• 2 days ago
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Video Information: BITS, Pilani - Goa, 28.01.2022, Greater Noida, India

Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
~ How to be a successful person?



Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#acharyaprashant #BITSPilani

Category

📚
Learning
Transcript
00:00We recently celebrated our 75th Republic Day.
00:04So with that, I would like to ask what were our past mistakes or our past ancestors which
00:12made the mistakes that in the recent past of our thousand years, we had invasions and
00:18rules by Mughals and Britishers.
00:22So what should we learn from our mistakes that the same thing do not repeat again?
00:29Or is it a case that we are still under a rule in some other sense?
00:36You see there is only one mistake as human being, to not realize your internal stuff
00:46and remain a slave to it.
00:51That's where all weakness comes from.
00:58That's why you had to be defeated in most of the battles we fought over the last ten
01:11centuries and that's also the reason why as a people we are not progressing fast enough
01:25even today.
01:31Man is nothing without wisdom.
01:35Weapons don't win wars.
01:42Even if weapons manage to win you a few battles, it's wisdom that wins wars.
01:54And wisdom wins wars in very subtle ways, very very subtle ways.
02:09You lose wisdom and somebody might declare you a world winner but you'll still be a loser.
02:19The tragedy first takes place internally and then its effects manifest themselves externally
02:31in all ways possible.
02:38It will be a bit too complex for you probably, it might not be but let me say, I'll simplify
02:45it as much as possible.
02:47See because man is special, because man is not any other animal, when I say man I mean
02:56human beings, not excluding women, therefore man needs spirituality.
03:06I could have said religion but religion has become a very abused word today so I'd rather
03:11say spirituality or I would say wisdom.
03:17So we need that, that's the center of our existence, our religiosity, our wisdom, it
03:28has to be.
03:29If we lack that then we lack a center itself, then there is no center and if there is no
03:33center there is no power because you are scattered.
03:39What would you say about a motorcycle rim, there is no axis at all, no center at all.
03:52Would the spokes offer any strength?
03:56The center is needed to keep the thing intact and strong.
04:02So man needs a center, that center is wisdom, that center is religiosity or spirituality.
04:10When religion itself gets contaminated then there is nothing that can save you.
04:19The trouble with India has been that religion got contaminated many a times, remained contaminated
04:31and even today it is extremely contaminated and that's why you find lack of strength
04:40in various fields in the Indian population.
04:50The core of wisdom, the very name of wisdom Vedanta was there, always there.
04:57The very essence of religion was always present but along with it much else was also present.
05:09Unfortunately for us we chose to focus on all the garbage around the core and more or
05:18less totally ignored the core.
05:22In the name of religion all that we patronized was hollow practices, empty rituals, discrimination
05:36based on birth, gender, imaginative stories and many other kinds of nonsense.
05:52That's what we started calling as religion and the core Vedanta was ignored.
06:04When religion gets corrupted then the entire population, the whole set of people they are
06:13left with nothing, they lose their scientific temper, there are no discoveries, no literature
06:23worth reading is written, there is no exploration, they don't want to go around and know things,
06:34they remain a society deeply divided and fragmented and exploitative of each other and then they
06:42also lose wars, they also lose wars.
06:51Losing wars is not the central problem, the central problem is the corruption of religion
06:59and that corruption of religion leads to many problems including losses in wars and that
07:10corruption is especially tragic because India is the mother of religion.
07:20India had all the diamonds that religion needs and religion has to offer.
07:30The saints, the sages, they offered the highest wisdom but instead of that wisdom we just
07:44kept concentrating on very deplorable kind of rubbish and that's also what constitutes
07:54the bulk of Indian religiosity today, rubbish.
08:02Instead of religion being the highest thing possible, it has become the lowest kind of
08:09curse.
08:13Unless we return to pure religion, which I propagate as Vedanta, not only is the past
08:26bleak, I also see very little hope for the future.
08:40That very much answers my query.

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