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Video Information: 04.04.23, with Ahimsa Fellows (Online-talk), Greater Noida
Context:
~ What is the solution to climate change?
~ How can spirituality stop climate change?
~ Is there no scientific solution to climate change?
~ How is veganism related to compassion?
~ Why is veganism 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?...
Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...
~~~~~
Video Information: 04.04.23, with Ahimsa Fellows (Online-talk), Greater Noida
Context:
~ What is the solution to climate change?
~ How can spirituality stop climate change?
~ Is there no scientific solution to climate change?
~ How is veganism related to compassion?
~ Why is veganism 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
00:00Namaste Gauri ji. Can you see me, hear me?
00:09Yes, the fellows and the entire team of People for Animals Public Policy Foundation, People
00:15for Animals Uttarakhand, they are all here and we're eagerly waiting to hear you.
00:21Wonderful, wonderful. So, let's begin.
00:26Yeah, first of all, my deepest gratitude that you could take out time today to address,
00:33you know, a very like-minded group of people here. We align with the values that you are
00:43so known for teaching the masses and we are struggling to get the same message across.
00:49So I think this will be a great interaction. To our team, we just like to introduce you
00:55in a moment. So, guys, Acharya ji is basically, he's a very learned fellow, very well educated,
01:08much more than me and much more than so many of you. He left all of his worldly and his
01:15corporate job and everything because he wanted to, in his search for wisdom, that's what
01:21my understanding is. And that he has not only attained it, but he is sharing it widely,
01:28the wisdom that our civilization basically nurtured and has continued on and that we
01:34are now somehow forgetting is something that is his mission and his NGO's mission that
01:41is called Prashant Advait Foundation. He's also an author, a very widely read author
01:46and a very widely heard teacher. And at this time, you all have done your homework on him.
01:55So you probably know and seen his wide following in the country. He's also a very celebrated
02:03vegan. And while we are all ethical vegans, that's where a point of convergence that I
02:10see and that we understand from him, how our message is sort of based in logic, but is
02:20very misunderstood, understood by very few, neglected, just a small, very tiny,
02:28you know, eco chamber we've got, where we keep talking about it, but the general masses probably
02:35will explore ways with him and understand from his wisdom, how to, you know, fine tune our message,
02:44so that it, you know, goes out in a powerful way. And people are able to see what is absolutely
02:52there in front of us, which is, it's an inevitable future, you know, if there has to be a future for
02:59this planet. But we just keep avoiding it. We just think, you know, in very myopic terms,
03:07and a lot of people don't even, you know, entertain the thought of being a vegetarian,
03:12let alone being a vegan. So those arguments keep coming to us. And while we give our own very
03:17emotional arguments, we'd love to learn from Acharyaji, how he handled such thoughts and,
03:27you know, such arguments and how we can make our mission a little more powerful,
03:35our mission of making the world a little more compassionate. And that's, I just stated once,
03:41it's not just because we like animals, we are a team of people, Acharyaji, who are not only just
03:50people who like animals, or who love animals, or would like to cuddle animals, or we feel very
03:55emotionally, you know, about them, but we are people who are fighting for justice.
04:00And I think there cannot be a higher justice than actually abolishing speciesism,
04:07than abolishing, just looking at all life in the same manner, that we feel is the justice
04:13that we wish to sort of communicate. So it's for the good of everybody, not just the good of
04:22one dog or one elephant or one bird, for the good of everybody. So we'd love to know your
04:28thoughts on veganism first. And, you know, likewise. First of all, Gauri ji has been just
04:37too generous in introducing me. Like you all, I'm just a fellow struggler, far from successful.
04:49I understand that in the shared mission that we have, you face daily obstacles.
05:01So do I, and my friends and my team here. So it's much the same story, same challenge and same pain.
05:14And that brings me to how I address the whole point of veganism.
05:27Same story, same challenge, same pain. That's where the vegan story begins. You see,
05:36who are we? And this is not just to construct an argument in favor of veganism.
05:49This is our reality. This is our existential fact. Who are we? We are creatures of consciousness.
06:01And if we are not conscious, then we are not human. That's not just rhetorical, metaphorical.
06:14That's even biological and social, is it not? Your consciousness goes a bit awry and you are
06:26dispatched to an asylum. All your other bodily functions are just okay. You might not even be
06:34harming somebody and yet you are not considered fit to live among normal, that is, conscious people.
