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~~~~~
Video Information: 16.02.23, International Psychology Summit Conference
Context:
~ How are humans destroying the world?
~ What is causing catastrophes?
~ Why is there so much violence in the world?
~ Why is mental illness so prevalent?
~ How to heal ourselves?
~ Is technology unleashing havoc?
~ Will technology take over 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: 16.02.23, International Psychology Summit Conference
Context:
~ How are humans destroying the world?
~ What is causing catastrophes?
~ Why is there so much violence in the world?
~ Why is mental illness so prevalent?
~ How to heal ourselves?
~ Is technology unleashing havoc?
~ Will technology take over the world?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good evening sir, so because this conference is on psychology and technology, I would like
00:09to talk about something that's very very close to this.
00:14So there's a very famous quote by Carl Jung and I'll use my phone so that I don't get
00:19it wrong.
00:21It says, the gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a
00:28physical or biological order, but psychic events.
00:33Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides and inundations, modern
00:40man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche.
00:45We see this on display around us, everywhere, the manifestations of this psyche in terms
00:53of man-made disasters, anthropogenic events, climate change, pollution, Chernobyl, oil
01:01spills on the ocean, to name just a few.
01:05So they're high-tech events and they're events of manifestations of psyche, man's psyche.
01:13So can we fix this?
01:16What is the way out?
01:19The way out is the way in.
01:25You have named the physical consequences of the psychic events that the Jung quote is
01:40referring to.
01:43Those are the physical consequences.
01:47But even if those physical consequences like wars, nuclear disasters, the climate catastrophe,
01:58even if they are not visible, the fact is that the inner disaster as a standalone happening
02:13in itself is quite catastrophic.
02:16You see, we are all messed up within, badly messed up within.
02:26The result of this inner chaos is sometimes visible externally as well, but that does
02:40not mean that the inner chaos is limited to the external consequence.
02:49Even if consequences are not visible, they still are there in a subtle form within.
03:01Because physical events, material events, gross events, first of all they may involve
03:08a time lag, secondly, you might not always be able to detect what is going on till something
03:23catastrophic just suddenly erupts.
03:27For example, we do not know for sure how an earthquake builds up, 20, 30, 40 years,
03:42two huge tectonic plates keep pushing against each other and the tension keeps building
03:48up and nothing is visible on the surface, nothing at all.
03:53And then one fine day, there is a massive eruption.
04:03So the basic principle of Vedanta is that the world is a projection of man's mind.
04:16By man obviously we mean mankind, humankind.
04:22So the world is a projection of the mind and if the mind is not being taken care of,
04:30then the world will obviously be a messy place.
04:36We, our education, our culture, the way kids are brought up, we are just not looking within.
04:47First of all, as we are born, the senses are all designed to look outwards.
04:58That's how our physical configuration is.
05:03It's a very obvious thing, but the obviousness very cutely conceals the deviousness.
05:15We look at the eyes, they are looking only at the world as if the world is an objective
05:20reality.
05:22The ears can hear only the sounds that are coming to us from the outside.
05:30The skin, it touches surfaces, it touches nothing within and these are the only means
05:38through which we gather knowledge, through which we make sense of the world and ourselves.
05:46Basically, it means that we cannot make much sense of what is within and who we are because
05:54that's not how we are designed.
05:56The entire apparatus you could say is one-sided, you could even say it's faulty.
06:07So that's how we are born to begin with and then there is the entire education and upbringing
06:13and conditioning that is founded on the philosophy that the purpose of life is to be happy and
06:28happiness is obtained by external acquisitions.
06:35If you're not happy, go somewhere, do something, buy something, eat something, wear something,
06:41find somebody to talk to.
06:46So that's the philosophy that raises us from the kid to the adult.
06:59Born defective and then raised in a very insensible way.
07:12The result is that most of us remain totally oblivious of the environment within, though
07:21that's where we live.
07:25Even as we are sitting here, please see, there is this that you are sitting within
07:39but where you are actually living, where each of us lives all his or her life is in the
07:48mind, that's where we live.
07:53All experiences are here.
07:57This is what matters.
08:04If one is given a choice to be in a fabulous external environment but with sickness within,
08:15one would not sensibly want to choose that.
