Emit love, not carbon || Acharya Prashant, with Bard College (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? 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: 27.07.22, 'East-West Dialogue on Climate and Justice', organized by Bard College, USA.  Context: ~ What is Climate Change? ~ How to stop climate change? ~ What is the solution to global warming? ~ How can we control the increasing population? ~ How can spirituality solve the problem of global warming? ~ What is the most effective way of dealing with climate change? ~ How can population control help in dealing with climate change? ~ What is the solution to climate change? ~ How spirituality can stop climate change? ~ Climate change has no scientific solution, is it?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Peyton. I'm from Texas A&M, Texarkana. A few of my classmates are in this Zoom conference

00:08as well. One of the questions that I have for you is, you mentioned that climate change

00:15is essentially a sickness on our soul that we caused ourselves, which can cause it to

00:22be a pretty daunting and scary topic. How would you recommend that we could bring awareness

00:29to the topic and bring awareness to what's going on around us, with the population around

00:34us, without causing fear or panic of the unknown and of the future?

00:40You see, you tell a person, let's heal the climate, let's make the world a better place.

00:49You'd be able to probably arouse only a little bit of interest. That's been the experience

00:55so far. We have held all kinds of awareness campaigns in various countries, through various

01:02agencies. So much has been written, spoken, but people do not seem to heed. Everybody

01:10is caught in his own world, in his personal problems. People have their own desires, ambitions,

01:15fears, and families to take care of and a life to live. That's how it's unfolding.

01:21So what I'm proposing is, don't tell people to heal the climate. Tell them to heal their

01:28conscience, their life, their mind. That's something they would be far more interested

01:35in. And if they can take care of their lives, their minds, their thoughts, the climate will

01:46be automatically taken care of. You will not need to bother so much about the climate.

01:56Because the climate change, I'm asserting, is nothing but a consequence of how we are

02:03on the inside. So let's treat the inside and let's keep the climate agenda a little aside

02:12for a while. When I say aside for a while, that does not mean that we neglect it or make

02:17it secondary. What I'm saying is, you bring out, first of all, the core cause, the fundamental

02:30cause behind the crisis. Secondly, you bring out that which is useful, that which will

02:39practically work. A fellow is emitting so much smoke and is burning so much fossil fuel

02:50because he is not contended within. Can we display this to him? Can we first of all understand

03:03that the entire ecosystem is actually constructed to feast on our sickness and our hollowness

03:14and our vulnerabilities? And therefore, one cannot rush to this system if one is feeling

03:23unwell inside. If you go to the system that feeds on your sickness, obviously it is not

03:32going to heal you. The system is not a doctor, the system is a predator. If you are not well,

03:40you do not go to a predator. That's exactly the condition the predator has been hoping

03:45for. You don't want to be seen in that condition, not by him at least. So that's the kind of

03:54philosophical confusion that we have. We think of the predator as the doctor and these

04:03things are simple to understand and they are very interesting because they concern our

04:07lives and when it comes to our lives, we become attentive. Look at the quantum of self-help

04:15literature inundating the markets. We want to be better, we want to read self-help books

04:21even if they don't help anybody ever, but we want to read all that stuff. Somebody comes

04:28and tells you, you apply this kind of thing on your face and your skin will glow and you

04:33will have lots of people who will apply that kind of treatment and we want to be better,

04:38just that. And if you want to be better, let's help you be better. And an indirect consequence

04:51of the healing of mankind's mind will be that the climate will get better. We do a

05:03lot to destroy the climate. The climate does not just deteriorate on its own. The earth's

05:13atmosphere has acted almost like an infinite sink since millennia. Nothing happened to it.

05:21It's actually very very vast. The atmosphere extends for a distance, a radial distance that

05:32is larger than the radius of the earth itself. So you can think of the volume and the mass of

05:42the gases that are available to absorb whatever emissions are there. It's just that the emissions

05:51have now grown to an extent that the atmosphere is proving inadequate as an infinite sink.

05:59So if we can reduce our productive madness a bit, when I say productive what do I mean?

06:10We produce these gases because we want to be productive people and that's a philosophy that's

06:15been taught to us. That your self-esteem, your self-respect, your self-image have to depend on

06:26how much you produce, how much you earn and then how much you consume. That's what you call as a

06:35good life. Now we have a life to live and somebody has taught us what the good life is and that's

06:45about it. That closes it. That sums it up. If your fundamental definition of what is meant by the

06:54good life is distorted, then you have nothing to be hopeful about because the very fundamental has

07:06gone bad. It's like the foundation of a building being hollow and inadequate. There is no hope

07:15left now. And there is nobody who does not know within that life is not good, that we are

07:28suffering. Look at the incidence of mental illness for example. Look at the number of people who are