06:46Which means to be a normal human is to be a conscious human. Same applies to sick people.
06:57Your body functions might still be holding up, but if there is very little probability of you ever
07:08behaving in a conscious way, you ever becoming mentally functional like a normal human being,
07:19then, well, euthanasia is not too far away. Even the family interest drops.
07:32And if you were to be told about such a possibility
07:39in the future regarding your own health, your own body, you too would probably say that if it comes
07:45to that, please don't drag me on. Let me go. What does that mean? That simply means that life
07:55is consciousness and life without consciousness is not worth living. It's as simple as that.
08:04And it is not something you have to convince somebody on. It is an obvious fact.
08:10It is an obvious fact. A fact that applies to all living forms, but when it comes to human beings,
08:19this fact applies even more starkly. Why? Because we think, we ideate,
08:33we have a language, we structure, and we are people who are not satisfied. We want
08:43to reach a particular point called peace or liberation or fulfillment. We all have that,
08:49right? And that's why human beings have far too many desires compared to other living beings.
08:59Other living beings.
09:03All living forms have desires, but look at the desires of Homo sapiens. We exceed them all
09:14by many times. So, our existence is a conscious existence, not just biological.
09:26We are not pieces of meat, loaves of flesh, just walking around. We have a purpose of life,
09:39and that purpose of life is to come to, as we just said, a particular peace or realization
09:45or fulfillment. Simply put, satisfaction.
09:53So, the existence itself is related to consciousness, right? Consciousness.
10:02Now, the consciousness that we are keeps changing its subject, its stuff.
10:15That which it is attached to, that which it is busy with, all that thing keeps changing,
10:24right? Right now, I'm, for example, addressing you all here. Right now, you are listening to me.
10:35An hour or two later, something else would occupy your consciousness, and same applies to me.
10:42So, the stuff of consciousness would change, but consciousness remains,
10:50right? And it is not the stuff that we value. Are we together on this? It is not the stuff
10:54that is so much valuable. It is consciousness that is valuable. How do two people differ
11:04when we take two human beings to begin with? We'll come to other living forms then.
11:09How do two people differ? They differ in the stuff of their consciousness, right?
11:16Not in the fact of consciousness itself.
11:22And we just said a couple of sentences back that the stuff is not all that important.
11:27What is important is the very fact of consciousness, not the object of consciousness.
11:33So, consciousness itself is important, and what separates one person from the other
11:38is simply that the two people have different priorities, varying ideas, and different
11:47things to take care of or be attached to, be occupied with, and all that, right?
11:54But the fact that they both have something to live for is a shared reality.
12:01Consciousness is what makes us alive and equally consciousness is what we live for.
12:13Now, extend the argument to animals.
12:20The stuff of their consciousness is definitely different.
12:23We might be thinking of discoveries, inventions, literature, art. Animals don't think of that.
12:31And if they do, we do not know of that. At least they don't think of these things in the way that
12:36we do, right? From our point of view. So, the stuff of their consciousness is different.
12:46But they are conscious, and the fundamental cravings that we have are very much alike to theirs.
12:58Is it not so? In terms of thought and the content of thought, obviously, we are very different.
13:04We are different from each other, and we have a lot of things in common, right?
13:11But when it comes to the very fundamentals of life, are we not all one? Think of it. We do so many things.
13:23What is the fundamental tendency driving the various things that we do?
13:28For example, that the tendency to secure a future, right?
13:32What is the fundamental tendency driving the various things that we do?
13:36For example, that the tendency to secure a future, the tendency to just live on.
13:48Chopin was the will to live, the will to just continue.
13:54That he said is the basic human existential tendency.
13:58I am asking, don't animals have that tendency?
14:02At the root of all consciousness is the will to survive and continue.
14:06We don't want to die, the animals too don't want to die, right?
14:16We feel pain, we suffer, so do animals.
14:26The reasons might be very different.
14:28Often the reasons are in fact not too different.
14:32Separate a human mother from her baby and you see the suffering. It's very apparent.
14:40Separate a cow from her calf and the suffering is much the same.
14:46So the fundamentals of consciousness we share with animals.
14:54To some extent, to a lesser extent, we share those things even with plants.
15:02And if you want to go deeper than that, then even with organisms that have just a few tissues,
15:14basic or just even a single cell, like an amoeba or a paramecium,
15:22the will to continue living is found there as well.
