is at the center, then veganism happens on its own and that is the only way veganism can happen.
05:23I would have turned, very humbly I am submitting to you, with no sense of vanity in it because
05:31we still have a long, long, long, long, long way to go. So, how can I start feeling proud
05:37at such an early stage? More than a lakh, probably 5 lakh people would have been turned
05:44vegan by our humble efforts. They have not been turned vegan. They have been turned spiritual
05:52and because they have been turned spiritual, veganism has just happened. Just happened.
05:57Once you are spiritual, you just cannot bear to consume dairy or meat.
06:04That is precisely what happened with me as well and because I agree with you,
06:09that is why I am not able to accept that, you know, that this can be applied to veganism as a blanket thing,
06:17that all vegans are away from spirituality. Obviously, see, nothing is blanket.
06:22That's what happened to me. I became spiritual and then this automatically happened.
06:28Obviously, nothing can be applied in a blanket sense, in a 100% perfect sense to anybody.
06:33But what is happening largely to the vegan community, that's what I am stating to you.
06:37Right? You know of the intensity of our efforts, so you would have known that we probably have
06:43deep experience with the vegan dynamics in this country and it is from there that I am coming.
06:49So, from your experience, what is your advice on bringing this alignment back into the movement?
06:56India has religiosity in its soil. You cannot talk to the Indian people in a language of ideology.
07:04Indians won't listen to ideology. But Indians will listen to the language of love, compassion, spirituality.
07:11Right? I understand it might be important to make a documentary in English.
07:18You have to speak to the people in their language and in their metaphor.
07:23And that's the reason why the vegan community in India is still so small.
07:27We are talking down to the people. We are treating as if we are at a higher intellectual station
07:37and those people down there need to listen to us. This won't work.
07:41It's unfortunate because a lot of the learnings of the activist community is coming from a more western narrative.
07:48Exactly.
07:49And it doesn't apply.
07:50That western veganism simply won't work in India. It has not worked. It will not work even in the future.
07:55It will not work even in the future. But Indians will turn vegan on their own.
08:02Because they have that sentiment already by virtue of their pre-existing spirituality.
08:09The sentiment that animals are living beings, that even our gods have taken forms of animals.
08:17Animals often, you have Matsavatar, you have Kurmavatar.
08:20All kinds of improbable animals have hosted our gods.
08:25Think of fish, think of a tortoise.
08:28And the gods in the heavens decide to take the shape of a fish or this or that, birds, even crows, think snakes.
08:37So, Indians by their very spiritual training are already ripe to very quickly turn vegan.
08:48But you cannot impose imported western ideologies on them and hope that they will listen.
08:54They will not listen.
08:55Exactly. Thank you so much, if I may have just a couple of follow-ups too.
09:00So, in your understanding of religion and spirituality, do you see religion as a path towards spirituality or do you see them the same?
09:10And one more question, then you can take them together.
09:13So, you say that gods and goddesses and spirituality has taken the shape and form of animals as well.
09:23But there is also, please pardon my lack of awareness, but there is also some understanding that humans are in some sense superior because we are closer towards enlightenment.
09:32So, what is your thought on that as well?
09:35The one who is superior in the spiritual tradition is vested with a lot of responsibility.
09:40Like the superior one in the family.
09:44What will the superior one in the family do?
09:46Eat up the small ones or bring them up.
09:49So, that's the answer.
09:52Unlike in Abrahamic folds, where the superior one is probably supposed to consume the smaller one.
10:00So, that's how it is interpreted.
10:01Though there again, I advise, specifically the Muslim community, when they say that it is mentioned in the Holy Quran,
10:09that all the little creatures and all these, they are made for man.
10:13I ask them, what does it mean, made for man?
10:17It means that they are made for the compassion of man.
10:20They are made as the responsibility of man to take care of them.
10:25We are the trustee.
10:27And the trustee is not supposed to consume what he has been entrusted with.
10:32Right? You are supposed to take care of them.
10:35Not assault them, not kill them, not consume them, not exploit them.
10:39So, that's the thing.
10:42You see, we worship, and she put it very cutely in that thing, Bhoomi Devi, but it was written as Mummi Devi.
10:50When it was Mummi Devi, it sounded so nice to me, that the Devi is the mother.
10:58The Devi is the mother.
11:01And the mother is all this, where the cycle of procreation, life and death happens.
11:08We worship it.
11:10So, obviously we cannot be violent towards it.
11:12How can you be violent towards the article of your worship?
11:16Right?
11:17So, we are already in that condition.
11:20It's just that spirituality has to be shown as different from the existing traditions of religion.
11:34That brings me to your original question.
11:38The relationship between religion and spirituality.
11:41Relationship is the outermost shell of spirituality.
11:49It is there so that the uninitiated ones might be somehow introduced to the basic principles
11:59and initiated on that long road that passes through firstly spirituality and then ends in liberation.
12:09So, religion was designed to be conducive to spirituality.
12:18Right?
12:19You could say, religion is the, in terms of, in a model including concentric circles,
12:27religion is the outer circle, spirituality is the inner circle and these two are concentric and liberation is the center.
12:37The outer circle is religion, the inner circle is spirituality and liberation is the center.
12:44The problem is that the outer circle has moved infinitely outwards.
12:51The outer circle must be somewhat close to the inner circle.
12:56Right?
12:57Only then can there be some communication between these two circles.
13:02Now what has happened is that the outer circle has been sabotaged.
13:06The outer circle has been co-opted, taken away by our own animalistic tendencies.
