Beware: Culture and Tradition are not your best friends || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00If you are with someone, as a friend or a relative or a partner, would you feel okay

00:11if that person can fundamentally change any given day?

00:22To live, you require that which is not born out of influences, which is not a product

00:29of the human mind.

00:32Everything that is coming from the society is a product of human mind and it just keeps

00:39changing.

00:40If it keeps changing, then it will not be able to take you too far.

00:45The purpose of spirituality is to give you the deepest inner assurance possible, the

00:53deepest rest and peace possible.

00:57And that you can get only if you have something that is not man-made, that is not a product

01:04of thought, that is not influenced or conditioned.

01:11And culture, values, tradition are not that, not at all.

01:16If you read about your culture or traditions, they are today in no way the same as they

01:27were even just 50 years back.

01:31They have been changing.

01:34Note the word, change, whereas if you talk of the Upanishads, they take you to that which

01:42is unchangeable.

01:45The difference must be very clear, the difference is very stark.

01:49Culture is all the time changing, right?

01:53In fact, you get a new flick, a new release and you very well know that in its own little

01:59way it changes culture, does it not?

02:04This auditorium did not exist 100 years back, but let's say it did.

02:13Would you be sitting here in these same clothes?

02:18So things have changed, right?

02:21Look at the kind of food you eat today, is it the same as what your grandparents used

02:27to eat, your language, even your values?

02:32I am pretty sure a few decades back we would not have so many female participants here,

02:40right?

02:42What are you doing, studying engineering or business education, what are you doing?

02:51The values of that time wanted you either to not to be educated at all or be educated

02:59only in housekeeping, right?

03:04So things have changed, are you getting it?

03:10I am still to get over this, how are people able to relate the Upanishads or Gita to culture

03:18or tradition or values, there is just no relationship.

03:23In fact, the spiritual man, the man of Vedanta, the man of wisdom will have very little regards

03:32for culture, tradition, values etc.

03:36If he has to value, he will value just that one that the Gita enjoins him to value.

03:47Does Krishna teach you to value a thousand things?

03:50Is that the philosophy, the message of the Gita?

03:53Value a thousand things, value what your father told you, value the kind of local customs

04:01that are practiced in your region, is that what the Upanishads or the Gita are telling

04:05you?

04:06They are telling you that you must value only the absolute truth and beyond that nothing

04:12is to be valued, right?

04:15And in this world, if something is to be accorded value, it would be in proportion to the capacity

04:21of that thing to take you to the truth, right?

04:26If I am for example, to value this occasion, that value has to be proportionate to the

04:36intent and ability of this occasion to give us something higher, right?

04:41If this occasion fails to give us something higher, why must we value or respect this

04:44occasion?

04:45Must you?

04:47The value that you are according to this speaker has to be commiserate with the intent and

04:53ability of this speaker to give you something that is sublime, that has a timeless value.

05:02If only is this speaker able to do that, does he deserve some value, otherwise he should

05:07be thrown out of this place.

05:12That is the message of the Gita.

05:15That is what when Krishna says that you should leave all the dharmas behind and come only

05:24to me.

05:26What does he mean when he says that all the dharmas are to be left behind?

05:34Mamey kamsaranam vraja.

05:35What does that mean?

05:36That means, you know, all these responsibilities and things of thought, thought and culture

05:41and tradition and value and what not and conditioning of a thousand kinds that you

05:46have given a place to in your mind, just keep them aside.

05:50They do not merit the kind of respect that you give them, value just that one thing that

05:56I am teaching you right now.

05:59That understanding is everything, right?

06:03Blindly following this or that custom does not mean much.

06:09In fact, if you look at those who have been able to reform the society, they were the

06:15ones who were deeply rooted in Vedanta.

06:21If you will go to the Indian renaissance of the last two centuries, two and a half centuries,

06:30look at the names you come across, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, D. Bindranath Tagore, D. K. Karve,

06:42who are these people?

06:43Where were they coming from?

06:46Or Swami Dayanand Saraswati, where were they coming from?

06:50Or Swami Vivekananda for that matter?

06:53Or Mahatma Gandhi, he too was a social reformer.

06:57Or if you want to take the entire spectrum, then obviously you have to include Dr. Ambedkar,

07:04Sahitri Bai Phule, Jyoti Bai Phule.

07:10They were coming from their commitment to the truth or were they committed to tradition

07:15and values and culture, I am asking you, please tell me.

07:20If tradition, values and culture are to be accorded a great place, then we would never

07:29improve, never.

07:31So, if people are going abroad and then refusing to read wisdom literature, that is when I

07:44will be alarmed, that is when I will be alarmed.

07:50But if they go abroad and let their language be influenced or their choice of clothing,

08:04let the jury be still out.

08:07Obviously I will not want somebody to turn a flesh eater just because he has left India

08:13and settled abroad.

08:16But if you say that you will behave in exactly the same way after settling abroad, you say

08:25you must behave and wear and speak exactly the same way as you used to do when you were

08:32in Kanpur or Nagpur or Indore or Badaiu or Hapur or that defies common sense.

08:45But if your commitment to the truth starts wavering when you go abroad, then that indeed

08:51is a cause for concern.