15:26If you attack an amoeba, it has ways to survive.
15:30And it wants to prolong its existence into eternity by reproducing.
15:38And it has its own peculiar way of reproduction.
15:42The same things that we do.
15:46Outwardly there is so much that we have created and that looks so spectacular
15:54and so different from the jungle kingdom.
16:00But inwardly at our core, don't we all have the same desires, the same tendencies that animals have?
16:10Is not the very core of consciousness the same?
16:16And it is consciousness, the maximization of consciousness, the liberation of consciousness
16:26that is also the purpose of life.
16:30Which means that a conscious entity has to be looked at with respect, with a certain love.
16:40If you want liberation of consciousness, how can you hurt another conscious being?
16:50Especially when you know that it is the stuff of consciousness that differs, not consciousness itself.
16:58If your own consciousness is worthy of being taken care of, being nurtured and being liberated,
17:12how can the same consciousness when seen in another living being be abominable, negotiable, violable?
17:26The same thing when I see it in my own self.
17:32If it is respectable, it will remain respectable even if it is seen in somebody else's self.
17:42If I really want to eliminate suffering, then suffering is what I want to eliminate, not just my own suffering.
17:54Because as long as I keep saying my own suffering, this my own itself remains the cause of suffering.
18:06This localization of consciousness itself is the limitation and the constraint and the bane of consciousness.
18:16I want to be happy, right? We all want to be happy.
18:21Why are we unable to be happy? Because we want to be happy at the cost of others.
18:26So I want to say I want to be happy and I want to have my own happiness.
18:31So this my own is what prevents true happiness from coming to me.
18:38A very localized and limited and individualized happiness is what I want.
18:43I don't want happiness. If I want happiness, it would be an impersonal happiness that I would share
18:50with as many beings as possible.
18:54So if consciousness is my goal or happiness is my goal or freedom from suffering is my goal
19:04and I'm true to my goal, then I'll want these same things for others.
19:12And if I want these things only for myself, then I cannot have them even for myself.
19:18That's a rule. If you want these things, these best of things that life can offer only for yourself,
19:29then you will not have them even for yourself.
19:33But if you want them for everybody, then you will have it for yourself as well.
19:40So if I want my happiness at the cost of somebody's life, the thing is the poor thing will lose its life
19:50and I won't even get what I want to get at the cost of his life.
19:58So it's a double whammy. Nobody gains anything.
20:03No emotions involved. It is just mathematically a loss making proposition.
20:09It's simply bad existential economics.
20:14I wanted happiness by consuming that other person or animal.
20:20That's what you want, right? Otherwise, there is no need to hurt the other.
20:25So I hurt the other thinking that happiness is a zero sum game.
20:32I throw sadness upon you. I inflict suffering upon you.
20:36And wishfully I think that will give me happiness.
20:43Happiness to my consciousness.
20:47There is a problem there. You are trying to violate an inviolable rule.
20:54It's a rule of existence, Prakriti.
20:59That these things cannot be had in isolation.
21:05That you cannot have these things only for yourself.
21:09These are the most subtle gifts of living that cannot come to an individualized person.
21:18Money you can have for yourself, I understand. It's your bank account.
21:22And if it's deposited in that account, it belongs only to you. Nobody else can ever say.
21:27When it comes to liberation, it can never be personal.
21:31When it comes to real happiness, that is joy, it can never be personal.
21:36Money can be a zero sum game. I snatch 100 rupees from you.
21:43You lost 100, I gained 100, the sum is zero.
21:46The same cannot be applied to happiness.
21:50I cannot take your life and enhance mine.
21:55If you have lost your life, in the bargain, I too have lost mine.
22:01Equally, if I can enhance your life, I have enhanced mine.
22:07We are inseparably connected.
22:11And the name of the connecting tissue is consciousness.
22:17That's what we share, we all.
22:22And in that there is no zero sum arithmetic.
22:27If you lose, so do I.
22:32If you gain, so do I.
22:36So that day, I was in Rishikesh after the camp and there was this little puppy.
22:46And we posted a pic.
22:50Me and the pup.
22:53And along with that, we wrote a little caption from my favorite saint poet.
23:03यह तन वह तन एक है एक प्रान दुई गात अपने जी से जानिये मेरे जी की बात
23:16So this body and that body are actually the same.