13:14So, as it was said that tradition has simply walked away with religion and that is what has happened.
13:24That's why you see such a great difference, even dissonance between religion and spirituality.
13:31I was, in fact you just returned from OP Jindal University and in the last session that I had with them,
13:41one of the questions that was asked to me was, is India too religious to be spiritual?
13:45And there is an entire video with the same title, that India is too religious to be spiritual.
13:52Such has become the degraded condition of religiosity in India.
13:57So, I fully understand that we have to fight all the impurities that have sneaked into religion
14:08and in fact totally owned it up, possessed it.
14:14But fighting the impurities is very different from fighting religion itself.
14:22Along with the impurities, if you discard the essential religiosity,
14:27is that not the same thing as throwing the baby away with the bath water?
14:34The bath water is dirty, so throw it away and along with that you also throw away the baby in the bath water.
14:41How wise is that?
14:43And you cannot have veganism sans Vedanta.
14:46Let me put that very very clearly.
14:49I want that message to go out clear and loud to the entire vegan community in India and abroad.
14:54You cannot discard religion and still hope veganism to succeed.
15:00Your ways have not succeeded today.
15:02In the past you have been trying since 10 years, 20 years you have not succeeded.
15:06You will not succeed even in the future.
15:08In fact veganism without spirituality would be quite dangerous.
15:15Are you implying that religion is the exclusive way towards spirituality?
15:21You can be very spiritual without being religious.
15:25You can be very spiritual without being religious.
15:28And if you are spiritual without being religious, then you are truly religious.
15:33The definition of dharma is to constantly remember that the mind has to be brought to a realization,
15:46to a relaxation, to a point free of its own impurities.
15:50That is dharma.
15:52Nothing more than that, pure and simple.
15:56Keep the mind pure.
15:58This is dharma.
16:00Thank you so much.
16:01And it is interesting that you brought up the baby and the bath water.
16:04Because Dr. Sailesh Rao has come up with a model of solving climate change,
16:09which is the climate bathtub model.
16:12So if Dr. Rao, please explain, if you could briefly explain the model.
16:17It is just looking at fossil fuels and I just modeled it with a baby sitting in a bathtub.
16:23And with water as the equivalent of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
16:27CO2 equivalent, CO2 methane equivalent.
16:30Let's please look at the spiritual life.
16:35It is obviously minimalistic because you understand there is not much point in consuming and consuming and consuming.
16:42There is a bit of antinatalism involved there.
16:48Because just as you don't want to consume a lot, you also don't want to procreate a lot.
16:54All the values that you can revere and admire,
17:04they are anyway emanating from the spiritual life.
17:09Therefore it is the spiritual life that will be conducive to, even give birth to,
17:19to non-violence, to veganism, to compassion, to communal harmony, to all the nice things we can talk of.
17:28All the goodness comes essentially from spirituality.
17:34Otherwise why do we need to be spiritual? Because we are not already good.
17:39Man as he is born is a wild thing.
17:43The baby that is born carries so many millions of years of baggage, evolutionary baggage.
17:50Look at the just born baby.
17:53Full of ignorance, crying, full of filth, attached, afraid, deluded.
18:01That's the condition of the baby.
18:03And that's the reason why we need spiritual education.
18:06Because we are not born alright.
18:10And as you go on correcting the baby by addressing his, her inner animalistic tendencies,
18:19life is set right.
18:22Veganism will happen even without making any specific or targeted or dedicated efforts.
18:31It will just happen, just happen.
18:36I have a question, one second.
18:38So Guruji, in my journey, the spiritual I got,
18:44I saw God in every bird, every tree, every butterfly, the lake, everywhere.
18:50I see God in the cow and her baby. I see God everywhere.
18:54How can we now uplift India through this spirituality?
19:00Help us, we are doing that, attempting that.
19:03Kindly support us.
19:06You have to bring the basics to the people.
19:11Let people realize that another way of thought and life is possible.
19:19What is happening is that the mainstream current is extremely strong.
19:23The common man is totally unable to resist its speed, its flow, its power.
19:33So we all just get swept away.
19:36There has to be an alternate current.
19:39There has to be something else you can opt for.
19:42And that has to be brought to the public domain.
19:45So which brings me to the idea of creating a vegan university.
19:50Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
19:53Just as you had that vegan temple in the…
19:57It's a complete education system that's around non-violence.
20:03Why not just as you have named the movie on Ahimsa,
20:07why not name the university on Ahimsa, Ahimsa University?
20:10When you have Ahimsa University, then it remains not merely about animals.
20:15Then it starts including that one central animal as well.
20:21So why be partial against human beings?
20:24When you say that veganism is a great value,
20:27why not include human beings in the fold?
20:30It's not only animals that we exploit, or do we?
20:33We exploit fellow human beings as well.
20:36So when you name it Ahimsa, then you are being fair to human beings as well,
20:41exploited human beings as well.
20:43When you say that I am a vegan, in some sense you have said,
20:47I can be unfair to human beings, but I will be fair to animals.
20:50Is that possible?
20:52Ahimsa is all-inclusive.
20:55It includes your relationship with animals, with human beings,
20:59with trees, with plants, with the river, with the mountain,
21:02and also with yourself.
21:06Ahimsa includes your relationship with yourself as well.
21:09So Ahimsa is a far more inclusive and more powerful and more fundamental word.
21:16We were calling it until now the Jeeva Karuna Vegan University.
21:22Lovely, lovely, lovely.