08:55If the Gita was respectable to you as long as you were in India and once you land abroad,

09:06you shun the Gita, then I will be concerned.

09:10It is the timeless truth that matters, please understand.

09:14Everything else is anyway time dependent, is it not?

09:20Except the truth, everything is time dependent and that which is time dependent must obviously

09:25change with time, kalchak, only the truth is kalateet, akal, samayateet as you put it.

09:37What is the problem in letting the other things change?

09:43And if you do not want to let things change, then let us behave as we used to do in the

09:49last century or in the 16th century or in the 6th century.

09:55Even the advocates of culture do not want us to go back to the 6th century.

10:00And if you think of it, the 6th and the 7th centuries were probably the last periods in

10:06history when India had a totally indigenous culture, right?

10:138th and 9th century onwards, India started getting influenced from the western contacts.

10:24In fact, I should not even say 8th and 9th century.

10:27Before the Arabs came, there were the Greeks and the Greeks came 500, 700 years, 1000 years

10:35rather, not 1000, 700 years before the Arabs and then later on the Turks came.

10:44So if you want to have a pure culture, you will have to go to not to year 1800 but to

10:52800 and even 800 will not be very pure.

11:00And all those who keep talking of culture and Indian values, the maximum that they want

11:09to revert to is 1800.

11:14My question to them is why 1800, why not 1600, 1200?

11:22Why not the year 800 Christ era?

11:28And why not go back to the culture before Christ?

11:33How are you arbitrarily drawing a line and saying that, you know, we must behave as we

11:40used to do in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries?

11:45And even there, you want to behave as per your local custom and tradition.

11:57Typically those who talk too much of the culture, talk of the North Indian culture.

12:03But they believe that the North Indian culture is the culture of the entire country.

12:10So look at what they are saying, they are talking of something very narrow in terms

12:16of regionality and also temporality.

12:21In terms of time, they are saying let's go back just 100 years, not less than 100 years,

12:27not more than 100 years.

12:28And in terms of regionality, let's limit ourselves to the Hindi belt.

12:34What about the culture elsewhere?

12:36If you want to retain culture, then you must retain the culture that was found all across

12:42the subcontinent.

12:48And also if you really want to retain the culture that existed in India in the 18th,

12:5519th or 20th centuries, then a lot that you do today will have to be stopped.

13:05From where has the trouser arrived?

13:13From where have the potato chips arrived?

13:20This was not happening even 200 years back.

13:25And I keep asking, chips come later, first of all comes the potato.

13:31From where has the potato arrived?

13:33Potato is not indigenous, neither is the tomato.

13:40If you want to limit yourself only to the things that belong exclusively to the subcontinent,

13:47then forget about chips and burgers and pizzas and Manchurian balls.

13:54You will have to give up on tomato and potato as well.

14:00You use the kurta, for example, on all your religious occasions, don't you?

14:07From where has the kurta come?

14:10Is the kurta really indigenous?

14:16If you talk of things that are exclusively to India, India, mind you, had very little

14:22tradition of any upper wear, neither for men nor for women, because we are a hot country.

14:30So, men used to wear next to nothing, when it comes to the upper body and women too used

14:39to wear very little.

14:40That's the Indian culture.

14:41Tell me from where has the ghoonghat come?

14:44But you talk of the ghoonghat as Indian culture.

14:47It is not.

14:50And you know from where the ghoonghat is coming.

14:54You know the tribes belonging to Arabia that used to practice purdah.

15:01That was a cultural thing there.

15:03And when the cultural mixture took place, then that thing came to India as well and

15:08you started using the ghoonghat.

15:12But today if you locate a woman wearing a saree and practicing the ghoonghat, you will

15:17immediately say, oh, she is a cultural woman.

15:20But she is not.

15:29The problem is that we don't read, so we do not know.

15:34In the name of culture, all that we know of is the stuff that we saw in our houses

15:39till a few decades back and we think that is Indian culture.

15:43But that's a very illiterate kind of view of Indian culture.

15:50Just because your grandfather was doing something, how does it become Indian culture?

16:00You know what is culture?

16:01That which people practice is culture.

16:04That which people practice is culture.

16:07If a foreigner came to India just around let's say 30 years back, he would say chewing the

16:18betel nut with supari and katha and chuna and spitting it out selectively on white walls

16:26is Indian culture.

16:28Because that's what everybody was doing in India, especially on the hospital walls.

16:34That's how hygienic we were.

16:37Now you're not doing that.

16:38Why are you not doing that?

16:39Why are you defying your culture?

16:43Note the definition of culture.

16:44Culture is an ever-changing entity.

16:48That which most people start practicing becomes the culture.

16:58You guys are little young, those who have a few grey hair would remember the menace

17:03of pan.

17:04You remember?

17:05Common buildings, government buildings, hospitals, everywhere just pan, pan and pan.

17:11How is that not culture?

17:12Please tell me.

17:14And do you want to retain that or do you rather want to improve?

17:18Please tell me.

17:21So the great good elements of culture must be retained.

17:30And how do you know what is good in your culture?

17:34That which leads to the truth of the Upanishads and Gita is good.

17:41That which you are just blindly practicing is bad.

17:44It's simple, is it not?

17:46It's so straightforward.

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