23:21The प्रान is the same. प्रान here refers to consciousness.
23:25गात means body. एक प्रान दुई गात.
23:28The bodies appear different.
23:30But the life is the same.
23:32Life meaning consciousness.
23:34एक प्रान दुई गात.
23:36Two bodies, but the consciousness is just the same.
23:40So that's what. You hurt the other, you are hurting yourself.
23:47It's not even a matter of emotion.
23:51It's not even a matter of sympathy.
23:55People won't understand even if you call it empathy.
24:00You have to help them see.
24:06You kill the other and you are killing your own possibility of joy, fulfillment, liberation.
24:13Don't you want that?
24:15In some sense, the chicken is gone.
24:20It won't suffer anymore.
24:24But you have condemned yourself to enhanced future suffering by just doing what you did.
24:36It's bad.
24:38You disrespect the consciousness there and you have disrespected your own consciousness.
24:43And if you disrespect your consciousness, how will you ever bring it to fulfillment?
24:52Am I too abstract?
24:55What are the friends saying?
24:58Are they feeling disconnected? I don't know.
25:02I'm certainly not.
25:04Because I can, I'll tell you something here.
25:08When I first went to the parliament for the very first time and I was just like a tourist walking around,
25:14I saw this huge engraving right in front of the parliament hall which said Vasudev Kutumbakam.
25:24And then I studied a little more about it.
25:27All the world is one family. Globalization is one interpretation of it.
25:32But I think from our civilization point of view, I think it's more deeper than that.
25:40And it's about all consciousness actually being the same, exactly what you said.
25:45And basically indicating a kind of a singularity from which everybody originated.
25:52Which even physics agrees with now.
25:56We can't look at species in silos.
26:01And now even the World Health Organization has come up with the One Health Program.
26:06Because all health is one.
26:09Those are little things where it's manifesting itself.
26:12But it's just too little, too late.
26:15Are we too late to save the planet, Ajaraji?
26:19I mean, is it really too late?
26:22Sometimes I feel like saying, yes, it is already too late.
26:29Probably that is the fact as well.
26:36But that does not matter.
26:39You see, it might not be too late. It might already be too late.
26:43How does it matter? One has to just keep fighting on.
26:50Not for those who are gone.
26:55Not for the future.
26:58But for the present possibility that there is something precious, lovely, worthwhile
27:08that can probably be redeemed.
27:13And one will not be able to forgive herself if one doesn't give it all one has.
27:24You see, I don't know about the future of the planet.
27:29So the more I go into the science of it,
27:34the more it starts looking quite certain
27:41that this unfortunate and monstrous species of ours
27:50isn't going to last another 100 years.
27:55In fact, within the next decade or two,
28:00we'll start seeing very, very obvious signs of the approaching end.
28:10All that is going to happen in our lifetime.
28:13But anyway, when 100 years is too distant a future,
28:16I do not know what would happen.
28:19How much time do we have to live as individuals?
28:22I suppose at most I have a few decades.
28:26The fellows are probably younger.
28:30They'll have a spare decade or two compared to me.
28:34We don't have too much time. Let's fight it out.
28:39And that's the best use we can put our life to.
28:43That's how I look at it.
28:46I don't know what the result of this battle would be.
28:49But it's worth fighting.
28:57Calculations tell me that the odds are not in our favor.
29:06But in things like these, calculations don't matter that much.
29:11Even if there is just a 0.1% probability left,
29:17one would still give it everything.
29:20It's like having a loved one in ICU or on ventilator.
29:28One cannot give up.
29:31One fights till the last breath.
29:36That's what we can do.
29:44I also know that our individual efforts are probably not going to suffice.
29:49One waits for creation to throw up something quite unexpected.
30:03It's not as if we are the sole guardians responsible for the entire creation.
30:16Things happen and strange things happen.
30:20They say truth is stranger than fiction.
30:24One COVID had the potential to teach us so much about the fragility of our ecosystems,
30:35about the impermanence of all that we have,
30:41and about the helplessness of all man-made support systems.
30:48We never know what's in store and when an opportunity might present itself.
30:58Let's just keep doing the maximum and the best we can.
31:03Even if nothing comes out of it, it would at least be a life well spent.
31:11We can die in peace.
31:17Yeah, you're absolutely right.
31:29It's uncanny how our thoughts completely align.
