Full Video: The Foundation of the Indian nation || Acharya Prashant
Link: https://youtu.be/NhuzJZ0oMPY?si=ohv5w6KsIxF_8o3J
Video Information: 13.04.23, IRMA (Online), Greater Noida
Let's understand Nationalism and Indian Nationalism
Context:
~What is nationalism?
~Is nationalism good or bad?
~What was the rise of nationalism?
~What is nationalism in India easy?
~What is the origin of Indian nationalism?
~What is called nationalism?
~Nationalism and Vedanta
~Nationalism can be a force for good
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #nationalism #nation
Link: https://youtu.be/NhuzJZ0oMPY?si=ohv5w6KsIxF_8o3J
Video Information: 13.04.23, IRMA (Online), Greater Noida
Let's understand Nationalism and Indian Nationalism
Context:
~What is nationalism?
~Is nationalism good or bad?
~What was the rise of nationalism?
~What is nationalism in India easy?
~What is the origin of Indian nationalism?
~What is called nationalism?
~Nationalism and Vedanta
~Nationalism can be a force for good
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #nationalism #nation
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Can we have a nation founded with the very objective to create conditions in which the
00:17ego is dissolved or sublimated or purified?
00:22Only that kind of nationalism is proper.
00:27Let's create a nation that does not exist to quarrel with the others, that does not
00:35exist to stand separate from the others.
00:43Let's create a nation that does not take its identity from resistance to the others.
00:57Where does Pakistan, for example, take its identity from?
01:00It says I am different from India and that's my identity.
01:04And that's the reason they have to be compulsively hostile against India.
01:09Do you see that?
01:13The same thing applies to all the nations of the world.
01:19The same thing applies even to India as it currently exists.
01:28There have to be borders, there has to be discord, acrimony, strife, the threat of war
01:36and the threat of war pleases the population so much, does it not?
01:44In fact, nationalism would lose its charm and romance if there were no wars.
01:55Wars consolidate the feeling of nationalism, do they not?
02:02When an enemy attacks you, you feel so much more of a national identity.
02:17Now, none of that is good, obviously not good.
02:25So the basis of nationalism has to be an inward approach that takes care of the ego.
02:38The constitution must say that the state exists to uplift its citizens internally.
02:48Actually internal upliftment would require conducive external conditions.
02:56To that extent, the physical world has to be taken care of.
03:02You cannot say you want to address somebody's ego problem without taking care of his or
03:09her environment.
03:10You will have to take care of education, health, media, you will have to protect the genuine
03:19interests of the various groups of citizens as they exist, no?
03:28And then you will say ultimately everything has to boil down to the pure self.
03:37Yes, there is the legislature, there is the executive, there is the judiciary, all these
03:44would function.
03:45There is the media, there are the laws and the sub-laws, there are the various houses
03:53of the parliament, there is a federal structure, all that is there.
03:58But the purpose of all that has to be the inner freedom of the individual.
04:08That is the proper nation in which everything functions with the purpose of liberating the
04:14individual.
04:15Now, is that not a worthy goal?
04:21Should not the nation be founded on that basis?
04:27So that's the kind of nationalism you have to bring to the new generation.
04:33Are you getting it?
04:37If you bring the militant kind of nationalism to the new generation, you are not doing them
04:41any good.
04:46When you talk of freedom fighters, you must talk of those who strove for political freedom.
04:53Equally you have to talk of those who strove for inner freedom.
05:01Otherwise it becomes just a case of one people fighting the other people out of hatred, resistance
05:10and otherness.
05:14And that leads to a lot of falseness, artificiality, then you have to ignore the facts, you have
05:21to rewrite history, you have to weave narratives, you have to somehow manage to cast imagination
05:36as facts and all that is quite childish and funny, except for the fact that it can lead
05:44to terrible consequences.
05:52So bring the reality of life to the young.
06:00The reality of life as we live it, as we see it, is the reality of the ego.
06:06If they can see how the inner thing operates, they will also see its futility.
06:14Are you getting it?
06:18You don't need to then teach nationalism as something separate from life.
06:27If they can see how life is founded on division and strife and suffering, then they will want
06:39to end it.
06:42And when men get together in their common mission of ending suffering, a noble nation
06:49is born.
06:51Don't you want that kind of nation?
06:56People are getting together so that they can together eliminate the suffering of mankind.
07:03And since they are getting together, they constitute a nation.
07:06Will that not be a very, very noble and desirable nation?
07:11Please tell me.
07:14Yes?
07:16Or would you want people to get together to pelt stones on some other group?
07:22Is that the kind of nationalism that you want?
07:23It could be stones when it comes to small groups and it becomes missiles when it comes
07:28to large and powerful groups.
07:3020 people on one side pelt stones on 20 people on the other side.
07:35And when these 20 people become a nation, a nation of 20 crore people, then they pelt
07:41missiles on the other 20 crore people.
07:45And they also then get together and form groups and coalitions.
07:55So Russia is scared of the NATO.
08:01And different kinds of groupings are happening all with the purpose of defending the self
08:08and defeating the other.
08:12And the more that happens, the more we come closer to catastrophe as a people.
08:25Are you getting it?
08:28We do not want to repeat history.
08:32In history, nations have never been founded on the right basis.
08:37And therefore, those who could understand life, like we said Tagore, had to reject nationalism.
08:45They said nationalism is the worst kind of toxicity.
08:54Let's not reject nationalism per se.
08:57Let's just say, let there be an all-embracing nationalism.
09:02Let there be a unifying nationalism.
09:04Let there be an enlightened nationalism.
09:11Let there be a nationalism that is not founded with the object to inflict suffering on the other.
09:20You can inflict suffering on the other only if you do not see that you and the other are the one.
09:27The moment you start seeing the underlying oneness, it becomes impossible to inflict
09:32suffering on the other.
09:35Can we as Indians come together on this noble basis?
09:44And that would be the real Bharat.
09:52India cannot be about geographical frontiers, a location on the world map.
10:04India is just too big to be contained on a world map.
10:15India is just too transcendental to be marked as a piece of earth.
10:34Who is an Indian?
10:36An Indian is someone who understands the very basis of life.
10:50The one who sees that you are born to be liberated.
10:57Only such a fellow deserves to be called an Indian.
11:02Because India, not the political country India, I am talking of the real India.
11:07I am talking of the very concept of Bharat.
11:14The real India is founded on understanding, realization, both.
11:23We want to understand.
11:27India is the place where the urge to understand hit the human for the first time.
11:40India is the cradle of religion itself and true religiosity is about understanding life
11:48and therefore getting liberated from its bondages.
11:56That's who an Indian is, who wants to understand what this thing called the self is, what is
12:01meant by relationships, who am I, who is the other one, what is this thing called life,
12:05why am I alive, what is death.
12:09Only someone who is conscious enough, keen enough, and courageous enough to go into these
12:20questions deserves to be called an Indian.
12:23And that's the kind of nationalism we need, a nationalism founded on understanding.
12:32From where I am looking, you know, 140 crore people do not deserve to be called as Bharatiya.
12:43They may continue to hold the Indian passport, that's a separate matter, but when it comes
12:50to being Indian nationals, well, that's a very elite thing.
13:00That's a thing that requires a lot of qualification.
13:05Being a citizen is another matter.
13:08Desh and Rashtra are not the same.