08:21On the contrary, if the environment, external environment is not great and yet you are joyful
08:33within, you'd hardly have any problems with such a situation.
08:41So we have to live within, that's where our life is, that's where our location, our situation
08:55is, and yet we spend all our time and energy looking at the external world.
09:10The problem, as I tried to put it, is at the level of biology and philosophy.
09:20Biology produces the kid in a particular way and our philosophy of parenting, philosophy
09:29of education, philosophy of life itself is so flawed that we totally forget that the
09:37child has to live within.
09:42In the psychic sense, the child is not born on this planet.
09:48The child takes birth within her own mind because that's where we all exist, right?
09:56We exist within our minds.
10:00Once you have fallen asleep, when you are in deep sleep, do you exist?
10:08Somebody else would confirm that you do exist, you are lying on your bed, but for yourself,
10:15your existence has ceased because for us and that's all that matters, right?
10:23Because we have to live our lives, we don't have to live our lives as per the experience
10:28of somebody else.
10:32So we are lying on the bed, deeply asleep, somebody else might be asserting that the
10:38fellow exists, but for yourself, do you exist at that moment?
10:48You don't exist.
10:49So where is your existence?
10:52Your existence is within your own mind.
10:54The child is born within her mind.
10:59The mind is where our location is.
11:03The mind is where our entire life and all our experiences are and our education does
11:12not take us there.
11:15Our education does not address the most important thing that must be addressed.
11:24So more than a decade back when I used to more frequently address college audiences,
11:32I used to say, all your education put together on one side is less valuable than one single
11:47course on education of the self, life education.
11:57But we are taught of everything, sciences, humanities, languages, quality, all of that
12:09we are well versed in, but in no book generally do we find the word self.
12:26The question of identity remains neglected.
12:29Yes, I understand, in neuroscience we take it up, in psychology we take it up.
12:36First of all, a very small fraction of students opts for these things.
12:43Secondly, even if they do opt for these disciplines that happens only after class 12th and thirdly
12:54the question of liberation from suffering, that is not taken up even in these disciplines.
13:01Because it's not sufficient to talk of the psyche.
13:10One also has to talk of liberation because that's what we want.
13:16The fundamental human condition is of suffering that deserves attention.
13:25How to tackle that problem?
13:29What is suffering?
13:30Where does it come from and how to be liberated from it?
13:36Is my existence not congruous with, synonymous with suffering?
13:44Can I continue to be and yet not suffer?
13:49We don't take up these questions.
13:54The result is the kind of catastrophe you just talked of and the irony is it's still
14:09not very visible at the material level, had it been very visible then we would have been
14:18shaken up and something would have been done.
14:23Our indifference, our complacency itself testifies that the full effects of the inner catastrophe
14:36are still not externally manifest.
14:41So we can afford to remain oblivious.
14:46But that won't continue for long and I shudder to think of a situation in which it in fact
14:55does continue for long.
14:59That would mean a world in which everything is more or less alright on the surface but
15:09within everybody is insane.
15:17Externally everything is orderly and within everything is chaotic.
15:27And when insanity becomes universal then we will call it the norm and once you call
15:39it the norm then nothing comes as a shock.
15:44You don't even want to discuss chaos or insanity or disorder because that's the norm.
15:52Everything is taken up for discussion, consideration only if it appears unusual.
16:04If everybody goes mad, who would talk of madness?
16:10In a madhouse nobody is mad.
16:14Everybody is okay and we are, I fear, very speedily hurtling
16:34towards that kind of situation and in that situation you know who's declared mad?
16:45Those who dare to talk of madness, they are the ones labelled mad and lynched.
17:00It's a very unfortunate capacity that we as human beings have.
17:05The capacity to adapt and survive.
17:14We can adapt, we can acclimatize and we can survive even with horrible internal madness.
17:27We probably already are doing that and being insane within will behave and display
17:42as if everything is alright.
17:46Now where is the question of corrective action?
17:56To treat a disease first of all one has to acknowledge a disease as disease.
18:03How can there be treatment sans diagnosis?
18:12But if disease, I repeat, becomes commonplace then it is no more called a disease.
18:23It's called being human.