31:33I also feel that it's to be fought because it's a battle worth fighting.
31:40It's something that would, joy or not,
31:46but it at least does not give us the guilt at the end of the day of having done nothing.
31:51While we see too much, it's just whatever little bit that we can spend our time doing to make things better.
32:01Thank you so much for your answer.
32:07There's one question that just goes into everybody's mind and we secretly discuss it with small groups,
32:16but we want to probably ask you about it.
32:19There is a certain segment of vegans who are anti-natalist vegans.
32:27They think that the world is not worth multiplying in.
32:30We will not have anybody else in the world because it's just way too much.
32:36The resources are not enough and we would not subject anybody else to it.
32:42Is it ethically right or is it ethically morally duty-bound?
32:48People should bring more people so they can raise them.
32:51I don't know.
32:53It's a very conflicting thing and people are not able to find their moral correct strong ground to stand on.
33:02Have you ever thought about it?
33:04I think about it. I speak about it and I think I'm quite unequivocally in favor of it.
33:14You see, it's not a personal choice anymore.
33:22I bring a child to this world and the kind of resource consumption that implies
33:31simply means death to thousands of trees and lakhs of animals and it's a geometric thing.
33:50It's not just one being that I bring to the world.
33:53The being that I bring to the world would continue to multiply.
33:58So, if you look at the entire geometric series, when I have one kid,
34:07I have actually had maybe 10, 20 or 40 kids.
34:12That's what it means.
34:14Purely from the point of resources, does the earth have enough to sustain or tolerate even one more individual?
34:28The answer does not lie in emotions or opinions.
34:32The answer has to lie in rigorous computation.
34:38If you look at economics, if you look at the kind of resources that an average individual consumes today
34:47and the average individual not only consumes that many resources today,
34:53he aspires to consume even more in the future.
34:56So, if you bring a child to life, the resource consumption of that child,
35:04that single individual is likely to be at least 5 to 10 times more compared to the amount that you consumed.
35:13And we are not even talking of the fact that the child will beget even more kids into the world.
35:21So, I have a baby and that means slaughtering so many animals.
35:29We should be talking in lakhs.
35:32Just for our consumption, every day we slaughter crores of animals.
35:43Even the number on a per minute basis is staggering, is it not?
35:54So, when somebody talks of reproduction, when people talk of pregnancy, I say,
36:00when you produce the baby, also produce roads, also produce school, also produce an apartment.
36:09How does your responsibility end with just getting a baby to this world?
36:16Now the baby will need so much. From where will that come?
36:20From where will the road come? Otherwise the road is jammed.
36:23Because of your baby, you need an extra lane.
36:27To have that extra lane, you will have to slaughter so many trees.
36:32From where will the air come?
36:37You know of the AQI, you know of the pollution levels.
36:41From where will the coal come? Where will the steel come?
36:46The electricity, where will it come from?
36:49The kid will surely want a car. Where will the car come from?
36:53All of that ultimately crashes upon the environment.
37:00Because the environment can't speak and can't resist.
37:05You produce a baby and you tell your neighbor, now that I have a baby, I need extra space.
37:13So I will violate your premises and occupy one of your rooms.
37:19Will your neighbor allow that? Your neighbor won't.
37:22But there are trees behind your house.
37:28Now that you have a baby, you go and hack those trees down.
37:33And you say, now I have some free space and we can have extra room there for the baby.
37:37Baby is growing up. The baby doesn't always remain a baby.
37:41So you want an extra room.
37:44The trees won't resist. The neighbor resists.
37:47Everybody resists. Only the trees don't resist and the helpless poor animals, they don't resist.
37:53So when the baby comes to this world, it is the trees and the animals
38:00whose death sentence has been read out.
38:04Lakhs of animals die the very day you give birth to a kid.
38:09So I just don't think that the traditional animalistic feeling of giving birth
38:26and the social concept that life is fulfilled only when you have a full nest.
38:33I don't think any of that holds good today.
38:37But practically I also know that in both men and women, especially in women,
38:46there is a biological and a social urge to give birth.
38:51And not all individuals will be intelligent or compassionate enough
38:57to listen to arguments or listen to the truth.
39:02So to them I say, if you want to have a baby, have one.
39:07Have one and stop at that.
39:10And millions of Chinese families were able to stop at one baby.
39:15It's not that they couldn't bear it.
