Why don't Indians respect personal space? || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Another thing we had talked about and noticed was, did you feel that, I know you had mentioned

00:13to me that if in Finland two people see each other, they try to avoid each other, they

00:21keep physical distance, and even if they met, they wouldn't ask a lot of any personal questions.

00:27And I'm just curious, what's your experience been here? I know you said at the hotel there was

00:34something that happened. Well, yes. I mean, yes, in Finland in general, it's,

00:42I guess it's considered polite to just leave people alone, keep your distance.

00:49Not to do this?

00:50Definitely not. No, no, no. And definitely like,

00:57there are certain things that are good etiquette maybe,

01:01but if you don't know the other person, it doesn't... See, this again comes from

01:08just taking a bit from the saints and discarding the rest.

01:15Frankly, this kind of a touch you behavior and pat you and hug you behavior, even if I'm sweating,

01:24and you two are sweating, I still want to touch you all. This frankly comes from

01:33a very distant point of love. I do not want to treat you as distant. I do not want to treat

01:40you as the other. I do not want to treat you as an alien or a foreigner or, you know, so that's why

01:50I come even physically close and I feel entitled to do so. I can just come and slap on your,

01:58not on your face, on your back and that's considered very jovial of me.

02:05Frankly, it is because of the heritage coming down from the saints. Do not be so distant.

02:14There is no need to give so much space to the ego.

02:19Come a little closer. But then love is not about this physical kind of nearness.

02:25Love is about, first of all, knowing what is right, doing it for yourself and enabling the other

02:37to live the right way as well. So, that's called really getting close to the other.

02:45Getting close to the other implies helping the other get close to the truth. That is,

02:51that is real love. So, the saints said, get close to the other to enable the other to

02:58get close to the truth. That's the complete statement coming down from, let's say, Vedanta.

03:04Now, what did we do? We kept one convenient half of the sentence and happily disregarded the rest

03:11of it. Which part of the sentence did we keep? Get close to the other. Get close to the other.

03:19So, this much we remember. All over Southeast Asia, this is the culture.

03:27In a crowded place, nobody would mind brushing shoulders. If someone goes past you

03:36while brushing against any body part, the fellow does not even feel to say sorry,

03:45because it's fine. Why are you acting so distant? Why are you acting so special?

03:53Can't I even touch you? After all the saints have said that all bodies are the same,

03:59we are just the soil we rose from. So, why are you trying to act so pricey? What's special

04:06about your body? I can touch it. That's not what we explicitly say. But in some sense,

04:13that's the feeling coming down from there. It's alright to not to treat the other as

04:23distant or alien or a separated one. But one has to know the full thing.

04:33If you know only half the thing, that's worse than knowing nothing at all.

04:39So, we have people who would intrude into the other's lives. The concept of personal

04:46or private space does not exist. People happily barge in. And they can ask you such questions.

04:59They could even ask you, well, you know, how are your things with your wife?

05:03How are your things with your wife? An elderly one can actually come and ask this.

05:11An elderly one from, let's say, the extended family and can come and ask you,

05:15so how are you doing in your married life? When are you getting your daughter married?

05:24Somebody may even ask you, how much are you earning?

05:29You are just standing somewhere and somebody can come so close to you.

05:33You can smell his mouth. And if you step back, that's rude.

05:44So, these are all corrupted flavors of love.

05:52So, they come from the tradition of love. India has a very strong thing about love.

05:57An Indian may not know anything else. There is this quite popular movie song

06:05from movie Poora Band Pashyam, East and West. So, this popular thespian Manoj Kumar,

06:12he was the actor singing this one. So, the line says,

06:27we as Indians may know nothing at all, but we know what is love.

06:37We remain loyal, we remain steadfast.

06:43That obviously cannot be the case. If you know nothing at all,

06:48you will not know love either. But somehow this thing has gone into the Indian psyche.

06:57That lovers we all are. And love means having some kind of a right over the other's life.

07:18Yes, of course, in love you do have a right over the other's life, but in what sense?

07:23That's a question lost to India. We don't address that question.

07:31West knows love of the personal kind and no other love.

07:42India was fortunate it came to know of a higher love,

07:48but it reduced that higher love to one of personal kind. No, I do not know

07:58which one is the worst tragedy, to not to know love at all or to reduce higher love

08:07to a personal point. I would think the latter is worse.

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