18:28It's a part of our human nature, it's normal, it's natural as we say these days.
18:41So you tell someone, please you are being violent.
18:45See what you're doing to the animal.
18:46They say, no, this is not violence, I'm just being natural.
18:53See there is a lot of exploitation and lust and greed and possessiveness and obviously
19:06violence in your relationships.
19:12That comes the reply, but isn't all that natural?
19:17So that's we are very quickly coming to.
19:21All our diseases will be called our nature.
19:31Think of the very dimension of the calamity.
19:38Your very nature is being displaced.
19:42Vedanta tells you truth is your nature, joy is your nature, right?
19:51Satchidanand sabhav.
19:55So realization is your nature, understanding is your nature, your nature is a state of
20:02joyful understanding and our very nature is being displaced.
20:08We are being told that being animalistic is our nature and if you'll call that out, we'll feel offended.
20:27You're shaming us, you're judging us, no, but it's a diagnosis, sir, you're sick.
20:34Here is your report, no, no, no, how dare you judge me, probably the day is not far
20:41when that's how we'll respond to our physicians as well, our doctors.
20:49The doctor tells you, you're all hollow within, the liver, kidney, lungs are all gone and
20:56you'll say, but you're judging me, how dare you call me sick?
21:03Can I lodge an FIR?
21:07You just called me sick.
21:17Doctors are lucky, they have material proof, so they can get away with whatever they say.
21:28As a doctor of the insides, I don't find myself that lucky.
21:50When existence and disease become so intimately related that the sick one himself becomes
22:11the sickness, then how do you treat the sickness?
22:18When the sufferer is the suffering, when the diseased one is the disease, then removing
22:28the disease appears so offensive, right?
22:32If you remove the disease, then the diseased one is removed, annihilated, gone, it feels
22:37like death to him.
22:41You have not healed me, you have killed me because my disease was my life and now that
22:46the disease is gone, I am gone.
22:52That's what we have come to and all due to very hollow philosophy of life and absence
23:05of education of the self.
23:12And in diagnosing our current situation this way, I suppose we have already come to the solution.
23:22If you can understand what brings us to this point, it becomes very clear, how to go beyond this point.
23:35Good evening sir, so my question is related to the topic of this conference itself, technology
23:40and psychology.
23:42So the question that haunts me from day one is that technology creates such a havoc in
23:46our life, yet for our psychological well-being, we do need an escapism from this chaos around
23:52which is again provided by technology, be it through gaming or reels or any other addiction
23:57that we have.
23:58So I am trying to understand how do we attempt to escape from this vicious cycle or understand
24:04this vicious cycle of poor psychological well-being and the trap that we are in of the technology.
24:12What is technology?
24:15What do we call as technology?
24:21Science put to use is technology, right?
24:29Science used to fulfill your desire is technology, correct?
24:38So it's not technology that unleashes a havoc, it's your desire.
24:49Science is knowledge of the material.
24:54What do you want to do with knowledge depends on your own inner orientation.
25:03You split open the atom and you can use that energy to power a city or you could use the
25:16energy to destroy a city, the same city.
25:25So technology is a direct function of your inner mental condition.
25:36Great discoveries of science will be badly misused if the user is violent, possessive,
25:56fearful, ignorant and it's a part of the entire game of not looking inwards that we
26:15prefer to rather blame technology and sometimes even science.
26:25Technology is a toy that we have made and science is pure knowledge.
26:32How can knowledge be blamed for our wretched condition and how can a man-made toy be responsible
26:44for man's suffering?
26:50You have the mobile phone in your hand, you decide what to do with it and great things
26:56can be done with that mobile phone.
27:00Equally the lowest kind of actions can be assisted by the phone.
27:11It depends on you what do you want to do with that, the internet, any machine, figure out
27:17what do you want to do with it.
27:20So we have to remember that knowledge is a resource, technology is a resource and who
27:29is the user of that resource?
27:33The user of that resource is the self.
27:39You could call that as the mind loosely or you could call that as the I, the ego.
27:46That's the entity that uses all the resources that are possible to be used.
27:55So if you are in a healthy condition then whatsoever you can use will be used for a
28:07healthy purpose, otherwise it will be obviously misused.
28:12You just think as simple as this.