39:17They lived happily with their one kid.
39:20So stop at that and to others I say who don't want to have a kid
39:25but they still want to enjoy the presence of a kid, I say go and adopt somebody.
39:30How is adoption not a great choice?
39:33If it stops at one, it is still okay.
39:39Because that would effectively mean that the population is not growing.
39:44In between we will have definitely over-enthusiastic couples
39:52who will go for the second one.
39:55So fine, that kind of allowance we have to make.
40:02But my appeal to all people who can see and who can listen
40:07and who have a heart is to understand that your baby
40:13is the death of millions of other babies.
40:19Don't do that.
40:21Thank you for putting the message out so clearly.
40:30We've only just spoken about it, not trying to offend anybody.
40:36But basically it's the truth that we all have to confront.
40:40And consumerism is on the rise and it only grows with more people on the planet.
40:47And you very rightly said that for even somebody who wants to buy one small thing
40:53there is so much impact on the environment
40:56that it inevitably starts a domino effect on everybody.
41:01Also when you have a kid, because you talked of the domino effect
41:11that in some way triggers so many others to have a kid.
41:15See those who do not have kids, surprisingly they fail to become inspirations.
41:26They remain aberrations.
41:29But if you do get a kid, then your entire extended family feels inspired
41:39to have one more of their own.
41:43So that's the kind of domino effect that you experience.
41:47If you don't have a kid, you don't declare it loudly on social media.
41:51There is nothing to go to the town with.
41:58It's not news, right? I haven't had a baby.
42:01You won't say today is the third anniversary of me not having a baby.
42:06That kind of absurdity you won't display.
42:09But when you do have a baby, then your social media and your entire circle is awash
42:17with pics and congratulations and baby stuff and this and that.
42:21And that way you are triggering the maternal and paternal instinct in so many others.
42:27And they do not know what to make of life.
42:30So the moment they see those pics, they say, come on, let's do it.
42:34And that's the way human stupidity operates.
42:38What can one do?
42:40That's so true.
42:43So you just spoke about social media.
42:48You have such a strong message and you have chosen social media as a platform.
42:54As one of the platforms, one of the prime platforms to amplify your message.
43:01We are all very good at whatever.
43:05I mean, we try to do whatever we do best with authorities,
43:11with people doing a ton of capacity building and whatever.
43:17But we always keep social media a little on the low priority.
43:21I want you to explain why for this message you have chosen social media
43:27and what role has it played?
43:31Just a little on the importance of why all of these people here should
43:37and how many times would be optimum.
43:40Some of them might be completely crazed about constantly being on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
43:46Even that is not alright.
43:48Not being there is not alright.
43:50So what is the optimum amount that should be?
43:53One has to remember that social media is a tool.
43:58We are not going there for mere entertainment.
44:02Not that entertainment is despicable.
44:05It's okay to entertain oneself, fine.
44:08But when it comes to the mission, social media is an instrument.
44:13Social media is a weapon.
44:16So one uses it.
44:21One uses it to strike at people where they are, right?
44:26It's obvious one has to reach people only where they are.
44:31And they are all there on Instagram and YouTube.
44:34So that's where they have to be caught.
44:37There is no option.
44:39Apart from work and personal time,
44:47this is where people spend themselves.
44:51They are hooked to their phones.
44:54They are watching stuff there.
44:56And the collective time of humanity that is being spent in front of the mobile screen is astonishing.
45:10If we look at the 800 crore people that we are,
45:15and if we talk of smartphones and internet penetration,
45:22that would mean probably 500 or 600 crores of us have access to social media.
45:32I suppose Facebook itself has been, the app has been downloaded what, 5 billion times, 2 billion times?
45:42How many downloads does it have?
45:44The number of downloads of that single app runs into billions.
45:50So that's where the people are.
45:54If somebody is not in his house, you do not knock at that house, right?
45:58If people have all assembled at some place, that's the place you go to if you want to address them.
46:07So that's what.
46:09As professionals and as missionaries, obviously we remember that for us social media is work.
46:19Work and very dedicated work.
46:21It's just that the rules of this workplace are very nascent, very tentative.
46:31They are still evolving.
46:33So one has to learn on the job.
46:37YouTube today is not what it was five years back.
46:42And the arrival of TikTok totally changed Instagram.
46:47So it changes.