07:39visiting psychiatrists and mental health institutions and there are so many other

07:51indices that will tell you of how bad a shape we are in internally. So people know that they are

08:01not doing well but they do not see an alternative. If we could show an alternative, it would sell

08:10and work. And I'm not saying just hypothetically. I've tried this out. This is what I'm implementing

08:18actually practically on the ground implementing every day and I have results to see. And I don't

08:30know I might be mistaken but I actually see this as the only hope because people are very very

08:38difficult to teach or change if their fundamental concerns are not addressed. We do not for example

08:50look at the travesty. Even in the sincere climate change discourse, there is very little emphasis

09:04on our food choices and how food is one of the principal reasons behind climate change. Nobody

09:16wants to talk about it because you know food is such an integral part of our life. If you want us

09:23to make cosmetic changes probably we would agree but nobody wants his core food habits to be

09:30challenged. It won't succeed. It won't succeed this way. It's just not going to succeed. If we are

09:39unwilling to talk, even talk about the principal reason that leads to the climate crisis, do we

09:52really genuinely hope to succeed in tackling this crisis? I don't see hope that way. But if we can

10:04if we can demonstrate that it's not about the climate. It's about your life and life not merely

10:16in the material sense. Life not in the sense that if temperatures will rise then you will feel

10:21discomforted. Life not in the sense that if temperatures will rise and you live in a coastal

10:29city you might lose your home and your comforts. No, not in that sense. Life in the internal sense.

10:35Life in the mental sense. The more you are agitated within, the more you are feverish within,

10:46that internal fever is showing up as an increase in external temperature. That external

10:59fever is a mirror of the internal fever. That's what we need to show and then we need to hope

11:07that people will be interested in bringing down their internal fever at least. That was a great

11:20answer. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Pleasure to meet you too. Thank you.

11:24My final question in closing. What would be some sort of specific examples that you would give

11:37everyone in this conference and for us to give to people outside of ways that we can make a

11:44difference even if it's a small difference in our carbon footprint as a country or globally if we

11:51are not major consumers such as yacht owners or millionaires or anything like that so we don't

11:57fly around in the airplane all day every day but what are some specific examples of smaller things

12:03that we can do and that would ultimately make a difference in the long run? I don't know whether

12:11it directly answers what you have said but one example that comes to me is that you go out and

12:19you find people consume and we said climate change is nothing but the imprint of our tendency to

12:28consume a lot. Consumption requires money and we all have definite amounts of money, limited amounts

12:39of money. That money needs to be put to the best use possible. So can we can we raise this question?

12:52There are things, projects, causes, missions that are in desperate need of money. Why don't you put

13:05your money there and if you put your money there obviously you will have very little left to consume

13:11and just splurge here or there that won't happen then. A lot of this carbon is not really very

13:31fundamental and important and indispensable kind of consumption. It involves a lot of

13:40squandering of money. You squander money when you do not know the purpose of your life. Is that not

13:52obvious? So how is it that somebody for example is again I'm saying when splurging money on

14:02something that is highly carbon-intensive and not putting that money in a worthwhile project. So

14:16that's what needs to be asked that well you have this amount why don't you put it there?

14:21Why don't you put it there and when you put it there you find that your hopes from this invested

14:32money have actually been realized. Even when we go out and just waste money here and there,

14:43there is a certain hope associated with this kind of wastage. The hope is that this spending will

14:51make us satisfied. So I'm just throwing money thinking that this will give me satisfaction.

14:59Put it at the right place and then see whether or not you get the satisfaction. You put it at

15:08the wrong place, you get a lot of carbon without getting any satisfaction. Put it at the right

15:14place, you get satisfaction and very little carbon. So that's one example. There could be

15:24several other examples. A more personal kind of example involving young people. Let's say

15:34two young people, a man and a woman, they go out and what is it that they do when they go

15:46out that tells a lot about the quality of their relationship. Now these two do not know,

15:53I'm hypothetically saying, who they are and hence how their relationship should be. But

16:01they are attracted to each other as most young people are. So they go out and what are they

16:05doing? They are rushing in their car from place to place, spending money here, doing something there,

16:12flying from here to there and emitting carbon. If they could have a real relationship, by which I

16:22mean that if they could be real persons first of all, only then can they have a real relationship,

16:28then they'll have both real love and very little carbon. Because when the relationship is love

16:42deficient, then it needs to be carbon intensive. You require huge hotels, you require all kinds

16:52of orchestrations and ornamentations, you require to move from place to place,

17:00you require to own a lot of things. So all around you, you would have people in relationships,

17:09out of relationships, in between relationships. Can they be better individuals? If they can be

17:18better individuals in relationships, they'll have a smaller carbon imprint.

17:26And does that sound like too fantastic? I do not know.

17:32That's great. Thank you.

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