Veganism is the strongest name for compassion || Acharya Prashant (2018)
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The same reason that makes you ask these questions and makes me answer them, wisdom, love, truth.
00:26One is fettered, one is shackled.
00:38And consciousness is one's only hope, deep, deep consciousness that takes one so high
00:53that one can then escape away from consciousness.
01:02How then can one be full of disrespect for any sentient, any conscious being?
01:18If you look into the eyes of an animal and do not see your own face, then you are a blind
01:29one and blind ones are not supposed to reach destinations.
01:39How would you be liberated?
01:47If you do not have compassion towards yourself, it is not enough to just theoretically or
02:00intellectually say that one wants to be liberated.
02:06One needs to have something in heart for consciousness striving towards liberation.
02:22One has to look at himself and say, I do not like that I am fettered.
02:34One must have a certain love for himself.
02:37One must be able to touch himself gently.
02:42And only then will one be able to provide for one's deepest need.
02:52And if you can look at yourself and see that you are really, really eager to get love,
03:12to get freedom, to get security, how will you not see that when you look at other human
03:21beings or other conscious beings?
03:26If you are violent towards other beings, it only means that you are violent towards yourself
03:45as well because you and the other being are essentially one.
03:55The differences are countless but worthless.
04:07You look at yourself and you look at a parrot or a goat or any small living being.
04:24These eyes as biological instruments will only show you differences between yourself
04:35and the other creature.
04:38But if you have wisdom and compassion, you will see a great similarity.
04:45Both of you are hungry for love and liberation.
04:58And if you value your own hunger, how will you not value the other's hunger?
05:10You are supposed to liberate the other.
05:15In that lies your liberation.
05:19You are not to annihilate the other.
05:23If in the other's liberation lies your liberation, then surely in the other's annihilation lies
05:31your annihilation.
05:34But to see this equation, first of all, you need to have the sensitivity, the attention
05:43to clearly see that at a deep level, you and the goat are one.
05:51But if you are someone who accords a lot of value to things like culture, civilization,
05:58language, knowledge, intellect, clothes, names, labels, then you will say a goat is a goat,
06:07a man is a man and a goat is such an inferior product of evolution and all that is so very
06:14foolhardy.
06:15Yes, the goat does appear inferior.
06:24But the inferiority is in a very inferior dimension.
06:30I do not deny that in the dimension of the intellect, the goat is inferior to the human
06:37being.
06:39But the dimension of intellect is itself an inferior dimension because in this dimension
06:45you never gain liberation.
06:46So how can it be a superior dimension?
06:52In the existential dimension, you and the goat are one.
06:57In the existential dimension, all beings striving for liberation are one.
07:06And if there is a being that is not striving for liberation, no, not at all.
07:12To be existent is to be desirous of liberation, otherwise, why would you exist at all?
07:22We exist to be loved and liberated and you cannot have liberation in isolation because
07:35as long as you are a believer in isolation, that itself is bondage.
07:40Are you getting it?
07:45To move towards your liberation is to realize that nothing like isolation exists.
07:57Your deepest desire is also the deepest desire of your neighbor.
08:05And the deepest desire of you and your neighbor is the same as that of the insect crawling
08:14in your labor's lawn.
08:27And of the bird perched on your terrace.
08:36Come close to a stranger, an insect, an animal, a bird.
08:51Spend time with them without bias.
08:58And it will become very difficult for you to say that the animal is not a person.
09:12The fundamental mistake that most human beings make is that they only have images about consciousness.
09:29We never actually get close to the conscious beings that we kill and exploit for food or
09:36convenience.
09:41So we do not even have the basic respect, the courtesy, the decency to refer to animals
09:51properly.
09:54We look at an elephant and say it is moving.
10:04Is the elephant a machine?
10:13We do not see that all sentient beings are actually persons like us.
10:27Mostly we do not see.
10:30And when we are compelled to see, we pretend that we have not seen because if we admit
10:36that we have seen, then we will have to mend our ways and that is inconvenient.
10:48Those who are violent towards other living forms are fundamentally violent towards themselves.
11:12Do not turn vegetarian or vegan for reasons of mercy or pity.
11:28Turn a vegan in your own self-interest.
11:34You are not killing the other.
11:36You are killing yourself.
11:41Don't act as if you are doing a favor to the other by being nice.
11:57If you are decent to the other, then it is yourself you are helping.
12:18See spirituality is all about freedom from suffering or is it not?
12:39If there is no suffering, there is no need for any kind of spiritual path or spiritual
12:47discipline.
12:53So man is suffering.
12:55One has to start from there.
12:58You look within yourself or you look around yourself, you would find it hard to deny that
13:05there indeed is suffering.
13:10Man is suffering.
13:22And at the same time, suffering cannot be one's utter destiny.
13:39Surely there is a way out.
13:45Surely redemption is available and if redemption is available and man is still suffering, it
13:58shows that man is somewhere making wrong choices.
14:12An exit out of the hell hole does exist.
14:22But man seems to be trying at other places, knocking at false doors.
14:38When you are exploiting the other, it is for self-gratification, not for self-liberation.
14:53And if liberation is your goal, then how can you spend your energy just pleasing yourself?
15:09The prisoner who starts finding means of comfort and pleasure inside his prison cell will no
15:30doubt entertain himself for a while.
15:37Will no doubt manage to keep himself in high spirits for a while.
15:43Will no doubt appear to have cracked the code for a while.
15:57But one thing is certain, he would remain within the prison.
16:07In the prison, he might consider himself an achiever and so might the others.
16:22But if the one and only worthy goal was to break out of the prison, then his life has
16:35been an utter failure.
16:41Tell me why does man exploit man?
16:45Tell me why are we so insecure?
16:49Tell me why is cutting the best deal possible such an important thing with us?
17:01Tell me what is it that we mean by trying to make it big?
17:11We are just trying to have a good time inside the prison cell.
17:19And then there are the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fish, the birds, the jungles
17:35and you can eat them all up.
17:44See something alluring, snap it up, spit it out and all of that within the prison.
17:59And this game is continuing.
18:05You look at a deer, you hunt it, you eat it, a lion, an elephant, nice tusks, a tree, a
18:19river, anything, anything, anything is there just to be exploited.
18:27All of man's energy is then flowing in a very foolish direction and spirituality is intelligence.
18:40So this has to be corrected.
18:43One has to see why one wants to kill and consume at all.
18:50One wants to kill and consume because one is forgetting his real intention.
19:00One is forgetting his real need.
19:04One is forgetting why he exists at all.
19:10The prisoner has no business getting too cozy inside his cell.
19:16He should remember that he is in an awkward position.
19:24He should constantly remember just one thing, freedom, freedom and freedom, not gratification.
19:35And if you can remember the fact of your own bondage and your desire for your own freedom,
19:49then you will become very very sensitive to the fact of others' bondage and parallelly
19:59others' desire towards their freedom.
20:07If a prisoner in his cell is constantly remembering his freedom, then he would pass on the same
20:19message to his fellow prisoners, to the other inmates.
20:29He would not tempt them or encourage them to just have a jolly time.
20:43If you remember that you must fly free, you also clearly see that the others here too must fly free.
20:55When you want it not only for yourself, you want it for others as well.
21:02And I repeat, the existential game is such that you cannot just plan it out for only yourself.
21:18You must have it in mind that that which you are demanding for yourself must reach others as well.
21:33Compassion and spirituality are so very intimate.
21:46And in today's time, veganism is the strongest name for compassion.
21:58You cannot be spiritual and violent at the same time.
22:06You cannot be spiritual and a flesh eater at the same time.