46:50It changes and one has to keep pace.
46:54If one doesn't do that, then one loses the audience.
46:59And it's important not to lose your audience because it is the audience that you want to work on.
47:07It's not obviously about the two of us holding conversation here.
47:11I would want this conversation to reach at least lakhs of people.
47:16Had it been in my power, I would have wanted it to reach the entire population.
47:22I don't have that kind of power.
47:27But that's what.
47:28Imagine if these things can reach everybody.
47:31That too ten times a day.
47:34Won't we have hope?
47:38We were just talking of the odds being stagged against the survival of this planet,
47:46against the success of compassion.
47:50Won't the picture completely change if we have access to the minds of all those people
47:58who are rushing very blindly towards their own destruction?
48:05And we cannot stop them just because we do not have access to them.
48:10So access, reach is everything.
48:14There is nothing more important than that in the work that we are doing.
48:19See, we are not scientists working on something privately in some isolated lab.
48:27Our mission involves influencing people because it's people who make choices.
48:32And it's their choices that we want to impact.
48:36So probably there is nothing more important than social media today.
48:41And if you can add print and TV to social media, you are a winner.
48:51Imagine if somebody with let's say a hundred million followers on Instagram
48:58could have a change of heart,
49:04a burst of sudden enlightenment,
49:09and dedicate himself to the cause of animals.
49:14Just imagine the kind of impact that would make.
49:19Somebody with a hundred million followers is constantly talking of empathy and compassion
49:28and the kind of cruelty that we display and the facts of the animal agriculture industry
49:37and mechanized slaughterhouses and the cruelty that even the common members of the population display.
49:48If he's constantly talking of this, I mean, we'll get a steroid shot in terms of our mission.
49:58We may like it or not like it, but that's how things stand.
50:07If you can get the leading voices to espouse your cause,
50:14you are doing the millions of species a great favor.
50:20And that's what they are all calling out for from their jungle.
50:26They are saying, please get us heard.
50:31We don't have a voice.
50:34Please get somebody with a big voice to speak for us.
50:47Yeah.
50:48So, yes, you're right.
50:51It's an amplifier like no other.
50:55We can't collect physically so many people in one place.
50:59We can't knock on enough doors and tell them about our message.
51:03So it's absolutely important that a few times a day we speak up on social media
51:10and probably try to become our own influencers in our own small ecosystems.
51:17We can become voices that will be heard at least among our friends and followers.
51:24And I'm so glad you're gaining followers every day.
51:29May your tribe increase.
51:31A lot of time of the foundation.
51:34And would you believe it?
51:38About 80% of the total donation that we receive is spent on simply promoting our message.
51:47In fact, I sometimes say to the team, reach is the mission.
51:54Nothing else is the mission.
51:56If somebody asks you to define the mission in one word, that one word is reach.
52:01Just reach out to as many people as possible and the rest will follow on its own.
52:08The rest is natural.
52:12What needs to be laboriously done, effortfully done is the act of reaching out.
52:19That cannot happen naturally.
52:22But once you have struck someone, after that there will be some kind of reaction
52:31that you don't have to worry about.
52:33After that the ball will roll on its own.
52:36So reach is the mission.
52:45That's true.
52:47And it's both very simple and difficult at the same time.
52:51You can do it on your phone, you can do it on your computer.
52:55But you have to fine tune your message and know a little about it.
53:02Understand and be very perceptive about what the mood of the audience is.
53:08I'll share the difficulty with you.
53:10The difficulty in that is when you come to know that it's all about gaining reach,
53:18then as I said 80% of all that you have including your own time, your own energy gets invested towards reach.
53:27Which means that you start taking your content a lot for granted.
53:36You see 80% of yourself, if I talk of my own time, if a lot of that is going just towards reach,
53:44then I have to be very sure that my content is worth it.
53:50Because I'm not able to work on my content.
53:53All my time is invested towards reach.
53:56So that's the problem one faces.
54:00The content is the stuff that I want to reach to other people.
54:05The content is the stuff that I want to reach to other people.
54:10But because reach is so important, therefore I cannot work on the content.
54:15So that means that one has to be internally very disciplined.
54:21And even in limited time, one has to ensure that the content remains updated
54:28and that the purity of what you are saying and the sharpness of your argument remains intact.
54:40It's a challenge.
54:48Yes, that's right.
55:09You're welcome.